Ghost of Yōtei: Most Wanted Guide — Builds and Lord Saito

Ghost of Yōtei's Most Wanted mode arrived on October 1 as part of the game's Complete Edition update, and it changes how you approach combat more than any patch since launch. Instead of chasing the Yōtei Six through an open world, you're picking bounties off a board, clearing waves of enemies, and stacking perks that turn Atsu, Oyuki, Nagato or Jin Sakai into a build you've never been able to run in the main story. If you're jumping in for the first time, here's what the mode actually does, how to unlock everyone, and what it takes to beat Lord Saito, the hardest bounty in the game.

01What Most Wanted Changes About Ghost of Yōtei

Most Wanted is a single-player combat survival mode built into Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition. Sucker Punch calls it their take on a roguelike: you accept a bounty, fight through escalating waves of enemies and minibosses to reach it, and pick perks along the way that make your character stronger for the rest of that run. Nothing from a run carries over automatically except the Mon you bank between attempts and whatever cosmetics you unlock, so every bounty starts you back at a base loadout.

The mode is built around the same stances, parries and tools from the main campaign, just pushed harder and faster. Waves escalate quickly, minibosses hit far above what you'd see on a normal patrol, and the perk choices after each wave are what decide whether your build can survive the bounty's final fight. Mon earned during runs is spent outside Most Wanted on new techniques, weapon upgrades, charms and character unlocks, so even a failed run isn't wasted.

It's worth treating your first few runs as scouting trips rather than serious attempts. You're not just learning a specific bounty's enemy patterns — you're learning how aggressively the mode expects you to rotate perks between waves, which is a different rhythm than anything in the open-world campaign. Dying early to a miniboss you underestimated costs you far less than dying deep into a run with no Mon banked, so don't be afraid to bail on a weak perk path and restart rather than pushing a build further than it can go.

02Unlocking Jin Sakai and the Other Bounty Hunters

Four characters are playable in Most Wanted: Atsu, Oyuki, Nagato and Jin Sakai, the protagonist of the original Ghost of Tsushima making his first appearance in a Ghost of Yōtei mode. Atsu is the character you start with. According to Sucker Punch's own description of the mode, all four characters need to be unlocked before you can freely choose between them for a run, which means your first several attempts will likely be locked to whichever fighter the game currently has you on.

The official rundown doesn't publish exact Mon costs or a guaranteed unlock order for Oyuki, Nagato and Jin, so treat specific numbers you see elsewhere as unconfirmed until you check them in your own save. What is confirmed is that Jin brings all four of his signature stances from Ghost of Tsushima into the mode, along with a katana, a Sticky Bomb and a hankyu, so he's worth prioritizing if you want a moveset built entirely around stance-switching rather than the gadget-heavy kits the other three use.

03Best Starting Builds for Atsu, Oyuki, Nagato and Jin

Each character comes with a fixed weapon kit and a unique Ultimate and Kill Streak, so your build choices come from the perks you pick after each wave rather than from swapping gear entirely. Here's what each fighter brings into a run:

• Atsu — dual katana, Metsubushi and a Blind Bomb. Her Ultimate, Call of the Pack, summons two wolves to fight alongside her, and her Kill Streak, Onryō's Howl, terrifies nearby enemies. She's the most forgiving character to learn Most Wanted's wave timing on, since the wolves buy you space to read incoming attacks.
• Oyuki — kusarigama, kunai and tanegashima. Her Ultimate, Shadow Killer, is a smoke-based double assassination that can delete two priority targets at once, and her Kill Streak, Shadow Shinobi, summons a Nine Tails ally. Lean into perks that reduce Ultimate cooldown if you're running her, since Shadow Killer is strong enough to swing a bad wave back in your favor.
• Nagato — yari, tanzutsu, yumi and hankyu. His Ultimate, Gambler's Mark, guarantees headshots on two marked targets, and his Kill Streak is a Blast Arrow. He's the closest thing to a ranged build in the mode, so prioritize perks that boost bow draw speed or ammo capacity.
• Jin Sakai — katana with all four original stances, a Sticky Bomb and a hankyu. His Ultimate, Dance of Wrath, disarms multiple enemies at once, which is especially strong against the armored and shielded enemies that show up in later bounties. His Kill Streak, Ghost Stance, rewards aggressive, stealth-adjacent play between waves.

