Ghost of Yōtei Most Wanted: Characters, Perks and Bounties Guide

Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition landed on October 1 with two big additions: the Echoes of Sekigahara story expansion and a brand-new roguelike mode called Most Wanted. If you've already finished Atsu's revenge story and cleared Legend mode, Most Wanted is the reason to boot the game back up — it takes the sword work you already know and rebuilds it into short, escalating runs with four playable characters, including a surprise return for Jin Sakai. Here's everything confirmed about how it works, who you can play as, and how to actually beat it.

01What Is Ghost of Yōtei: Most Wanted?

Most Wanted is a single-player combat survival mode built into Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition. According to Sucker Punch's own description on the PlayStation Blog, it's "our spin on a roguelike" — you choose from four playable characters, accept bounties with escalating difficulty, and earn perks and upgrades as you go that make your character stronger with every completed run. Unlike the main campaign, a Most Wanted run is meant to be played in short bursts: you win, lose, or quit, bank what you earned, and start again with a slightly different build.

The mode shipped as part of patch Update 2.0, which released alongside the Complete Edition on October 1 and is free for anyone who already owns the base game — you only pay if you want the separate Echoes of Sekigahara story content. That means if you bought Ghost of Yōtei at launch last year, updating to the latest patch is all it takes to access the bounty board; Most Wanted itself isn't locked behind the Complete Edition upgrade the way the new story chapter is.

Most Wanted is built around short, replayable sessions rather than the open-world exploration Ghost of Yōtei is known for, so it's a mode you can realistically dip into for twenty minutes rather than committing to a full play session.

02How a Most Wanted Run Works

Every run starts at the bounty board. Each bounty targets one of the Yōtei Six, but reaching them is the hard part: you'll fight through waves of regular enemies and minibosses first, and finishing each wave lets you pick a new perk for your build. Beat the wave gauntlet and you get a shot at that bounty's boss.

Bounties aren't one-and-done. You can replay any of them at higher difficulty tiers for better rewards, and the escalation caps out at the hardest bounty in the mode: a direct confrontation with Lord Saito, Ghost of Yōtei's main villain.

Because perks reset between runs, Most Wanted rewards reading the board before you commit. A lower-tier bounty with a character and perk path you're comfortable with will usually get you further than overreaching on a high-difficulty target with a character you've barely used.

Sucker Punch hasn't detailed exactly what you keep after a failed run, but Mon is explicitly described as something you spend "outside of runs," which points to it persisting across attempts rather than resetting with your perks. Treat an early loss on a tough bounty as information about which perk path or character didn't fit that fight, rather than time wasted.

03The Four Playable Characters

You start with Atsu, and unlock Oyuki, Nagato and Jin Sakai as you play. Each one starts with a katana plus their own unique weapons, Ultimate, and Kill Streak, so switching characters genuinely changes how a run plays out rather than just reskinning the same moveset.

• Atsu — dual katana plus the Metsubushi (blinding powder) and a Blind Bomb. Her Ultimate, Call of the Pack, summons two wolves to take down nearby enemies; her Kill Streak, Onryō's Howl, terrifies everyone nearby and forces one enemy to flee.
• Oyuki — kusarigama, kunai, and the tanegashima rifle. Her Ultimate, Shadow Killer, pops smoke and lets her assassinate two enemies at once; her Kill Streak, Shadow Shinobi, summons a Nine Tails ally to fight and assassinate alongside her for a limited time.
• Nagato — yari, tanzutsu pistol, and the yumi and hankyu bows. His Ultimate, Gambler's Mark, guarantees a headshot on two marked enemies; his Kill Streak, Blast Arrow, refills his Concentration and grants an explosive arrow.
• Jin Sakai — the Ghost of Tsushima protagonist, playable with all four of his original stances to exploit different enemy weaknesses, plus a Sticky Bomb and hankyu. His Ultimate is Dance of Wrath, which disarms multiple enemies, and his Kill Streak is Ghost Stance, which terrifies nearby enemies and can one-shot several of them.

Sucker Punch's animation and character art teams rebuilt Jin's Ghost of Tsushima model to match Yōtei's upgraded fidelity while keeping him faithful to the original. If you cleared that game, his stances should feel immediately familiar once you unlock him.

