Beginner's Guide and Starting Tips
Combat Guide and Fighting Tips
List of All Trophies
How to Setup Camp
How to Skip Cutscenes
How to Lock On Enemies
How to Win at Zeni Hajiki
How to Switch Weapons
How to Heal
How to Increase Spirit
How to Fast Travel
How to Hide Helmet
How to Parry Attacks
How to Disarm
How to Defeat Shielded Enemies
How to Upgrade Weapons
How to Upgrade Armor
How to Use Loadouts
Wolf Companion Guide
Which Horse to Choose
How to Name Your Horse
How to Upgrade Charms
How to Unlock Charm Slots
Best Locations to Visit Early Game
How to Unlock Focused Hearing Ability
How to Defeat Bears
Ending Explained
Is There Romance?
How to Catch Fish
How to Unlock Fire Arrows
How to Go Up Rocky Paths
How to Negate Fall Damage
Should You Buy Travelers Maps?
Dialogue Choices and Consequences
How to Get Guns
Can You Increase Attack Speed?
How to Interrogate Enemies
Best Way to Farm Coins
Heavenly Strike Guide
Weapon Aligned Explained
How to Put Out Fire
Stats Explained
Can you Respec?
How to Get a Perfect Score in Ku-e-shinok
Onryo's Gift Explained
How to Unfreeze Health
Best Side Quests to Complete
Best Bounties to Get
How Many Skill Points Can You Get?
How to Set Grass on Fire
How to Pistol Parry
Lethal Mode Guide
Difficulty Settings Explained
How Long is Ghost of Yotei?
Best Settings
All Director Modes
List of All Controls
Is There a Minimap in Ghost of Yotei?
Is There New Game Plus?
Should You Play Ghost of Tsushima First?
How to Play Ghost of Yotei Early
New Features and Gameplay Changes
Missables and Points of No Return
How to Get the Deluxe Horse
Story Explained
Is Ghost of Yotei a Sequel?
List of Secrets and Easter Eggs
This survey will take about 1 minute.
Your answers will help us to improve our website.
Ghost of Yotei
Story Explained
★ 11/24: 1.100.000 Patch Notes ▶︎ NG+
☆ Undying Armor | Spider Lily
┣ Jubei | Snow Drift | Takezo | Black Dye
┗ Reliquary | Fox Puzzles | Riddles | Kubo
★ Armor | Weapons | Charms | Best Armor
┗ Walkthrough | Quests | Platinum | Map
Ghost of Yotei follows Atsu's tale of vengeance against the Saito clan, who killed her family sixteen years ago. Learn the full story of Ghost of Yotei with both non-spoiler and spoiler explanations available.
| Story Guides | |
|---|---|
| Story Explained | Ending Explained |
List of Contents
Characters and Setting
 This section contains no major spoilers |
Our story takes place in Ezo, known today as Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. If you're unfamiliar with Hokkaido, think of it as a bit like Japan's Alaska – spacious, cold, and full of life.
Who is Atsu?
Our protagonist Atsu, the daughter of the swordsmith Kengo, lived peacefully with her family in the shade of the nearby Mount Yotei.
However, after her family was murdered by the Yotei Six, the lords of the murderous Saito clan, she swore revenge; now, after sixteen years of living as a mercenary on the Japanese mainland and honing her skills, she returns to Ezo as a mysterious wanderer, rarely revealing her past to those she meets.
Who are the Saito Clan and the Yotei Six?
| The Snake | The Oni | The Kitsune |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
| The Spider | The Dragon | Lord Saito |
 |
 |
 |
The Saito Clan, headed by the ruthless Lord Saito, are a group of outlaws who seek to control Ezo by any means necessary. They wage a brutal war against the Matsumae Clan, the samurai clan appointed to rule Ezo by the shogunate.
The Yotei Six is comprised of Lord Saito and his five closest commanders – the Snake, the Oni, the Kitsune, and his two sons, the Spider and the Dragon.
Who are the Matsumae Clan?
