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| Ghost of Yōtei key art showing Mount Yōtei and the game’s central figure, reflecting the scale and stillness of its world. |
By Juli Scarr
You can usually tell an open world is big just by looking at it. The distance is right there on the screen. What isn’t as obvious is how much sound is doing the work of keeping that world understandable as you play.
That idea comes through clearly in a recent conversation on The AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook, where Ghost of Yōtei audio director Rev. Dr. Bradley D. Meyer sits down with composer Austin Wintory. The discussion isn’t about individual tracks or technical tricks. It’s about how sound helps shape space, guide pacing, and keep you oriented as you move through the world.
Ghost of Yōtei treats sound as part of the world’s structure, not something layered on after the fact.
Using Sound to Understand Space
Meyer talks about the move from Infamous to Ghost as a reset for how audio needed to work. A game set in one city can lean on sounds that trigger close to the player. A wide, open landscape can’t work that way. Sound has to travel. It has to fade naturally. It has to tell you how far away something is without pulling your attention off what you’re doing.
That meant rethinking how sound moves through the environment. Wind, footsteps, and distant activity aren’t there to fill space. They help you understand where you are and what’s happening around you, even when you’re not looking straight at it.
Restraint matters here. Ghost of Yōtei doesn’t try to keep your ears busy all the time. Quiet is used on purpose. When music comes in, it feels like a choice. When effects cut through, they’re easy to read. Nothing is fighting for attention.
As the world opens up, that approach keeps everything easy to follow. You’re not reacting to constant sound. You’re picking up on cues, which matters more than volume in a large environment.
Balance Over Excess, Across Sound and Music
One thing Meyer points out is how often players mentioned the mix itself. Not just the music or the sound effects, but how everything fit together.
Most players don’t think in terms of mixing. They notice it indirectly. Dialogue stays clear while you’re moving. Effects don’t bury the score. Nothing feels piled on. That balance holds up across regular play, not just during big moments.
The same idea carries over to the music. Ghost of Yōtei blends Japanese folk influences with ideas drawn from Spaghetti Westerns. Not as a stylistic trick, but as a way to communicate tone quickly.
Sticking too closely to historical authenticity can sometimes box a story in. Genre language gives the music a way to signal isolation, resolve, and momentum without spelling it out. The score stays rooted in place while still helping the story move forward.
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| A quiet moment in Ghost of Yōtei, where colour, distance, and atmosphere carry as much weight as action. |
Learning by Listening to Other Games
The conversation also touches on how Sucker Punch’s audio team looks at other games. Not just by playing them, but by really listening.
They pay attention to how sound behaves in space, how environments respond, and how interactive elements are handled. It’s not about borrowing ideas wholesale. It’s about understanding how other teams solve similar problems and seeing what might make sense in their own work.
That kind of shared listening is part of how audio design keeps evolving. Even when games look and play very differently, there’s still a lot to learn from how they sound.
Sound That Fades Into the Experience
Most players won’t walk away thinking about how sound travels through the environment or how reverb changes from place to place. They’ll talk about how the world felt steady and easy to read.
That’s usually a sign that the audio is doing its job without calling attention to itself. The strongest systems are the ones you absorb naturally as you play.
Ghost of Yōtei works because it trusts sound to carry real responsibility. Not as an extra layer. Not as a showpiece. As part of how the world holds together while you’re playing.
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