A screenshot from Ghost of Yōtei (2025), Sucker Punch

Former Sony Chairman Shawn Layden told gamers if they are uninterested or don’t like the Ghost of Tsushima sequel Ghost of Yōtei they should not buy it.

Video game executive Shawn Layden at the 2018 Gamelab Congreso Videojuegos. Photo Credit: Gamelab Congreso Videojuegos, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Layden shared his comments while reacting to YouTuber Endymion’s initial reaction to the game’s trailer. He wrote, “Ghost of Tsushima sequel stars a Japanese woman samurai warrior because of course it does. They can’t help themselves until every franchise that was built on masculinity is replaced by women.”

He added, “Ghost of Yotei is (hopefully) a small spin off game, but if this is the true sequel & this is the new main character over Jin Sakai, f**k that. So sick of the forced girlboss narrative man.”

YouTuber Mightykeef reacted to this by attacking Endymion and writing, “Man what an absolute loser.”

Layden responded to this post writing, “1 It’s a game. An entertainment. A story a team of creators believes in. They want to make this.”

He added, “2 it’s a game. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. In fact, why not make the game you want yourself?”

Shawn Layden on X

Layden’s first point is likely untrue given Sony and PlayStation have made it very clear they are not just in the business of making games and entertaining anymore, but are indeed in the business of propagating gamers woke ideology through their games.

The company’s website makes this very clear, “Diversifying the gaming industry is one of our most important goals. Sony Interactive is committed to preparing and nurturing underrepresented talent for careers in the gaming industry.”

Furthermore, it adds, “We want our workforce to reflect diversity of thought and experiences of our playerbase. We have set out clear and ambitious aspirations, built internal and external talent pipelines, and expanded our diversity sourcing, retention, and development efforts to increase diverse representation at Sony Interactive.”

A screenshot from Concord (2024), Firewalk Studios

Not only does the company seemingly have discriminatory hiring policies based on skin color and sex, but it also makes it clear its injecting woke messaging into its games, “We are also committed to highlighting diversity in products. We feature curated collections on PlayStation Store around themes such as Amazing Heroines, LGBTQIA+ characters, and Accessibility-friendly titles.”

To be clear Ghost of Yōtei is being developed by Sucker Punch Productions, a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

A screenshot from Sony Interactive’s website take on September 26, 2024 at 11:13 AM ET

As for whether the creative team believes in the game, it’s likely this is true given Sony’s hiring policy appears to be based on not only skin tone and gender, but likely woke ideology as well. If the company is hiring woke ideologues, it’s quite likely that woke ideologues will attempt to create projects they believe in.

The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien even noted that the fact that he was a Christian could be deduced from his works. He wrote in Letter 213 to Deborah Webster, ” I am a Christian (which can be deduced from my stories), and in fact a Roman Catholic.”

J.R.R. Tolkien via Sidh Aniron YouTube

In Letter 142 to Robert Murray, SJ, Tolkien also credited his mother’s Faith and upbringing as to why The Lord of the Rings was consciously Catholic during his revision of it.

He wrote, “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.”

“However that is very clumsily put, and sounds more self-important than I feel. For as a matter of fact, I have consciously planned very little; and should chiefly be grateful for having been brought up (since I was eight) in a Faith that has nourished me and taught me all the little that I know; and that I owe to my mother, who clung to her conversion and died young, largely through the hardships of poverty resulting from it,” Tolkien added.

Clearly, if Tolkien consciously revised The Lord of the Rings to be Catholic, one can assume that woke ideologues are consciously attempting to inject their own philosophy and religion into the creative works they are creating.

Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Warner Bros. Pictures

As for Layden’s second point, that’s exactly what gamers have been doing and it has been especially highlighted this year as they have chosen to avoid games that have pushed woke ideology such as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Concord, Dustborn, Star Wars Outlaws, and others.

And ironically, this advice is usually taken up by the people being lectured by individuals like Layden. Maybe the most infamous instance of this was Marvel Comics writer Kelly Sue DeConnick. Back in 2017, she told SyFy Write, “If you don’t like my politics, don’t buy my book.”

Later in the interview she said, “I’m going to make the book that I’m going to make and if you don’t want to read them; don’t read them.”

By 2019, DeConnick was lamenting the state of the comic book industry telling Nerd News, “from our perspective the industry has contracted and we’re very worried about comics right now. So, it’s always interesting to me that the outside perspective is always, ‘Comics are booming!’”

She later stated, “I think I tend to be pretty optimistic, but in this one I’m worried. I’m straight worried.” When asked why she elaborated, “Because stores are closing at a phenomenal rate. Independent comic sales are down. Mainstream comic sales are down except the top three or five books are up. Everything in the mid list is way down.”

“Numbers that used to be numbers that would get you cancelled are now like, ‘No, that’s a hit.’ Independent books making the back the cost of doing floppies is– like names that should be able to do it no sweat are going into the red on singles and not coming out until the trades. And it worries me,” she elaborated.

More recently, Doctor Who actor Ncuti Gatwa informed Variety that people who did not like his casting should not “watch. Turn off the TV. Go and touch grass, please, for God’s sake.”

They took his advice. Gatwa’s turn as the Doctor posted the worst ratings in the series’ entire history. The finale only garnered 2.25 million viewers overnight and only achieved 3.69 million viewers after a week.

At one point the show barely achieved over 2 million viewers with the penultimate episode only bringing in 2.02 million viewers overnight.

Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, Ncuti Gatwa as The Doctor, and Bonnie Langford as Mel in Doctor Who (2024), BBC

As for Layden’s final comment questioning if Endymion should make the game he wants himself, many people are indeed doing that. They are taking the advice C.S. Lewis gave to Tolkien: “If they won’t write the kind of books we want to read, we shall write them ourselves; but it is very laborious.”

Numerous individuals are doing this. They are making their own games, comics, novels, movies, and TV shows.

 

What do you make of Layden’s comments?