Welcome to Banishers Ghosts of New Eden, the New World. An untamed, untarnished landscape of natural beauty, replete with towering cliffs, deep caverns and grottos full of gorgeous, lush vegetation. The newly colonised America of the late 1600s is an absolutely stunning environment, from the rain-swept plains to the snowy mountain highs, New England is a naturalist’s dream come true.
But all that beauty comes with its own price because America is an old world, full of old – and new – terrors. While the Sun may shine sublimely down upon emerald green leaves, pervading darkness cloaks the land and chokes the life from its inhabitants. You see, New England is haunted and the dead are very, very angry.
Enter Red Mac Raith and Antea Duarte, the eponymous Banishers of the title. Best described as exorcists, it’s a Banisher’s job to find out why the dead are haunting someone or something and lay them to rest. Red and Antea have been called to New Eden, a settlement in New England under siege from a ghost the likes of which no one has seen. But things don’t go as planned and with Antea meeting an untimely demise and Red dropping into the ocean, all hope seems lost.
But Red’s life is far from over and before long he finds himself the very epitome of that which he and Antea have been cleansing: a haunted man. For Antea, her love and need for revenge, is far too strong and now she and Red will have to stop the terrible Nightmare at the centre of New England’s curse. But can a haunted Banisher do what needs to be done when the time comes?
Banishers Ghosts of New Eden is the latest narrative-driven action RPG from developers Don’t Nod. Building upon the groundwork laid down in their previous action RPG, Vampyr, Don’t Nod has improved upon everything that made that action RPG such a joy to play. With complicated characters, a fantastic story and plenty of RPG systems to build your character on, Banishers Ghosts of New Eden is a game that both feels fresh and interesting while being entirely familiar.
The core of Banishers Ghosts of New Eden is the game’s story and characters. It’s all about choice and consequences in New Eden because, as much as Banishers Ghosts of New Eden is an action RPG, it’s also a slight detective game built upon the choices you make. New Eden is full of hauntings, from the various spectres that waylay you on the roads like undead highwaymen to the haunted inhabitants who may have just brought it upon themselves.
As with Vampyr, you’re going to have to determine the outcome of these hauntings based on the knowledge you discover and the ghost’s motives. These choices tie into the game’s overall driving quandary; whether or not you resurrect Antea or send her on into the afterlife. Early on you’re asked to make a decision on whether or not to be a Banisher or a lover first, both of which have major consequences and can be harder to do than you may surmise.
Resurrecting Antea will require you to sacrifice people and harvest their life force which, of course, goes against the Banisher’s creed. Ultimately this is where your choices come into play and will determine one of the game’s multiple endings. While all of the cases are interesting to play through, requiring you to act like a 17th-century Sherlock Holmes by following up on clues, questioning people and manifesting memories, the final choices are, sadly, less subtle or in-depth about their closure. Essentially you’re given three choices, one of which counts towards Antea’s resurrection while the other two contribute to her ascension.
You’re left with Blaming the human, which sacrifices them Ascending the ghost to heavenly realms unknown or Banishing them to fiery pits unknown. With the amount of care put into the story, and giving each character their own voice, it’s a shame there’s ultimately less choice in how you bring about closure, especially when some of the living are far more dastardly than the angered dead.
It may tie into the Banishers creed of “Life to the living, death to the dead”, but it did make me wish that there was more depth to the consequences, such as in Vampyr where each choice had me scrutinizing the possible outcomes and benefits versus the downside.
While there are plenty of cases to solve, it won’t be all you’re doing in Banishers Ghosts of New Eden. Your journey will take you across the semi-open world of New England, across the Atlantic Coast and the depths of its forests and mountains.
Here Don’t Nod embraces traditional open-world design, filling up the space with items to collect to either sell or perform rituals with, nests of spectres to clear, Elite Spectres to fight, gear to collect and lore to discover. There are plenty of side activities to take on that you will either enjoy or prefer to disregard.
Elite spectre fights are a necessary must because each one defeated gives you a permanent stat upgrade to all of your stats. Here the game embraces its RPG roots with a levelling up system and a series of gear to collect, from new armour and weapons to rings and amulets. These are worth collecting as each item comes with its own stats and ability perk, which determines, slightly, your character build and play style. If you favour an in-your-face button-mashing approach, then that sword and brand set that gives you 7% health back on enemy death is just right for you, for instance.
Combat in Banishers Ghosts of New Eden isn’t an afterthought, as Antea plays a far more active role than simply allowing you to see hidden spectral caches or shedding light onto interrogation answers. While still a spirit that follows you, prompting conversations that lay the characters’ identities bare, Antea is also useful in a fight. You can swap between Red and Antea at the press of a button and Antea’s spectral punches are more useful for some enemies than others.
Levelling up opens up perks that you can buy with stat points though, like the gear, you have to pay attention to each of the perks uses and how it fits into your combat style, especially since you can only have one perk in a certain set for both Red and Antea active at once. It helps to keep you from becoming overpowered while being thoughtful about whether or not an extra melee attack at the end of the combo is worth more than a perfect dodges switch attack that ignores an enemy’s guard.
Banishers Ghosts of New Eden embraces some Souls-like designs as well in its elements. There are fires to rest at in which you can enhance your gear, unlock skills and replenish health flasks, which also respawn enemies and items. The combat is very Souls-like in execution, with light and heavy attacks, dodge and dodge rolls, guarding that only negates some damage and a parry system which is meant to be your main combat tool. While Banishers Ghosts of New Eden combat can be challenging, it’s not Souls-like challenging at all and there are difficulty levels you can change between at any time if you do find yourself on the receiving end.
I’m less fond of Banishers Ghosts of New Eden combat than I am of its other systems. I think the camera is too close in combat and therefore obscures most of the battlefield, though there are directional indicators around you to indicate where attacks are coming from. And the system is punctuated with other little niggles such as camera issues and the game occasionally ignores both the light and hard lock-ons which sees you wailing past a spook with a flurry of attacks at times.
Banishers Ghosts of New Eden is absolutely stunning and one of the best uses of Unreal Engine I’ve seen to sell its natural world. The towering cliff walls, the heavy, green vegetation and the sun shining down on the ocean are just some of this game’s lovely scenery highlights. The muddy roads of New Eden and the foggy forests across the Atlantic Coast look fantastic through the game’s easy-to-use photo mode. Thankfully the visuals are backed up by some great voice acting, which really helps to sell the hopelessness and despair leaning on New Eden.
Banishers Ghosts of New Eden is another fantastic action RPG from Don’t Nod. With a great story, interesting choices and some stunning visuals, Banishers is the most fun you can have busting ghosts without an unlicensed nuclear accelerator strapped to your back.
Banishers Ghosts of New Eden – Gameplay Overview Trailer
Read more of our reviews here https://invisioncommunity.co.uk/category/review/
You must be logged in to post a comment.