The Nightmare. Image courtesy of Focus Entertainment.
In a world where the spirits of the dead roam the land of the living, ghost hunters known as Banishers are never far behind to send them back to where they belong. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is sprawling, open-world action-RPG from developer Dontnod Entertainment, of Life is Strange and Vampyr fame. In it, you take control of fated lovers Red mac Raith and Antea Duarte, Banishers who voyage to a bleak 1695 New Eden, Massachusetts as they immerse themselves with the surrounding communities to exorcise the citizens’ demons, both figurative and literal.
This review will be as spoiler-free as possible!
The main plot in Banishers relatively paper-thin; Red and Antea are summoned to New Eden by their Banisher mentor and friend Charles Davenport to assist with the haunting in the New England settlement. Upon arriving, the duo encounters a malevolent ghost known as the Nightmare, who murders Antea and throws Red into the ocean, only to resurface on the other side of the map. Saved by a mysterious witch named Seeker, Red eventually comes across Antea’s ghosts, and the two pair up to fight their way back to New Eden Town to avenge her death. The voice performances are top notch, helping to immerse the player into this dreary world and lend credibility to the world building.
Despite Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden having an over-arching narrative and big-bad in the Nightmare, the game’s narrative moments shine most through the vignettes spread throughout each of the game’s settlements, called Haunting Cases, where Red and Antea work as detectives for the dead and decide their fate at the end of side quest. You can decide to either Banish or Ascend the ghost (essentially sending them to Heaven or Hell) or blame the living person responsible for their death, which results in Red taking their life. Blaming the living serves both a narrative and gameplay purpose, as sacrificing the living being will power up Antea’s ghost powers, and choosing any of these three options will have an effect on overall ending of the game, of which there are five.
Blaming the living. Image courtesy of Focus Entertainment.
In combat, you’re able to switch freely between Red and Antea to unleash devastating combos and abilities. Red utilizes a saber and musket, while Antea relies on her ghost powers and hand-to-and prowess. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden sports an over-the-shoulder perspective with clunky camera controls that can get frustrating mid battle. You can lock-on to enemies by pressing in the right stick, but if you go to move your camera around with it, it’ll instead switch the lock-on target to the next enemy, which is usually far off or behind you; this becomes disorienting and often will break your combos and battle flow. Despite this, the combat system is what I’ve been mentally referring to as a Souls-lite, where the dodge and parry of a typical Soulslike RPG is ever-present, without the dire difficulty and hair-pulling retries. Yes, some boss battles and combat challenges can be difficult, but I never had take more than two or three runs at them before emerging victorious – you will still have to put the work in and build your characters around your preferred playstyle.
Being an RPG, the game has skill tree for players to choose their combat abilities from, if not very in depth. Luckily, there is no clear “best build”, and I found myself switching abilities from time to time, which the game allows you to do free of charge; all you have to do is spend the initial skill point to unlock that path.
One thing to note is that the lack of enemy variety can make common encounters and combat challenges a slog, but the boss battles are unique and engaging and are easily the best part of the game.
Red taking on the hordes of the dead. Image courtesy of Focus Entertainment.
Being an open-world adventure, there are numerous collectibles, secrets, upgrades, and hidden treasures to find. Unfortunately, the level design makes doing a completionist run a pain. While there is fast-travel by using campfires (where you’re also able to swap skills, upgrade gear, and rest to refill healing items), there’s also an extreme amount of backtracking to older areas once you’ve unlocked the latest traversal ability if you want to get all those missed chests.
One map checklist item has you delving into Void Breaches, which are combat challenges that offer strong gear as a reward but, upon completing them, spit you out at a completely different part of the map from where you entered. The game does reward you greatly for exploration, but the map may be a little too sprawling; there are numerous paths to the same objective, and some paths are so intricately and deliberately designed to make you want to explore, but ultimately yield a common crafting material at the end of it. The juice is hardly worth the squeeze, so to speak.
You can mainline the story in about 18-20 hours, but may feel underpowered if you don’t fully traverse all of what New Eden has to offer.
The gear menu is reminiscent of many live-service games. Image courtesy of Focus Entertainment.
Throughout my roughly 25-hour runtime with Banishers, I did experience a handful of crashes and bugs. In the opening minutes, Antea glitched into a bookcase and I had to restart the game completely. One of my crashes was right after a boss fight, mid-cutscene. I had to restart and fight the boss over again, but l knew the patterns and was able to take it down quicker than my initial run. Luckily, the game has a generous auto-save system, so the crashes never really set me back too far. It needs some TLC, but with quality of life improvements over time, the game should run fairly smoothly.
Great voice acting, satisfying combat once you’ve hurdled the learning curve, and well-designed side narratives are where Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden shines, while constant bugs and crashes, tedious exploration, and shoddy camera work do a disservice to immersion. By no means a bad game, there are some design decisions that left me my scratching my head. With so many anticipated AAA titles coming in 2024, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden doesn’t stand out too well amongst the pack, but is a must-try when things slow down.
By no means a bad game, there are some design decisions that left me my scratching my head. With so many anticipated AAA titles coming in 2024, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden doesn’t stand out too well amongst the pack, but is sure to be a backlog-topper when things slow down.
