Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden – God of Ghostbusting (Picture: Focus Entertainment)
The creators behind Vampyr and Life Is Strange channel God Of War in an action role-player where you explore a land plagued by ghosts.
Along with the upcoming reboot of Alone In The Dark, Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden is one of several titles which wisely slid into 2024, to avoid this year’s stacked final quarter. It now arrives one day shy of Valentine’s Day; an apt and darkly tongue-in-cheek position for a game which hinges on the question of whether you should sacrifice the living to resurrect your dead lover.
Developed by Don’t Nod, this single-player action game is closer to Vampyr than the studio’s best known work, Life Is Strange. Judging by our hands-on preview, however, that’s far from a bad thing. It might clearly owe a debt to 2018’s God Of War but Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden has enough promising ideas, and a distinct ghostly flavour, to stand apart from its inspiration.
While we weren’t shown the opening, the game revolves around the dynamic between lovers Antea Duarte and Red Mac Raith, who are ghosthunters, aka Banishers in the fictional land of New Eden in 1695. After Antea dies in a fatal incident, she returns to Red as one of the ghosts they typically hunt, trapped between the living and the afterlife. As a pair, one living and another a ghostly apparition, they venture out across the land to find a way to liberate Antea from haunted limbo.
The kicker is that grief-stricken Red must make the choice between accepting Anthea’s fate and letting her spirit go or trying to resurrect her by banishing souls of the living – breaking his oath as a ghost hunter. It might seem like a morally clear-cut decision but the living beings you encounter are troubled with their own dark secrets.
These dark secrets, based on one early example, include murder with a pinch of cannibalism. Shortly after you reunite with Antea, you meet Jacob the Trapper, a fragile, soft-spoken man alone in a shelter in the woods who is concerned for the whereabouts of his missing friend, Ben. This sets up the first of many Haunting side quests, where you investigate clues in order to resolve cases for the living around the semi-open world environment.
After some platforming and combat encounters, you discover a place where you can perform a ritual to summon a ghostly apparition of past events. During this ritual, you discover Jacob had killed Ben by pushing him off a cliff, before eating his remains. When you return to him, Jacob can’t remember his actions-– with the implication being he’s either choosing to forget or is losing his mind from his continued isolation. You’re given the choice of either banishing Jacob to death or setting free Ben’s tortured ghost, who has been haunting him since.
Of course, to prevent a cannibal from festering into further madness in the woods, we banished Jacob to death. This choice, however, contributes to your chosen outcome for Antea. By killing Jacob, you are contributing to her resurrection, whereas the opposite puts you on the path of allowing her to ascend into the afterlife. Shortly after deciding Jacob’s fate, you are asked to swear a vow, by picking either resurrection or ascension as a chosen path for Antea.
As confirmed by the developers during the preview session, you don’t have to stick to this vow throughout the game – but whatever you choose will contribute towards which one of the five multiple endings you’ll receive. It’s the kind of binary choice we’ve seen in countless other titles but seeing this wrapped around a God Of War-esque package feels somewhat new. It’s also enhanced by the impressive performances and production value, which don’t feel too far shy of the polish found in Santa Monica Studio’s blockbusters.
Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden – the spirit of God Of War (Picture: Focus Entertainment)
Along with the narrative, the dual protagonist setup ties into the combat. At the hit of a button, you can switch to ghostly Antea, who has more effective attacks against other spirits, whereas Red is a weightier fighter with better defence. The interplay between them works reasonably well. Early on, you’re introduced to spectral enemies who can possess corpses, encouraging the use of Antea who can quickly take them out to prevent encounters from escalating.
For a better grasp of the combat, we were thrown into a later section where you’re able to explore a large seaside village area. The map is littered with an intimidating amount of icons, tracking various Haunting side quests and other points of interest. While roaming around, we encountered another ritual site and entered a portal to a hellish dimension filled with spirit creatures – a ripe place to test out the expanded character moveset.
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Melee combat operates largely as you’d expect, with a mix of light and strong attacks, special powers to clear nearby enemies, and long-range weapons like Red’s heavy pistol. It might be due to being thrown into a late-game fight, but we found it difficult to find a rhythm to string together various attacks – with the movement often feeling inelegant and stiff. The automatic switch back to Red when Antea’s health runs out is also slightly jarring at times, although this might be another case of simply becoming familiar with the duo’s different movesets.
Despite these concerns, Banished: Ghosts Of New Eden has the potential to become a surprise hit in 2024. It might not be loaded with innovation, but it looks to be a competently made action role-player with a surprising level of polish and cinematic flair. If Ragnarök has left you craving more, this haunting love story is worth keeping an eye out for.
Formats: PC (previewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5
Publisher: Focus Entertainment
Developer: Don’t Nod
Release Date: 13th February 2023
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The creators behind Vampyr and Life Is Strange channel God Of War in an action role-player where you explore a land plagued by ghosts.