Erika Ishii found an unusually useful way to get back into character: playing the finished game. In PlayStation’s October 2 interview, the actor behind Atsu explains how returning to Ghost of Yōtei as a player helped with the new recording sessions for Echoes of Sekigahara. The story expansion is out now on PS5, and its official narrative trailer above introduces the part of Atsu’s life it explores.
This is a return to the same character, not a new protagonist. But an expansion that visits earlier events asks something different of a performance. Atsu has to sound like someone living through those experiences, rather than someone who already knows how her later revenge hunt will end. That makes Ishii’s account particularly interesting for players coming back after finishing the original campaign.
Playing Atsu before recording her again
Ishii told PlayStation that playing through the completed adventure made it easier to return to the booth after time away. Instead of relying only on a recording of the old performance, the actor could reconnect with Atsu through the game itself.
“But I could go directly to being Atsu, go right into the booth. It was such a gift.”
The comment comes from the new anniversary interview, not the game’s original launch promotion. Ishii also discusses moving between the expansion’s present-day scenes and flashbacks. Knowing what had happened to Atsu before a scene helped make those changes feel consistent.
For anyone who remembers the campaign’s quieter conversations as clearly as its sword fights, that is a useful distinction. A returning voice can be recognizable without giving every scene the same emotional weight. Earlier encounters need room to show an Atsu who has not yet reached the circumstances players know from the main story.
What Echoes of Sekigahara adds to Atsu’s story
The expansion looks back at Atsu’s experience during the Battle of Sekigahara and introduces an important person from her past. It also opens another area of Ezo, with new enemies and a new weapon type. The story expansion is the place to continue Atsu’s personal story; Most Wanted is a separate combat-survival mode.
The base game follows Atsu sixteen years after the murder of her family. Her journey takes her through northern Japan in pursuit of six outlaws, but it also brings her into contact with people who can offer more than another target. Those relationships give the flashbacks a clear reason to exist: they can show what came before the person introduced in the opening campaign.
Ghost of Yōtei is a standalone story set centuries after Ghost of Tsushima, not a direct continuation of Jin Sakai’s campaign. Newcomers do not need to treat Atsu as a supporting character in someone else’s adventure. Her history, decisions and changing relationships are the story being expanded here.
The earlier interview explains why the quieter scenes matter
In PlayStation’s October 3, 2025 interview, Ishii described Atsu’s anger alongside the fear and vulnerability beneath it. The actor also explained how an improvisation background helped with listening to scene partners and responding naturally, even when the words were already written.
That older discussion included the practical challenges of motion capture. Some moments had other actors present; others required imagining a horse, a setting or an emotional situation in a sparse recording space. Concept art, conversations with the writers and glimpses of developing cinematics helped Ishii picture the world.
Read beside the new interview, the difference is straightforward. Before release, the actor could use artwork and work-in-progress scenes to understand Atsu’s surroundings. After release, the whole adventure was available to play. The new recording work could draw on that completed experience as well.
This does not tell us that every new scene is improvised, or that Ishii wrote the expansion. It tells us how the performer approached returning to a character whose finished story was now something people could explore for themselves.
A year after players met Atsu
Atsu won the Platinum award for Best New Character in the reader-voted PlayStation Blog Game of the Year awards for 2025. Ghost of Yōtei also took that poll’s Best PS5 Game award. Those are PlayStation’s audience awards, not a claim that every player or critic agreed on a single winner.
The new interview arrives at the game’s first anniversary, with Complete Edition already available. Players who own the original can use the Complete Edition Upgrade for the new expansion and Most Wanted. For the package’s mode-by-mode details, prices and Jin Sakai’s role, see our Most Wanted breakdown. For the broader game, visit the Ghost of Yōtei hub.
If the original campaign left you wanting more time with Atsu outside the hunt itself, the expansion’s earlier relationships are the part to pay attention to. Ishii’s return explains why those scenes are not simply more lines for the same familiar voice.