The Matsumae Clan of samurai are the rulers of Ezo, but their grip on the island is being pushed to its limits by merciless attacks from the Saito Clan.
Rule-bound and honor-bound, they strive to keep the peace in Ezo, but with the shogunate far away on the mainland and the Saito Clan growing in number, their future is becoming more uncertain by the day.
Story Themes Explained
 This section does not contain specific plot spoilers, but gives hints to how the story unfolds |
The Cost of Revenge
From the beginning, Revenge is introduced as the clear theme of the story and Atsu's primary, indeed only motive for hunting the Yotei Six. However, during the story, this gradually begins to shift as Atsu begins to see the price that others pay when the will of the Onryo, the titual “Ghost of Yotei” which represents her lust for vengeance, is left unchecked.
While the urge for Revenge seeks closure for things that happened in the past, they are shown to blind Atsu to what is happening right now, which can bring harm to the people she cares about. Also, the “eye for an eye” violent Revenge which Atsu seeks can also harm innocent people, just as Atsu was an innocent victim of Saito's rage sixteen years ago – an act of revenge against her father.
Throughout the story, Atsu learns about the cost of Revenge, and how to overcome her painful past and move on to the present.
| When Atsu finds that her brother Jubei is still alive and has become a samurai in the Matsumae Clan, they begin to work together, but Jubei loses hope in Atsu when she chooses to try to assassinate the Oni over rescuing the Matsumae Clan prisoners in the camp. Later on, Atsu becomes close to Jubei's daughter Kiku, but after Kiku sees Atsu in a murderous rage hunting the Spider, she begins to see Atsu's Onryo as a bringer of death. It comes to a head when Atsu chooses to fight the Dragon when Matsumae Castle is under attack, instead of going to protect the castle, and Jubei and Oyuki are kidnapped. This is the event which finally pushes Atsu to overcome her quest for revenge. |
True Good and Evil are Not Always Apparent
When Atsu's family was killed, she was a little girl, and her understanding of the situation is based on her youthful view of the world; for sixteen years, she has never wavered from the conviction that the people who killed her family are all evil and need to die.
However, as the story advances, the details of what happened that night are gradually revealed, and in some cases, it turns out that Atsu didn't remember exactly how it happened. It's also revealed that Saito had his own motives for attacking Atsu's family, calling into question whether Atsu's quest is truly morally superior or if she has fallen to be no better than Saito himself.
Ghost of Yotei is still a story with strong moral conviction, and clear morally good and morally evil choices and people are prominent. But understanding which is which turns out to be harder than Atsu originally thought, and working through this will shake up her most core understandings of her life.
| Oyuki introduces herself as an ally in fighting the Kitsune, but after Atsu's first encounter with the Kitsune goes south, she is forced to reveal that she is the original Kitsune, who was there when her parents died. However, Atsu had failed to remember that as a child, she did not escape on her own that night, but instead the Kitsune had let her go. Although she is determined to kill Oyuki at first after learning her identity, Atsu gradually must accept that bad people can change. In the Lord Saito's Missives items found in Yotei Six Camps, and near the end of the game, Saito will reveal that he lost his daughter and wife due to Atsu's father's betrayal of his clan; this does not serve to redeem Saito, but it murkens the morality of Atsu's own revenge. |
Full Story Summary
 This section contains major spoilers! |
Our story opens with Atsu's assassination of the Snake. With the names of each of the Yotei Six painted on the sash of her belt, Atsu marks off the first name with the Snake's own blood.
After returning home for the first time in sixteen years, Atsu sets off in search of clues to the locations of the other Yotei Six members. She learns to use Dual Katanas from Hanbei, a former bounty hunter living on Mount Yotei, and starts gathering information on the locations of the Oni, the Kitsune, and the Saito Brothers from people she meets, both friend and foe.
Players can proceed to hunt the Oni and the Kitsune in either order, or to attack Saito himself.
The Oni
Atsu travels to Ishikari Plain to defeat the Oni, and unwittingly begins cooperating with a Matsumae Clan samurai. Before long, she realizes that this samurai is none other than her own brother, Jubei, who she had thought to be dead.
