Gamers ABANDON Ghost of Yotei as Refunds Stack Up and Preorder Numbers Sink Below Dragon Age: Veilguard
The controversy began when a Sucker Punch employee mocked the Charlie Kirk assassination.
Summary
- Preorders for Ghost of Yotei have collapsed, with refunds stacking up and numbers falling behind Dragon Age: Veilguard.
- Sucker Punch faces backlash after a controversial employee post sparked outrage and boycotts.
- YouTube trailers are getting ratioed, with dislikes outweighing likes, signaling a rocky launch ahead.
The hype around Ghost of Yotei was supposed to carry Sucker Punch into another blockbuster era. Instead, the game is now getting dragged harder than any Sony exclusive in recent memory.
Preorder numbers have tanked, refunds are rolling in, and the controversy around the studio doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon.
Related
But first, this spiral didn’t come out of nowhere. No sir. Fans were already wary when Sucker Punch swapped out Jin Sakai, the central hero of Ghost of Tsushima, and replaced him with what critics have called “yet another girl boss protagonist.”
That alone rubbed part of the fanbase the wrong way. Add to that the very online debates around representation in games, and you’ve got a recipe for tension before a single trailer even dropped.
Things got worse after the Charlie Kirk incident. A Sucker Punch employee was caught mocking the assassination attempt against him, and that sparked an avalanche of backlash (see below). Even though the studio quietly fired the employee, the damage was already done.
Gamers saw it as the company hiding behind gaming journalists and refusing to actually denounce what happened.
Trailer Ratios Don’t Lie
If you want a quick pulse check on how a game is doing, look at its trailers on YouTube. Once upon a time, Ghost of Yotei trailers were pulling solid like-to-dislike ratios.
Those days are gone. Every new upload from PlayStation’s channel now gets ratioed into the ground. One recent trailer sat at 15,000 likes versus 20,000 dislikes, not exactly the kind of buzz Sony wants leading into release.
That kind of public drag-fest tells you one thing: people are not buying what Sucker Punch is selling. And in the world of game marketing, perception is reality.
If fans are openly saying “go to hell” in the comments, that mood bleeds into actual sales.
Retail Data Spells Trouble
The harshest reality check came from preorder numbers at retail stores.
According to contacts who monitor sales data across nearly 50 outlets, Ghost of Yotei has only managed 56 preorders with just over two weeks left before launch.
For context, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which went on to become a notorious flop, had 67 preorders in the same stores at the same point in time.
And it gets uglier. Refunds are rolling in. Twenty-five preorder cancellations hit in just the past week, cutting deep into already weak numbers.
Without those cancellations, Ghost of Yotei would have been sitting at 81 preorders. Still bad, but not apocalyptic.
With them, the game is now trending behind even Veilguard, which is about the last comparison any studio wants.
Remember Dragon Age?
For anyone thinking, “maybe those retail numbers don’t matter,” look back at Dragon Age: The Veilguard. That game limped to just 1.5 million players months after release.
Not sales, players. Compare that with Ghost of Tsushima, which moved 2.5 million copies in its first week. It’s night and day.
To make the point sharper, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 pulled nearly 200 preorders in those same 50 stores at the same stage before release.
That’s the difference between a game people are buzzing about and a game people are actively walking away from. Guess which camp Ghost of Yotei is falling into.
Refunds, Rage, and Reputation
Refunds don’t usually hit like this. Most preorder campaigns run steady, with maybe a few people backing out late.
Seeing 25 cancellations in a week is a glaring red flag. It shows players aren’t just ignoring the controversy, they’re punishing the studio financially.
For Sucker Punch, that means more than just bad numbers. It means trust in the brand is cratering. Ghost of Tsushima made the studio look like Sony’s prestige samurai storytellers.
Now? They look like the latest casualty in a never-ending war between developers, gamers, and culture wars.
Industry Watching Closely
Developers across the industry are watching this mess play out like hawks.
Emails leaked during a SmashJT stream showed how nervous some devs were after big streamers like Asmongold started calling them out by name.
One exchange even warned a worker that their “likes” on BlueSky posts could end up in the spotlight.
That kind of fear wasn’t normal a few years ago. Now it’s the reality: one bad post, one badly timed joke, and a whole studio can end up in a firestorm.
Now you can argue that “this is justice” or “this is a witch hunt”, but hey, studios are taking notes.
If Sony and Sucker Punch get burned badly enough, you can bet other companies will shift their behavior in response.
Sony
Sony doesn’t like to see its prestige exclusives tank. Ghost of Tsushima was a bright spot in the PlayStation lineup, a critical darling and a commercial success.
The sequel should have been a safe win. Instead, Sony has to decide whether to double down on its marketing push or quietly scale back expectations.
And here’s the kicke, preorders are one of the strongest indicators of launch performance.
If the numbers don’t pick up drastically in the next two weeks, Sony could be staring at one of its most high-profile flops in years.
Can They Recover?
Is there a path to redemption here? Technically, yes.
A surprise demo that blows people away could help. Positive reviews at launch could soften the mood. But let’s be real, the internet’s collective memory is long when it comes to outrage.
For many players, Ghost of Yotei is already a write-off.
Even if the game itself ends up being good, that stigma will hang around. It’s not just about the gameplay anymore.
It’s about the optics, the controversy, and the way Sucker Punch handled it all.
A Franchise in Freefall 👇
This is a stunning reversal for a series that once looked like it could rival Assassin’s Creed. Ghost of Tsushima captured imaginations with its setting, visuals, and combat.
Now instead of building on that success, the franchise risks becoming a cautionary tale about what happens when hype collides with controversy.
It’s not just the preorder charts.
- It’s the mood online.
- It’s the refund receipts.
- It’s the mounting pile of dislikes on trailers.
All signs point to a launch clouded by negativity, and those clouds are hard to shake once they roll in.
Ghost of Yotei was supposed to be Sony’s next prestige hit. Right now, it looks more like a case study in how fast goodwill can evaporate.
Weak preorder numbers, an avalanche of refunds, and nonstop controversy have turned the game into a punching bag.
So, You chalk it up to culture war fatigue? Bad PR?, or plain poor timing?
Well, the reality is this: 👇
Players are walking away. Unless Sucker Punch pulls off a miracle, Ghost of Yotei might end up remembered less as the follow-up to Tsushima and more as the sequel that sank before it even set sail.
The creator explains DS2’s ending caps the first two games, adds he is not planning DS3 now, and hopes someone at Kojima Productions builds it.