04Picking the Right Perks

Perks are where a Most Wanted build actually comes together. As you clear waves, you'll regularly choose between options covering weapon mastery, gear loadouts, summons, parries, and survivability. None of them are locked to a single character, so mixing categories — a defensive perk alongside an aggressive weapon-mastery one, for example — is how most unexpected, run-saving combinations happen.

05The Yōtei Six and Lord Saito

Each bounty on the board represents one member of the Yōtei Six, and the structure of a run stays consistent no matter who you're hunting. Use this rough sequence for your first few runs before you start specializing:

Your First Most Wanted Run, Step by Step

1. 1Start with a Yōtei Six target on its base difficulty rather than jumping straight to Lord Saito.1 min
2. 2Fight through the initial group of regular enemies to trigger your first perk choice.3 min
3. 3On an unfamiliar bounty, lean toward defensive or parry perks before weapon-mastery ones.—
4. 4Expect a tougher enemy mixed into the next wave before you reach the bounty's boss arena.4 min
5. 5Save your Ultimate for the boss fight itself once the surrounding waves are cleared.3 min
6. 6Back at the board, put earned Mon into techniques, weapon upgrades or character unlocks.1 min
7. 7Take the same bounty again on a harder difficulty for better rewards before moving to a new target.—

Once you've cleared a bounty on its base difficulty, replaying it at a higher tier is usually a better use of time than jumping straight to a new target — the rewards scale up, and you'll already know the wave patterns leading to that boss.

06Mon, Rewards and Unlocking Jin Sakai

Runs earn you Mon, a currency you spend outside of runs on new techniques, weapon upgrades, charms, and character unlocks — including Jin Sakai himself, who isn't available from the start. Cosmetics you earn through Most Wanted also carry over into the main game, so armor or dye sets you unlock mid-run can be worn during Atsu's original story or the new Echoes of Sekigahara expansion.

“We want playing through runs to take the familiar weapons and systems you're used to and turn them into a fresh experience that lets you experiment with characters and builds to find the loadout that works best for you.”Andrew Goldfarb, Senior Communications Manager, Sucker Punch Productions

That quote is worth keeping in mind if your first few runs feel unforgiving: Most Wanted is built to reuse systems you already understand from the campaign, not to reinvent your combat habits from scratch. If something isn't working, it's usually a perk or weapon choice rather than the mode fighting you.

07Watch: The Official Most Wanted Trailer

Sucker Punch and PlayStation showed Most Wanted off in full at the September 2026 State of Play, including the Jin Sakai reveal. It's the clearest look yet at the bounty board, perk selection, and all four characters in action.

Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition — Most Wanted Trailer, published by PlayStation.

08Tips to Survive Longer Most Wanted Runs

A few habits separate runs that end at the first miniboss from ones that reach a bounty's final boss:

• Learn one character before you chase unlocks. Atsu's dual katana and wolf summon are the most forgiving starting point — get comfortable with how waves scale before spending Mon to rush Oyuki, Nagato, or Jin Sakai.
• Prioritize survivability perks on your first clear of a new bounty. You can lean into aggressive weapon-mastery perks once you already know the enemy composition and miniboss placement from a previous attempt.
• Match your Ultimate to the wave, not the boss. Crowd-control options like Atsu's Call of the Pack or Jin's Dance of Wrath are usually more valuable against the enemy waves blocking your path than saved for the final fight.
• Replay lower-tier bounties for safer Mon farming. Climbing straight to Lord Saito's bounty before you've banked enough permanent unlocks tends to end runs quickly; a couple of clean clears on an easier bounty first will fund better gear.
• Use Jin Sakai's stances defensively. Since his kit is built around switching stances to exploit specific enemy types, swapping proactively when a new enemy type appears in a wave works better than committing to one stance for the whole fight.

There's no required order between Most Wanted and the new story content, either. Most Wanted doesn't touch the main campaign or the Echoes of Sekigahara expansion's Ashoro Foothills area directly, so you can bounce between them freely — and a few early runs will earn you Mon and gear that make the harder parts of Echoes of Sekigahara feel less punishing once you get there.