Sony capped off yesterday’s State of Play in a strange way; with an announcement for the next State of Play.
Sony made this announcement:
Ghost of Yōtei State of Play coming July 2025
Get ready for Sucker Punch to guide you through an extended look at the new open-world adventure.
The show will be focused entirely on Ghost of Yōtei, coming to PS5 on October 2. You’ll get an extended look at new and evolved gameplay mechanics, including exploration, combat, and much more.
The Ghost of Yōtei trailer itself is a simple teaser. Atsu is seen sitting next to a campfire, looking down onto a village. She says “Are you still here?” to someone unseen. And the camera pans to make the surprising reveal that Atsu was talking to a wolf.
Sony and Sucker Punch Productions announced Ghost of Yōtei in a State of Play last September 2024. Outside of some discourse about the complete change in setting and character, Sucker Punch hasn’t really shared a lot for us to know what to expect. PlayStation fans are definitely looking forward to this deep dive, but there’s something to be said about Sony’s strange strategy.
Of course, the State of Play was announced last minute to come out hours before the Nintendo Switch 2 launch. It was clear that Sony wanted to grab some attention away from what they are now treating as direct competition. But then, Sony wasn’t brave enough to also bring this Ghost of Yōtei deep dive yesterday either. So what gives?
We’ll put forward a theory to what Sony’s marketing was thinking. They did want to grab some attention away from the Switch 2, but at the same time, they weren’t sure just how successful that would be. We know that the launch hype for the console is real, as no console war discourse can debunk the 2.2 million in pre-orders in Japan that Nintendo can’t fulfill in time for launch.
So, they decided to schedule their Ghost of Yōtei deep dive a safe month from now, to make sure that Sucker Punch’s title gets uninterrupted attention. It’s an interesting calculation, because a Ghost of Yōtei presentation was certain to get more attention this month, even if they scheduled it on the last week.
The big elephant in the room, of course, is that yesterday’s State of Play was almost entirely comprised of multiplatform third-party games. While Sony can certainly market their newly announced first-party fighting game, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, as a AAA title, it’s definitely not in the same ballpark as Ghost of Yōtei.
Sony needs to protect Ghost of Yōtei, as their sole AAA first-party single player release this year. That issue is even more exacerbated by the situation they’re facing with Bungie’s Marathon. So Sony can’t show us Ghost of Yōtei, at least not yet. PlayStation gamers still have a lot to look forward to this month, so they should be able to wait a little bit longer.
You can watch the Ghost of Yōtei State of Play announcement trailer below.