But far from a tearful reunion, they soon find their morals to be at odds; Jubei cares strongly for the Matsumae Clan and his people, while Atsu is only driven by her desire to kill the Yotei Six. Still, they agree to work together to kill the Oni, though as Jubei's commander forbids it, they must continue in secret.
Atsu hatches a plan to invade Ishikari Castle; Atsu poses as a bounty hunter, and Jubei acts as her prisoner to be turned into the Oni. After getting inside, Atsu frees Jubei, but Jubei realizes that they can free dozens of prisoners from the Matsumae Clan while inside. Atsu rejects this option and chooses to attack the Oni, but fails to kill him.
Although Jubei is angry, they decide to try one more time, this time by learning a secret path into the castle from the friendly lawbreaker Mad Goro. Finally, they succeed in bringing down the Oni and freeing the Matsumae Clan prisoners.
The Kitsune
Atsu travels north to Teshio Ridge to hunt the Kitsune, where she meets a shamisen player named Oyuki who agrees to help her infiltrate the Nine Tails, the secret group led by the Kitsune.
Posing Atsu as a waitress and arming her with poisoned sake, they coerce information out of an associate of the Nine Tails, and are able to find the location of their hideout. Atsu finds a cipher which allows her to read encoded messages left by the Nine Tails, which she uses to navigate through the hideout and find the Kitsune. However, before Atsu can kill the Kitsune, he poisons her, and Oyuki appears to rescue her conveniently bearing the antidote and suddenly able to fight off hordes of the Kitsune's men by herself.
Oyuki is forced to reveal that she was the Kitsune sixteen years ago Atsu's family was attacked, and that the new Kitsune is her replacement, Dojun. Atsu is unable to forgive Oyuki and intends to kill her, but Oyuki convinces her that she is valuable as she can give insider information on Saito and his men.
After returning to the Red Crane Inn, Atsu and Oyuki find that everyone has been killed by the Kitsune; one boy who hid in the wall provides a clue which helps them track down the Kitsune one last time and finish the job.
The Saito Brothers
After trying and failing once to kill Saito, and killing the Oni and the Kitsune, Jubei, Atsu, and Oyuki travel to the Oshima Coast to hunt the Spider and the Dragon. It's also the location of Matsumae Castle, which is suddenly attacked by the Dragon and Saito Clan forces. Jubei reveals that he has a daughter, Kiku, living in Matsumae Castle who he must protect.
After fending off the assault, but failing to kill the Dragon, Atsu meets Kiku and the two become close. For their next move, they capture the Spider as a ploy to make his brother the Dragon come to rescue him, intending to use it as a chance to kill the Dragon. However, their plan backfires as the Dragon orders an invasion of Matsumae Castle, which has been left unguarded. When Atsu chooses to try to fight the Dragon instead of going to protect Matsumae Castle, she succeeds in killing the Dragon, but when she goes to the nearby temple, Jubei and Oyuki are missing and only she and Kiku are left.
The Finale
Atsu is forced to reassess her plot for revenge after it leads to what may be the death of her brother, and Oyuki, who she has grown to trust despite their shared history. She goes to Hanbei on Mount Yotei to ask for clues, and he helps her find the Spider. Atsu finds the Spider and after convincing him that she is no longer interested in killing him, he agrees to lead her to where Jubei and Oyuki are being held hostage.
If you are ready to learn how the game ends, click the button below.
Atsu succeeds in invading Saito's fortress and freeing Jubei and Oyuki. However, Saito himself is still alive, and he travels to Atsu's home to hold Kiku hostage. Atsu, Jubei, and Oyuki return in time for the final battle with Saito. Atsu takes him on, but partway through the fight she is disarmed. Jubei steps in to rescue her, but after an intense battle, Jubei is struck through the chest by Saito's blade. Atsu is able to finally kill Saito, but Jubei is dead.
