At the risk of repeating myself, Ghost of Yotei is perhaps my favorite video game of 2025. I absolutely inhaled the entire game before it was even released, got the Platinum trophy (my very first) soon after, and generally spent dozens upon dozens of hours wandering the beautiful vistas of Yotei as Atsu. Despite all of this, the recent Ghost of Yotei DLC has done absolutely nothing for me – except remind me why I loved Ghost of Yotei in the first place.

When Ghost of Yotei Complete Edition was first announced back in August, the idea of an entirely new narrative expansion – Ghost of Yotei: Echoes of Sekigahara – on top of a combat survival mode was incredibly enticing. Again, GOTY 2025, right? More of that can only be a good thing… right?

Or so I thought, anyway. Actually playing through Echoes of Sekigahara, however, has been straightforward to the point of being meaningless. This is likely partly due to the simple fact that I left absolutely nothing on the original bone, so all I have now is what’s been added, and Echoes of Sekigahara is more of an appendix to the existing game than anything else.

Memory hole

While it’s a new narrative, it’s not much of a continuation. By design, the entire DLC is effectively intended to look back rather than look forward. The location of Ashoro Foothills is a messy wasteland overrun with the remains of the Viper’s followers – the first of the Yotei Six that Atsu immediately takes out in the main game, and therefore not a real boss here – as they scramble to find a new leader.

Echoes of Sekigahara is also tied to the return of Nagato, someone from Atsu’s past, as she relives some of the pivotal Battle of Sekigahara and her and Nagato’s influence on it. For a new expansion, it’s decidedly obsessed with the past in a way that makes the whole endeavor feel a bit moot. The big battle happened years ago, the Vipers are a shell of their former selves without a real figurehead, and mechanically there are new enemies, armor sets, dyes, and so on, but it all just comes down to being more of the same.

Not that the same is bad, even. Playing through the newly opened wilds, I’m having to come to terms with the fact that my muscle memory isn’t what it once was. While I’d matched blades with the best that the base Ghost of Yotei game had to offer, that was months and months ago, and my reflexes are now sluggish and my aim is not quite as pinpoint. Age is a terrible thing.

Playing through the DLC may not exactly be the exciting adventure full of twists and turns that I’d hoped for, but relearning all of these skills and the ways in which they combine into beautiful, complex actions and animations has been as, if not more, thrilling. Atsu squaring up to a standoff, wolf at her side, to nearly entirely rout a group of bandits before even having to get into standard combat is as sick as it ever was, and I’m continuously getting better at it. Maybe that’s good enough.

Maybe simply being reminded of how cool it is to be Atsu – and how good it feels to cut fools down when they deserve it – in a new place with some new toys makes it all worthwhile. I’m certainly enjoying myself, but not in a way that the Ghost of Yotei DLC is actually adding to that experience, which is a shame given how often each incremental upgrade and reveal in the main story felt like a bolt of lightning – or, perhaps more fittingly, like the sudden strike of a katana during one of the game’s many duels.

Even if Ghost of Yotei isn’t your thing, be sure to check out our ranking of the best open world games to find something you might enjoy.