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- Image of Mount Fuji in Ghost of Yotei, Courtesy of Ubisoft

Ghost of Yotei Players Make Waves Over Nothing with Criticisms of One Particular Element

Originally posted on Total Apex Gaming | By David Gilbert | Last updated Oct 5, 2025 9:57 AM ET

The gaming community has recently turned its critical eye toward the water physics in the newly released Ghost of Yotei. When players began using the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows as a point of comparison, this scrutiny of this particular element gained unexpected momentum. How did a single environmental element become such a crucial metric for a game’s success?

The Great Water Debate Rages

This situation regarding Ghost of Yotei‘s echoes a similar event from a few months ago, when Mafia: The Old Country faced identical criticisms upon its launch. For a specific segment of the player base, the quality of water simulation has become a disproportionately significant benchmark for a game’s overall quality. Players have shown intense focus on how water appears, moves, and interacts with characters. Even in titles where aquatic environments play a minimal role in the core gameplay, this element is still highly regarded in many player bases.

Although many games function perfectly well without hyper-realistic water, this phenomenon persists and doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. Since the release of Ghost of Yotei, its stunning visuals and meticulously crafted environments have received widespread acclaim. The game being targeted for this specific critique is particularly strange, given its high-profile status as a PlayStation exclusive. Within its open world, the game’s water physics and reflection systems perform competently and serve their intended purpose.

A Soggy Situation Indeed

Image of Hotsprings in Ghost of Yotei, Courtesy of Ubisoft

For a major triple-A release, however, apparently meeting expectations isn’t enough, as this backlash crystallized when Twitter user hard8_times shared a video clip. They revealed the protagonist, Atsu, moving through water without her character model appearing to get wet. In the user’s angry post, he angrily questioned the value of a premium console and a full-priced game that lacked details allegedly possessed by older titles. This sentiment around Ghost of Yotei‘s water has even switched focus towards both developers and players, questioning their priorities.

Are gamers now holding new games to an impossible standard based on selective memories of past technical achievements? This incident further exposes a growing trend where isolated technical elements become the focus of intense online debate. Consequently, it’s becoming a challenge that the gaming industry must address, as it can overshadow the Ghost of Yotei‘s broader artistic and mechanical accomplishments. The conversation shifts from evaluating a complete experience to fixating on a single, sometimes minor, aspect.

Ghost of Yotei‘s Criticism Well Run Dry

As a result of this seemingly unfair criticism, developers may feel pressured to spend more of their time and resources on areas that don’t fundamentally enhance the player’s journey. Can this hyper-focus ultimately benefit the creative process, or will it simply lead to development cycles spent chasing arbitrary checkboxes? If developers focused more on creating the perfect water for the Ghost of Yotei, what other features would be impacted? The discourse surrounding the game’s water is a modern case study in gaming culture.

Unfortunately, the discourse surrounding this particular element in the Ghost of Yotei proves to be an issue in and of itself. Overall, it demonstrates that specific criticisms amplified on social media can shape a game’s public perception in ways that are disconnected from the actual experience of playing it. Feedback may be vital in video game development, but creators putting one technical benchmark above all others may cause more problems than they solve.

This article first appeared on Total Apex Gaming and was syndicated with permission.

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