Banishers are nomadic ghost-hunters for hire. They travel the world, exorcising malevolent wraiths, but also helping friendly spirits ascend from the mortal plane. They remind me very much of Witchers, relying on their combat abilities and knowledge of the Arcane to best their foes.
Life to the Living. Death to the Dead.
The lore and story of Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is fantastic and thought provoking, drawing me in from the get go. While combat and some gameplay elements aren’t quite as comparable, Don’t Nod has crafted a bewitching tale that I thoroughly enjoyed for my 35+ hours with the game.
The narrative of Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
Set in 1695, ghost hunter Antea and her apprentice/lover Red have traveled to the New World of America at the request of their friend Charles. Upon arriving at the town of New Eden, they find it a ghost town… Quite literally! A curse lays upon the settlement bringing famine, madness and an unholy winter. It’s haunted by a nightmare, an extremely powerful and malevolent ghost, that has taken many lives including Charles’.
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After walking into a trap, Antea is quickly killed by the nightmare, who then dares Red to return before throwing him off a cliff into the icy ocean below. After drifting far down the coast, Red is rescued and nursed back to health. Soon after, Red and Antea are reunited… Only now Antea is one of the very ghosts she loathes!
The pair decide to head back to New Eden to recover Antea’s body and finish their job banishing the nightmare.
Red and Antea will have a difficult decision to make. Red can either stay true to his Banisher code and ascend Antea’s soul, putting her at peace… Or go down a much darker path, taking the lives of the living in the hopes of resurrecting his love. While you need to make an initial decision, you will have the opportunity to change your mind later in the game, after learning more about the world and experiencing the bond Antea and Red share.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden tells an emotional tale, examining the nature of love, loss, duty and sacrifice. There are dozens of optional side missions throughout the world, haunted individuals who need your help, the quality of which are often on par with that of the main story. Dark and heavy themes permeate these missions; murder, cannibalism, slavery, survivors guilt — to name but a few.
My favourite mission had some Jerry Springer level shenanigans! A man was acting very peculiar and, after a thorough investigation, I found he was being possessed by both his dead wife AND dead brother… Who appeared to be having a ghostly affair within his body! JERRY, JERRY, JERRY!
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There are dozens, if not hundreds, of bits of lore sprinkled around the world. Books, manuscripts, letters, shipping manifestos, treasure maps etc. Normally in games I don’t feel the desire to read much of this sort of thing, but for some reason I read, and enjoyed, nearly everything I could find in this game. It’s a fascinating world.
The main storyline was (mostly) well paced and engaging, but did drag its feet a little near the end, sending you on a wild goose chase across the map. Ultimately though the finale was emotional and memorable, the decisions I made resulted in a heart-wrenching ending that brought a tear or two to the eyes. As the story can change depending on what choices you make throughout, I’m pretty interested in seeing what other paths I could’ve taken.
Gameplay
Story aside, the main activity in the game is paranormal-detective work. As you talk to people and learn of their problems, you’ll often find out they’re being haunted to some level. Not always with malicious intent however; often ghosts are hanging around out of worry for a loved one — or because they have been wronged themselves.
You’ll need to investigate the haunting, hunting for clues and memories tied to objects, and questioning those involved, corporeal or otherwise. You don’t really connect the dots yourself, you’re more guiding Red and Antea as they draw conclusions from the clues.
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After gathering enough evidence, you’ll then confront both the haunter and haunted, deciding for yourself how to handle the situation.
- BANISH the spirit, subjecting them to eternal suffering.
- ASCEND the spirit, granting them peace.
- BLAME the living, holding them responsible for their actions and forfeiting their life.
Some of these decisions were the hardest parts of the game for me. People with the best intentions can still make bad decisions that end up causing someone immense pain. Even the ghosts that mean no harm are still unintentionally leeching life away from the ones they haunt, leaving them be was never an option.
I ended up with a mixed bag of outcomes, most ghosts deserved their ascension but others were outright malicious and spiteful, begging to be banished. I even had Red break his oath a few times, taking the lives of some particularly repulsive men as some measure of justice. It did feel hypocritical to sit there in judgment of these people, to rip a friendly spirit away from a loved one, especially when the ghostly Antea herself was present.
Both Red and Antea are equally prominent and controllable in the game, with Antea bringing a bunch of ghostly perks. The switch to Antea happens instantly and the effects are eye-catching to say the least. She has a much more ethereal view of the world with a narrower focus, and lush green leaves are palette swapped for an autumnal orange. She can also see spirit essence, making her invaluable in investigating haunting cases. Just watch out for pesky spirit-wards that prevent Antea from manifesting!
The playable world in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is vast and gorgeous, covering multiple biomes, from snowy peaks to dense forests and rocky coastlines.
Exploring felt something akin to the modern God of War games, except with fewer environmental puzzles and traversal options. While technically one connected map, the world isn’t ‘open’. You can’t just go anywhere you want or climb anything you want. This sometimes made traversal frustrating, having to find specific areas to scale walls or drop down from above, even if the wall was knee high.
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The game doesn’t have a mini-map which can make navigating the world harder than it needs to be. There is a main map that can be accessed via the d-pad, however I experienced delays every single time I opened the map (or menu). The length of the delay seemed to vary depending on the area of the world I was in, but generally it was between 2 and 4 seconds. The lack of a mini-map meant that I was constantly opening the main map, which only compounded the delays.