04How the Bounty Board and Perk Picks Work

Every run starts at the bounty board, where each entry is tied to a member of the Yōtei Six and comes with its own difficulty tier. Picking a bounty sends you into a sequence of enemy waves and minibosses standing between you and that bounty's target. After each wave, you choose from a set of perks covering weapon mastery, gear loadouts, summons, parries and overall survivability, and those choices stack for the rest of the run.

Because nothing carries between runs except Mon and unlocks, there's no "wrong" perk path to commit to long-term — the goal each run is just to build the strongest version of your character you can before the final fight. Bounties can be replayed at progressively higher difficulty once you've cleared them, and the loop of clearing a bounty, banking Mon, and spending it on permanent unlocks is how you make the next attempt easier.

How to Start a Most Wanted Run

1. 1Most Wanted sits alongside the main campaign once you have the Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition update installed (patch v2.0 or later).1 min
2. 2Atsu is unlocked from the start. Oyuki, Nagato and Jin Sakai need to be unlocked before you can freely choose between all four.1 min
3. 3Each bounty targets a member of the Yōtei Six and has its own difficulty tier. Lower tiers are the safest way to learn a new character.1 min
4. 4Fight through enemy waves and minibosses, choosing a perk after each one covering weapon mastery, gear, summons, parries or survivability.10-15 min
5. 5Go into the final fight with cooldowns ready. If your build is thin on survivability perks, consider restarting rather than pushing through.5-10 min
6. 6Between runs, spend the Mon you earned on new techniques, weapon upgrades, charms and character unlocks.2 min
7. 7Push a bounty's difficulty up once your build is consistent, working toward the hardest bounty of all: Lord Saito.ongoing

05Beating Every Bounty Up to Lord Saito

The mode's difficulty scaling is built so that your hardest bounties come from replaying ones you've already cleared, not from working through the board in a strict order. Sucker Punch has confirmed the hardest bounty of all pits you against Lord Saito, which functions as the mode's final boss fight once you've pushed a bounty's difficulty to its ceiling.

Going in with a character you've already unlocked fully and a perk path you've practiced matters more here than brute-forcing a first attempt. Prioritize survivability perks in the waves leading up to a high-difficulty bounty's final fight — you want to be entering it with cooldowns ready and a full health bar rather than scraping through the last miniboss. If you're still deciding which fighter to commit Mon to first, Jin Sakai's Dance of Wrath disarming multiple enemies at once is a genuinely useful tool against Lord Saito's own armored escort, assuming you've unlocked him by that point.

Because Lord Saito sits at the top of a bounty's difficulty ladder rather than behind a separate unlock, you'll see easier versions of his fight well before you're ready for the real thing. Use those lower-difficulty passes to learn his attack timing without the pressure of a run-ending mistake, and only raise the difficulty once a given build is consistently reaching his fight with Ultimates and Kill Streaks still in reserve.

“It was important to us to make Most Wanted feel like an extension of Ghost of Yōtei's core combat systems.”Andrew Goldfarb, Senior Communications Manager, Sucker Punch Productions

06What Echoes of Sekigahara Adds to the Main Story

Most Wanted shares its October 1 release with Echoes of Sekigahara, a narrative expansion that's separate from the survival mode but ties into the same update. The story alternates between two timelines: present-day Ezo, where Nagato is being hunted by poachers called the Vipers who control a previously unseen region called Ashoro Foothills, and flashbacks to Atsu's history with Nagato around the historical Battle of Sekigahara. In the present-day thread, Atsu has to team up with Nagato to rescue an ally the Vipers have taken.

The expansion adds new enemy types, heavy weapons, mythic tales and abilities, and new armor sets on top of the story content. Importantly for anyone splitting time between the two modes, cosmetics you earn in Most Wanted unlock in the main game and in Echoes of Sekigahara as well, so a strong Most Wanted run isn't just about the mode's own rewards.

Everyone who owns Ghost of Yōtei also got a free patch alongside the paid content: a Beauty of Yōtei mode for browsing Ezo's environments without combat, new Watanabe Mode tracks, an option to keep one armor set's appearance while using another's stats, and a high contrast accessibility option. None of that is locked behind the Complete Edition upgrade.

Official Most Wanted trailer, released September 3, 2026 alongside Sucker Punch's PlayStation Blog announcement.