When there’s something strange in New Eden town, who you gonna call? Life is Strange developers Don’t Nod has the answer in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, a new action-RPG, in which players will take on the roles of Red and Antea, a couple of ghost hunters known as “Banishers,” as they attempt to save the colony of New Eden form a deadly curse and a rising army of the angry dead. From a vast open world, a surprisingly complex combat system, and a collection of memorable side quests, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden proves itself as an excellent action-RPG about love and loss.
Banishers’ story is by far its most intriguing aspect. Set in 1600’s Colonial America, Banishers sees ghost-hunting couple Red and attempt to save New Eden from the ghosts and curses that plague it. Except, that isn’t the most interesting part of Banishers’ plot, as their initial assault on the Nightmare responsible for New Eden’s ghostly predicament ended with Antea’s death. Now, on top of the curse they were hired to lift, the couple must also either give Antea’s spirit a peaceful ascension into the afterlife or find a way to bring her back from the dead.
To start, Red and Antea are both really good protagonists. While they both have lived hard lives that affected how they view the ghosts they hunt. While Antea is initially more merciless towards these ghosts (a perspective eventually challenged by her own spectral state during the game), Red tries to treat these spectors with a more compassionate hand. The dueling perspectives makes both for an interesting base to build their relationship off of, but it is also fun to see how your choices in dealing with ghosts shapes their views.
These choices are made both during the main campaign and in side quests called “Haunting Cases.” Both the main story and the cases you find are framed like investigations in which the player must find possible motives for why the ghost is haunting the person of interest, and what the person of interest could have possibly done to attract the attention of the ghost in question. What makes these investigations so memorable is the thematic weight each haunting carries. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is ultimately a story about love, grief, the difficult choices people make to survive, and how these things shape our relationship with the dead. Each haunting, from the ones that make up the main campaign to the hauntings you will deal with on the side, touches on these themes in some way, giving the overall game a very unified and distinct narrative identity.
What makes the game even more compelling is how each haunting presents very different perspectives on each theme, which presents for a string of stories that contrast nicely against both each other and against Red and Antea’s own story. The choices you make when dealing with these hauntings also affect Antea’s final fate. Players can choose to do their job and help ghosts move on to eventually give Antea a peaceful ascension into the afterlife, or they can sacrifice the still-living people of New Eden in the hope that they can eventually bring her back to life. While I am a fan of how much choice I got in how I got to deal with these cases, I do fear that it may encourage a playstyle of only choosing one type of ending in order to ensure you get a desired ending. In the end though, these hauntings are easily the highlight of the game.
Of course, some ghosts can’t be exorcised with an investigation and a ritual. For these ghosts, the only way to deal with them is with the classic combination of quick reflexes, a cool head, and a liberal amount of stabbing. Banishers’ combat is fun. Red has your standard light and heavy attacks, quicksteps and dodge rolls, a parry, and a rifle for ranged damage-dealing. Nothing you haven’t seen before from other third-person action games, but he also isn’t alone. You can also switch to Antea during combat, and her ghostly abilities provide a much-appreciated level of depth to Banishers’ phantasmal fisticuffs.
Being a ghost, Antea has many powers at her disposal during combat including short-range teleports to dart around the battlefield and the ability to generate explosions to deal massive AOE damage to enemies. In addition to this, she deals extra damage to possessed enemies and, due to already being dead, doesn’t have a traditional health bar. Instead, her health is tied to a spirit bar that goes down with each action performed and hit taken, and it can be refilled by hitting enemies as Red. This switching mechanic offers a new layer of strategy to fights as balancing between Red and Antea’s abilities essential to balancing the hordes of evil dead you’ll be facing.
Of course, there’s also an open world to explore, and it’s the aspect of Banishers I’m the least fond of. It’s not an empty open world by any means. There is no shortage of things to do. You find equipment and resources to upgrade it alongside ghost nests and elite enemies you can clear to upgrade your stats. It’s not a terrible open world, but it also isn’t a terribly interesting open world either. Traversal consists of running from place to place and occasionally switching to Antea to uncover a hidden item or jump through a set of ghostly runes to reach new places. The open world also lacks memorable landmarks to help find your way while traveling, instead relying on a compass at the top of the screen to point you to areas of interest. While some may be fine with this, I just found that my experience traversing New Eden was a constant cycle of getting lost in same and unmemorable environments.
Despite this, I enjoyed my time with Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden far, far more often than not. Its intriguing story and deceptively deep combat system are something that I hope everyone gets to experience. This ghostly love story is a perfect game for the Valentine’s season, and I am more than happy to give this game an 8/10.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Steam and Epic Games Store.
Related: Reviews by Josh Freeman
I love games and love talking about games. Some of my favorites include action games (both 2D and 3D), metroidvanias, roguelikes, shooters, and Indies.
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