Six months later, Atsu and Kiku are walking through the woods picking mushrooms. Together, they leave a Kiku flower on Jubei's grave. Atsu is approached by the wolf who has accompanied her throughout her journey; could the spirit of her brother still be alive somehow within the natural world? The story ends.
Ghost of Yotei Related Guides
Ghost of Yotei Wiki and Guides
Meta Guides
 Best Weapons Tier List |
 Best Skills and Techniques |
 Best Armor |
 Best Charms |
 Best Build Loadouts |
- |
Best Guides for Beginners
Advanced Tips
Game Features and Details
Comment
Author
Story Explained
Please participate in our site
improvement survey
12/2025
improvement survey
12/2025
Would you assist in
improving Game8's site?
improving Game8's site?
×
We are listening to our users' valuable opinions and discussing how to act on them.
The information collected through this survey will be used for the purpose of improving our services. In addition, the information will only be disclosed a part of a statistic in a format that will not allow identification of personal information.
Begin Survey
Not Now
×
Please rate each item regarding Game8.co's Advertisements.
Amount of Ads
Very Dissatisfied
Somewhat Dissatisfied
Fine
Somewhat Satisfied
Highly Satisfied
Placement of Ads
Timing of Ad Display
Ad Loading Speed
Safeness of Ads
Content of Ads
×
Please rate each item regarding Game8.co's Quality of Articles.
Amount of information
Very Dissatisfied
Somewhat Dissatisfied
Fine
Somewhat Satisfied
Highly Satisfied
Frequency of updates
Speed of new information
Accuracy of articles
Understandibility of articles
Readability of sentences
×
Please rate each item regarding Game8.co's Usability of the Site.
Ease of finding information
Very Dissatisfied
Somewhat Dissatisfied
Fine
Somewhat Satisfied
Highly Satisfied
Loading Speed
Use of Color
Font Size
Visibility of Images
Easy to Understand Layout
×
Please rate each item regarding Game8.co's Message Boards, Comments.
Ease of Writing
Very Dissatisfied
Somewhat Dissatisfied
Fine
Somewhat Satisfied
Highly Satisfied
Readability
Ease in Finding Information
Comment Quality
Comment Quantity
Admin Response
×
Please rate each item regarding Game8.co's Site's new design.
Please rate our site's new design
Very Dissatisfied
Somewhat Dissatisfied
Fine
Somewhat Satisfied
Highly Satisfied
Do you think that the website's design change makes the site easier to use?
Has the new design made it easier for you to find information on the site?
Has the new design improved the overall visual appeal of the site?
How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the new design of the site?
×
How likely are you to recommend Game8 to someone you know?
Very Unlikely
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Very Likely
If you have other opinions regarding potential improvement to the website, please share them with us. We would appreciate your honest opinion.
Note: This is a free response section, so you can proceed without entering anything.
Note: Please be sure not to enter any kind of personal information into your response.
Note: Please be sure not to enter any kind of personal information into your response.
×
Thank You
×
Thank you for participating in our survey! Your answers will help us to improve the quality of our website and services.
We hope you continue to make use of Game8.
We hope you continue to make use of Game8.
Close
Rankings
Gaming News
![Octopath Traveler 0 Review [In Progress] | Familiar, But Better](https://img.game8.co/4357336/fcaf07d58cc243e6b7319ca9b118ba16.png/thumb)
Popular Games
Genshin Impact Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Where Winds Meet Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Honkai: Star Rail Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Digimon Story: Time Stranger Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Wuthering Waves Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Zenless Zone Zero Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Pokemon TCG Pocket (PTCGP) Strategies & Guides Wiki
Pokemon Legends: Z-A Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Recommended Games
Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Fire Emblem Heroes (FEH) Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Monster Hunter World Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (BDSP) Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Persona 3 Reload Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition Walkthrough & Guides Wiki
All rights reserved
©2025 Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC. Developed by Sucker Punch Productions.
The copyrights of videos of games used in our content and other intellectual property rights belong to the provider of the game.
The contents we provide on this site were created personally by members of the Game8 editorial department.
We refuse the right to reuse or repost content taken without our permission such as data or images to other sites.