After about 20 hours, I started to get a bit weary with the world, there wasn’t enough variety in the exploration and I felt like I was repeating the same few things again and again. The quests themselves were interesting and engaging, but often required too much travel between points of interest. There is a fast travel system between campfires, but the times I actually wanted to use it, I was in the middle of the wilderness or deep within a maze-like mine, far from a fast travel point. A smaller map with a more compact story may have served the game a little better.
There’s numerous Metroidvania elements scattered throughout the world, with some areas and items only accessible after gaining specific skills. But again, the map was too vast and the fast travel too cumbersome, that I often didn’t bother returning. The few I did go out of my way for, didn’t offer enough reward to motivate me to seek them all out.
There are other challenges scattered throughout the map; Spectral Nests, an area where waves of enemies can be summoned and fought, rewarding you with increases to your attributes. Cursed Chests, where you need to find three effigies and dispel the curse before grabbing the loot. Altars, which are hard to find but increase health/spirit points once touched. Among others.
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Combat
Combat is serviceable but is lacking in variety. You’re basically choosing between a heavy or light attack when controlling Red, and between a punch and a couple of spectral skills with Antea. Red does have the ability to ‘banish’ weaker foes or damage stronger ones, but this requires building up points during battle and isn’t used more than once or twice per fight.
Early on you’ll get a rifle and Antea gets a few new abilities, but it mostly it felt like I was fighting the same battle over and over again. For a shorter game this combat system would’ve been just fine, but for 35 hours plus, it just didn’t have enough variety to hold my interest.
Adding to the combat monotony is the lack of enemy variety in the game. There’s wolves, wisps and a few different coloured spirits, the colour determining how strong and what abilities they have. Spirits can also possess corpses in the area, which brings a few more enemy types into the mix, but not enough.
I would’ve liked different weapon types for different use cases in battle, an axe for heavy damage or a knife for quick cuts, or perhaps the option to add elemental damage to your weapons. Red would’ve benefited from having more skills, or throwable items to damage or ensnare foes. It just needed something to bring more variety in battle.
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Boss fights however are excellent. Their designs are unique and really quite spooky. From a tortured beast to a wraith in chains, each boss fight played differently. The very first one you lock horns with is the Nightmare, a shrivelled spectre of a woman with clawlike fingernails and eyes that will haunt your dreams for weeks. I won’t go into detail about the others so as not to spoil them, but they really are one of the best parts of the game.
Music and Voice
Music and voice acting are both excellent, bringing another dimension to the fantastic writing. All characters great and small are voiced, from long conversations with prominent characters to random NPCs walking past telling you to ‘shove off’. The range of European accents depicted, highlight the variety of colonists that made up the new country.
Red and Antea are particularly well voiced, as you would hope, being the main characters and all. Red’s Scottish accent and Antea’s West African tones bring a sense of worldliness and nuance to the pair. In a time where world travel was much harder than it is today, these two characters found and fell in love with each other. The more you play, the more morsels of backstory you get from the duo, bragging about past exploits or reminding the other about an embarrassing failure. You get the sense they have travelled far and wide together and have developed a deep bond.
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Unfortunately the superb voice acting is let down by pretty average lip sync. The issue is less noticeable on Antea and Red, more love and care was clearly put into their sync and character models, but it’s pretty poor on NPCs.
Some voice lines can get quite repetitive, for example there are just a couple of phrases used when Antea spirit-blasts through a destructible object, and since you do this A LOT, the lines get old quite quickly. In battle sometimes Antea will say “I’m right here you know”, which makes sense when you’ve been in control of Red… But when I’ve just completed a combat encounter solely with Antea, the line is quite out of place.
The soundtrack bubbles away in the background, adding depth and emotion to the story, at times swelling up like a wave, raising tensions.
Walking through New Eden town at the beginning of the game is deliciously spooky, the eerie instrumentals and ambient soundtrack had me on the edge of my seat, constantly looking over my in-game shoulder. The violin strings whispered to me creepily as I myself crept around the town… Was that just the wind whistling or the tortured rattle of a ghost!?
The use of 3D Audio in some scenes is excellent. Ritualistic chanting panning between the left and right ear of my headset; I felt surrounded by an unseen force and was actually quite unnerving! And I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever been so creeped out by a rendition of three blind mice in my life!
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Final Thoughts
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is an enchanting new IP from some of the best storytellers in the business. Don’t Nod have crafted a spellbinding tale that had me deep in my emotions, putting my moral convictions to the test. While the world and combat encounters could use more variety, it scratched that ‘Witcher itch’ for a short time which is pretty high praise indeed.
While I won’t go as far as to say I’m clamouring for a direct sequel, I absolutely want another game in this universe. I really hope the plan is for an anthology series because there is just so much potential for future games. Different In-game manuscripts tell us that the Banishers date back to ancient Greece and that vampires exist in this world, so there’s boundless opportunity for further occult stories.
It’s coming to PlayStation, Xbox and PC on February 13th.
Quest Daily score Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden:
8/10
Quest Daily was supplied with a review copy of Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
