Behind Ghost of Yotei’s Visual Storytelling with Art Director Joanna Wang

Production Art Director Joanna Wang reveals how Atsu’s design, the infamous Yōtei Six, and the world of Ezo were all built to tell a visual story of vengeance and survival. This is how Sucker Punch crafts meaning through colour, silhouette, and space.

The world of Ghost of Yōtei is a visual masterpiece, a land of beauty and brutality. None of it is accidental. Every line, colour, and silhouette is a deliberate choice. To uncover how this world was shaped, Cutscene Collective sat down with Joanna Wang, Production Art Director at Sucker Punch.

With over twenty years of shaping iconic franchises like Sly Cooper, inFAMOUS, and Ghost of Tsushima, Joanna offers a rare look into how art design becomes storytelling. 

This is the craft behind Yōtei’s world, its costumes, its regions, its characters, and the language that makes it unforgettable.

Ghost of Yōtei’s protagonist, Atsu, was an opportunity for Sucker Punch to tell a new origin story. Where Jin, the previous lead in Ghost of Tsushima, embodied honour and discipline, Atsu embodies survival and memory. Her layered fabrics and earthy tones root her among the people, not the samurai, like Jin. From the start, Joanna’s team sought a visual history, a character whose design reflected her rebirth.

“Atsu offered a unique opportunity for us to have that fresh perspective view when we were designing her. We always love a character who carries a story you know with all the things we were thinking of, and then we designed her with the life she had before, and we also designed her with, you know, the journey ahead of her. So we look at everything as a whole overall. So using the first, Atsu's costume, the yellow colour as an example and when the night her family got taken away from her and then she was pinned to that ginkgo tree. The gingko tree is almost like a big umbrella for her house, right? And the yellow striking leaves. They (Yōtei Six) burned that tree, and all the yellow leaves falling down became ash, and she was pinned to the tree and then almost nearly died. Later, when she comes back, she's wearing yellow clothes. That's almost like she has to remember the past, remember that story, and it gives the player the hint of the pain and the scar in her heart, and that it never goes away.”

The next time you’re playing the game, notice Atsu more intently. As the one thing the player sees the most, Atsu herself was designed as a walking ledger of story beats: her clothes, weapons, and the smallest details all record the life she once had and the vengeance she carries forward. Joanna described the single piece of clothing that anchored her design from day one. 

“The sash is almost literally the very first item we designed for her, and then we never changed anything since then, cause we knew we wanted to make that revenge story. We know we're going to have the Yōtei Six, and then we were just thinking about how to represent them in this, and we made that sash. It's an interesting way because this became our first design element. And that became the like you know the signature of her, and on top of that, of course, we added lots of other elements because again, based on her story, when her story is getting deeper and deeper and when our narrative team start building up the whole story, we put a shamisen on her back. That's connected with her mother, and in some visual way, we actually, you know, created a very interesting silhouette for her too. And you know, because of how she lived, how she survived, she's not living in a fancy life, right? So she's probably in the wild, in the outdoors, and sometimes sleeps in the woods, or sleeps right next to a river, and camps, you know, anywhere. So, you don't have that roof above you always, so she has a hat that's a kind of another protection to show her life is tough in that way. And so a lot of detail elements were being added into, and I do want to also add her katana and tsuba of her katana is a twin wolf and represents she's always keeping remembering her brother, so a lot of those details are always some of the story behind we add together for her.”

The sash is not an accessory; it’s a reminder of grief and intent. The shamisen, her katana’s twin-wolf tsuba, and her hat are all connective tissue: of mother, brother, and life on the road. 

Joanna told me, they may have updated the kanji on Atsu’s sash once they fleshed out the Yōtei Six’s names to make the characters more proper, but the initial design itself never changed. 

This all shows Sucker Punch’s design process that intersects between visual and narrative, an approach which you’ll notice is constant across development. 

Atsu’s journey is a revenge story: as a child, her family was murdered by a gang known as the Yōtei Six. Joanna spoke to us about how each of The Six’s backstories deeply informed their appearance.

“So, using The Oni as the example, and then you know, in his previous, before he came to The Yotei Six he was a former samurai. So he's very proud of himself, he has that glory, you know and that shows from his costume, from his armour. The costume of the red colour theme also shows that too. And because he is thirsty for that power. He thinks he is, still is that samurai person who is really strong and almost like powerful, right? And then so he likes the body feeling like larger and feeling muscular through the armour and everything. And then we also call him Oni (demon) and then the oni theme is also showed over here. He with his mask, with his helmet, we take a little bit of idea from the kabuki theater set dressing on that, you know, the costume design as well too. On the other hand, you know, you may notice he's holding the big weapon, and he's holding that long sword, and that creates another level of him feeling he is big, he's muscular, he's powerful. So everything is surrounded by the centre of who this character is, what their life was living before and what they are doing now and what journey they're going forward. And like he did not give up his mask, even though it was cut and broken because he thinks that was part of his glory. He wants to hold on to it. He doesn't want to give it up.”

Joanna’s takeaway is simple: a boss’s look is not simply decoration. It’s a biography. Armour, colour, and silhouette become shorthand for who The Yōtei Six were, and who they pretend to be, like the deceptive Kitsune and their army of shinobi.

“In the snow area, they are basically living and breathing the cold weather, and it is like all snow everywhere. So that's why their costume is white because they're sneaky. They will ambush you. They're going to jump out from the snow-covered bush, surprise you. And you know, you feel the space is dangerous, and that's who they are, and they aren't playing by the regular rules like other enemies do. But because in a cold area and you may notice he has a little bit heavier fabric on him, even the white colour, because they're representing the climate of the area. So a lot of those details were added together, and then we go through multiple times over and over, and that's how we built all the characters to where they are now.”

The Yōtei Six seem more than just boss fights; they represent forces of nature, like fire and ice. Or maybe they represent stages of Atsu’s grief?

Sucker Punch designed the regions of Yōtei as distinct chapters, each defined by its villain. Each one has been given a personalised army, a unique environment, and a visual identity so strong it corrupts the landscape around them. 

By this point, the art direction begins to merge seamlessly with gameplay. Joanna explained how the environmental design evolved from concept sketches into spaces that play differently. How fire and snow were used not just to decorate the world but to shape the way you move through it.

“Every region we've prototyped design with multiple different looks, different paths, and then we eventually, you know, it's almost like we felt we only needed to centralise on the one that is really strong and able to represent the area. I think you know we were also looking at the massive land and how we were able to fill the space with interesting content, but not overwhelming, because you still want to show the vast land. So I think, you know Ishikari Plane, there is a lot of forest and you can see the forest burned down and then you can see the place is the you know they're using fire to scare people right and you may also notice when the bomb runs over it will burn the grass. So you are stealthing, and then you suddenly realise that you don't have a place to stealth right. We were looking into those elements when we were making the Ishikari Plane, and if we find that this is pretty interesting and then we start kind of adding into other areas too. So yeah, so I will say we go through so many different prototypes and then but we want to centralise them and then to fulfil the player fantasy. So how we set up each area and actually have a little bit of a different own theme for that.”

This is the genius of Ghost of Yōtei's visual language: where every costume, environment, and colour palette is a sentence in a larger story. Joanna's team built a world rich with narrative shorthand. The result is an experience that transcends gameplay. You don't just fight your enemies; you also come to understand their story.

If you want to know how this all plays, again, watch my Ghost of Yōtei review and the follow-up. Those videos cover combat, pacing, and my thoughts on whether the design choices pay off in the moment-to-moment. We also have several Ghost of Tsushima video essays exploring Jin’s tragic journey.

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