Ghost of Yotei Has a Boss Fight That’s So Difficult, I Asked Sony If It Was a Glitch

Ghost of Yotei has one of the year’s toughest boss fights and I thought my game was bugged when I first attempted the side quest it belongs to. I really loved my time with Ghost of Yotei. It’s a great new single-player adventure game with a beautiful open-world worth exploring. Not only is it just a treat to wander around the world, taking in its vivid and lush sights, but there are also some great side quests as well. Some of them are amusing and meant to pull a laugh out of you, while some are a bit more heavy.

This article contains spoilers for the Takezo the Unrivaled side quest in Ghost of Yotei.

Perhaps one of my favorite parts about Ghost of Yotei is a side quest is available in the game’s starting area. I spent somewhere between 10 and 15 hours just exploring this first chunk of the game before making any progress in the story, which meant I didn’t have much gear. However, I felt capable in my abilities as I kept taking down bounties without issue. Eventually, I stumbled upon a side quest revolving around a man named Takezo the Unrivaled. He’s a master swordsman and duelist who is searching for a proper challenger.

Ghost of Yotei‘s Takezo the Unrivaled Is One of the Hardest Boss Fights of the Year

As a result, you must fight a handful of his disciples who are also eager to challenge him for his title. Once you’ve taken them out, you will eventually be granted the opportunity to meet Takezo face to face. He will first teach you a lesson about one of his moves, allowing you to eventually use it against him. Once he feels content and like you may be a worthy opponent who can bring him to his end, he commands you to go to the top of Mount Yotei with five specific charms.

I already had these charms and had ventured up to Mount Yotei before, so I fast-traveled my way there and met him for what I assumed would be yet another challenging, but achievable, boss battle. He immediately opened to a flurry of attacks that I dodged and blocked, but one hit me… and it killed me instantly, taking away my entire health bar. Just one single swipe of his blade killed me. I took my licks for about 15 minutes before restarting my game and trying again for another 20 minutes. I got some hits in here, but they were barely fracturing his own health bar. His attacks are also difficult to battle against, as he will often hit you with unblockable attacks that have an absurdly small window for dodging, making him hard to counter.

Given this side quest was available so early on in the game, I felt baffled. Was it really meant to be this hard? I was playing the game on the standard, middle of the road difficulty. There hadn’t been anything close to this difficult at this point in the game. Even one of the boss fights I had done as part of the story was a breeze by comparison.

I emailed PlayStation PR to see if there was a bug pertaining to this side quest. After consulting with Sucker Punch, the rep notified me that this fight was intentionally designed to be one of the hardest in the game and provided me with some tips for conquering it, all of which involved coming back later after extensively upgrading Atsu.

Essentially, it all respectfully and politely boiled down to the old gaming adage “get good”. I know there’s a stigma that gaming journalists are bad at games, so there was absolutely zero way I was going to admit defeat to Takezo the Unrivaled. So, I began grinding, like I was in some kind of Rocky training montage. I largely put the game’s story on hold and hunted down every single hot spring in the game to raise my health, conquered as many bamboo strikes as I could to increase my focus, which allows you to heal or use special attacks during combat, and found every single melee weapon in the game.

I felt like Bruce Wayne rebuilding his body after a crippling defeat against Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. I was slowly but steadily improving myself after getting slashed apart by the same blade countless times. I took my weapons to my forge and hammered away at them, making them sharper and more damaging. Every single weapon was tirelessly upgraded to make myself as powerful as possible. At this point, didn’t care what reward I got for completing this quest, I just had an unquenchable craving for victory and triumph.

Feeling ready, I took myself back to Mount Yotei with all of my learnings and improvements. I stood in front of Takezo the Unrivaled for our final showdown and charged him, using the force of Atsu’s body to break his guard to deliver a few rapid hits. I unleashed a massive, unblockable barrage of attacks before dazing him with a smoke grenade so I could get a few more strikes in. I then disarmed him, briefly knocking his weapon out of his hand.

This took him down a peg, only slightly. As the fight unfolded, a blizzard blew in. In Ghost of Yotei, your health bar will begin to degrade in extreme cold. This not only takes away your health, but also limits how much health you can regain from drinking sake and using your focus. This is where I ultimately fell once more, forcing me to restart the fight again. However, after a few more deaths, I realized one of the armors that I had already unlocked and upgraded provided major resistance to cold damage. It still impacted me a bit, but it gave me the edge I ultimately needed.

Takezo kept finding new ways to catch me off guard as the fight progressed. He eventually disarmed me, leaving me without my katanas. Although I had other melee weapons, they weren’t nearly as effective. Takezo would essentially guard my swords as they stuck out of the snow, pushing me to have to get creative by throwing empty sake bottles at him to get them safely.

The big issue with this boss battle is that Takezo not only deals a lot of damage, but he does it incredibly quickly. His attacks are rapid, mixing in blows that can be parried and then following them up with unblockable ones to throw you off balance. This battle continued to rage for literal hours. I was stuck on this fight, but was pleased with the progress I was making and was willing to keep going. I kept employing more strategies, such as throwing fire bombs at Takezo to deal damage without having to get close to him.

Eventually, I realized I had an ability that allowed me to come back to life mid-fight. It would cost some focus, but it would also bring me back to full health. Instead of trying to heal myself in the middle of our duel, I decided that it would be best to just let him kill me and then resurrect myself back to full health. Ultimately, this, combined with my other strategies, is what allowed me to eventually drive my blade straight through Takezo’s heart, killing him for good.

Ultimately, would I recommend doing the Takezo the Unrivaled quest at the start of Ghost of Yotei? No, not at all. You should do it near the end of the game or after the credits, as you’ll have access to every single weapon in the game along with upgrades and other resources. In hindsight, the unlockable pistol would’ve been a massive help during this fight. However, the experience of being so intentional with every move I made during the duel gave me a much greater appreciation for Ghost of Yotei‘s combat. It also gave me a fun, emergent story to tell.

Of course, someone will inevitably kill Takezo the Unrivaled with ease and this story will probably look extremely dramatic, but as noted, Sucker Punch confirmed it is designed to be one of the hardest boss battle in the game. After finishing Ghost of Yotei, I feel safe in saying it is probably the hardest battle by far.

Ghost of Yotei is out on October 2nd for PS5.

Every Game Coming to PlayStation in October 2025