The Nightmare. Image courtesy of Focus Entertainment.
In a world where the spirits of the dead roam the land of the living, ghost hunters known as Banishers are never far behind to send them back to where they belong. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is sprawling, open-world action-RPG from developer Dontnod Entertainment, of Life is Strange and Vampyr fame. In it, you take control of fated lovers Red mac Raith and Antea Duarte, Banishers who voyage to a bleak 1695 New Eden, Massachusetts as they immerse themselves with the surrounding communities to exorcise the citizens’ demons, both figurative and literal.
This review will be as spoiler-free as possible!
The main plot in Banishers relatively paper-thin; Red and Antea are summoned to New Eden by their Banisher mentor and friend Charles Davenport to assist with the haunting in the New England settlement. Upon arriving, the duo encounters a malevolent ghost known as the Nightmare, who murders Antea and throws Red into the ocean, only to resurface on the other side of the map. Saved by a mysterious witch named Seeker, Red eventually comes across Antea’s ghosts, and the two pair up to fight their way back to New Eden Town to avenge her death. The voice performances are top notch, helping to immerse the player into this dreary world and lend credibility to the world building.
Despite Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden having an over-arching narrative and big-bad in the Nightmare, the game’s narrative moments shine most through the vignettes spread throughout each of the game’s settlements, called Haunting Cases, where Red and Antea work as detectives for the dead and decide their fate at the end of side quest. You can decide to either Banish or Ascend the ghost (essentially sending them to Heaven or Hell) or blame the living person responsible for their death, which results in Red taking their life. Blaming the living serves both a narrative and gameplay purpose, as sacrificing the living being will power up Antea’s ghost powers, and choosing any of these three options will have an effect on overall ending of the game, of which there are five.
Blaming the living. Image courtesy of Focus Entertainment.
In combat, you’re able to switch freely between Red and Antea to unleash devastating combos and abilities. Red utilizes a saber and musket, while Antea relies on her ghost powers and hand-to-and prowess. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden sports an over-the-shoulder perspective with clunky camera controls that can get frustrating mid battle. You can lock-on to enemies by pressing in the right stick, but if you go to move your camera around with it, it’ll instead switch the lock-on target to the next enemy, which is usually far off or behind you; this becomes disorienting and often will break your combos and battle flow. Despite this, the combat system is what I’ve been mentally referring to as a Souls-lite, where the dodge and parry of a typical Soulslike RPG is ever-present, without the dire difficulty and hair-pulling retries. Yes, some boss battles and combat challenges can be difficult, but I never had take more than two or three runs at them before emerging victorious – you will still have to put the work in and build your characters around your preferred playstyle.
Being an RPG, the game has skill tree for players to choose their combat abilities from, if not very in depth. Luckily, there is no clear “best build”, and I found myself switching abilities from time to time, which the game allows you to do free of charge; all you have to do is spend the initial skill point to unlock that path.
One thing to note is that the lack of enemy variety can make common encounters and combat challenges a slog, but the boss battles are unique and engaging and are easily the best part of the game.
Red taking on the hordes of the dead. Image courtesy of Focus Entertainment.
Being an open-world adventure, there are numerous collectibles, secrets, upgrades, and hidden treasures to find. Unfortunately, the level design makes doing a completionist run a pain. While there is fast-travel by using campfires (where you’re also able to swap skills, upgrade gear, and rest to refill healing items), there’s also an extreme amount of backtracking to older areas once you’ve unlocked the latest traversal ability if you want to get all those missed chests.
One map checklist item has you delving into Void Breaches, which are combat challenges that offer strong gear as a reward but, upon completing them, spit you out at a completely different part of the map from where you entered. The game does reward you greatly for exploration, but the map may be a little too sprawling; there are numerous paths to the same objective, and some paths are so intricately and deliberately designed to make you want to explore, but ultimately yield a common crafting material at the end of it. The juice is hardly worth the squeeze, so to speak.
You can mainline the story in about 18-20 hours, but may feel underpowered if you don’t fully traverse all of what New Eden has to offer.
The gear menu is reminiscent of many live-service games. Image courtesy of Focus Entertainment.
Throughout my roughly 25-hour runtime with Banishers, I did experience a handful of crashes and bugs. In the opening minutes, Antea glitched into a bookcase and I had to restart the game completely. One of my crashes was right after a boss fight, mid-cutscene. I had to restart and fight the boss over again, but l knew the patterns and was able to take it down quicker than my initial run. Luckily, the game has a generous auto-save system, so the crashes never really set me back too far. It needs some TLC, but with quality of life improvements over time, the game should run fairly smoothly.
Great voice acting, satisfying combat once you’ve hurdled the learning curve, and well-designed side narratives are where Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden shines, while constant bugs and crashes, tedious exploration, and shoddy camera work do a disservice to immersion. By no means a bad game, there are some design decisions that left me my scratching my head. With so many anticipated AAA titles coming in 2024, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden doesn’t stand out too well amongst the pack, but is a must-try when things slow down.
by Myles Obenza
