Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is another of DON’T NOD and Focus Entertainment’s finest.
Undoubtedly, DON’T NOD and Focus Entertainment are among the video game industry’s most dynamic and creative studios. The team’s track record on Life is weird, and Vampyr demonstrates their ability to craft a narrative-driven game. In light of that, the French developer’s current work is nonetheless a logical progression from its debut action RPG, Vampyr, to this spiritual successor.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, the thematic sequel to Vampyr, was unveiled at The Game Awards 2023 and was initially supposed to be released on November 7th; however, it has been postponed due to two of their releases of Harmony: The Fall of Reverie and Jusant in 2023. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is finally here, and it puts us in the shoes of exciting people who have made tough choices and whose destinies hang in the balance as we decide what happens to them. This action role-playing game takes its cues from God of War, and DON’T NOD has created a world where ghosts run rampant.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden welcomes us to the year 1695, where we’re in total control of not one but two characters. Antea Duarte and Red mac Raith are Banishers, ghost-hunters who’ve taken an oath to protect the living from terrifying specters and ghosts. But they’re also lovers.
A binding, intimate, and powerful yet dark love tale between a destined couple in this single-player action role-playing experience. Upon the catastrophic events of a mission, Antea became fatally wounded, then ultimately became the spirit she despised. Now, in the haunted wilds of North America, Antea and Red seek ways to free Antea from her new predicament.
New Eden is a small community that so happens to be haunted. They both aim to stick by the small community to solve the haunting cases in a mysterious world infested with evil-spirited creatures and dark, ancient secrets. In your journey, you must make the toughest decisions that will undoubtedly impact the story’s outcomes and the fate of the small community’s inhabitants. Moreover, as a bonus, you can view incredible, jaw-dropping cutscenes.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden’s combat is exciting, very exciting. In fact, this is one of the biggest reasons why you should get this game. You get to choose your gameplay with multiple combat styles that are available to you. With the combination of Red’s traditional weaponry and Antea’s unique magic and spirit abilities, you both form a two-person power trip that can stop anyone or anything that tries to get in your path.
Plus, the regular transitioning between Red and Antea during fights is incredible, the magic is mesmerizing, their abilities are great to use, and the mechanics and animations are strongly addictive and worthy of showing off. Not to mention, as you enjoy the story and the side quests, you’ll evolve up and unlock and upgrade new gears and abilities and witness the Banishers’ strengths and powers at their best. And use an abundance of valuables from your inventory.
The love for Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden’s gameplay is, again, largely due to a few resemblances to the Norse mythology editions of the God of War games. One key example is Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden’s button controls, which are almost identical to God of War, including the combat.
You have the right bumper and trigger for both light and heavy attacks and combos and the left bumper to either block or parry. As well as the games that have similar close third-person camera view perspectives, the open world, and linear environmental designs. There are other combat mechanics in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden that make it more interesting, such as the Banishment system.
The Banishment system is a special attack that finishes off the weaker enemies and takes considerable damage from the stronger ones and bosses. It’s the orange gauge that’s located at the bottom left side that requires that you attack enemies with your weapon to recharge it. Once it’s filled up, you simultaneously unleash a devastating attack and cool animation on your targeted enemy. If you wish to speed up the recharging process, you’d have to hold the right trigger for a charged attack.
Thankfully, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden allows you to recharge the gauge quite easily, as long as you’re not being too passive. It’s also worth mentioning that blocking doesn’t completely protect you because doing so will consume health, and the longer you block, you’ll end up stunned, possibly leading to death, which is why it’s imperative to learn to perfect parry at the correct times. Or at least dodge the attacks.
To help you more during fights, there are different colored threat indicators that signal where the enemies that are out of sight are and what they’re about to do. A red indicator means an incoming attack. The orange indicator means an incoming projectile, and the green indicator means a specter is about to possess a corpse. By the way, you can interrupt the possession process by attacking the specters. Pay attention to the color of the indicators; they really do help.
When Antea became a spirit, she developed magical abilities to help with combat and haunting cases. Will elaborate on the latter in a few moments. As for the combat aspect, if you were to press the right bumper, Antea could land basic punching attacks, plus these attacks inflict more damage to possessed corpses. Furthermore, attacking with Antea will consume spirit points regenerated by Red’s attacks. Antea also has special attacks called manifestations.
There are two you’ll love, and the first manifestation you get is called ‘The Leap’ manifestation, which allows her to launch toward a targeted enemy and execute savaging punches. This also destroys a ghost or specter’s guard, followed by landing a large portion of damage to the enemy. Another manifestation is the ‘outburst’ that, when charged, will deliver a powerful spectral explosion to enemies within close proximity.
When it comes to the weapons, Red’s primary weapons are his saber and rifle. Two very powerful weapons that unleash devastating effects on the creatures. Now, Red cannot throw his saber like Kratos from God of War Ragnarök throws his axe. However, he can inflict a great deal of damage from range with his rifle. But, because of the rifle’s age, it takes some time to be able to reload the rifle. In the meantime, you can use the saber to slice and dice your enemies.
Banishers: Ghosts of Eden’s combat can be pretty exciting and immersive, but with the enemy variety, you’d expect much more. It’s not a huge deal to focus on, but having said that, fighting only a few types of enemies can be quite frustrating. Plus, the movement during combat, or even running, is a little clunky and needs a bit more polishing to it. Other than the understandably slow reload time, there’s no problem with the shooting. Nonetheless, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden has an enjoyable combat experience.
But when you’re not in battles, you’re doing other crucial activities in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, like investigating haunting cases. You can explore the small community and interrogate the inhabitants, find clues, and so on to obtain more knowledge for your cases and learn more about the curse in New Eden. With hints, they contain key information about the person that they’re linked to.
Red and Antea can also perform different kinds of rituals to get more hints and other information for your investigations. The circumstances of the site will depend on what ritual you must perform. To reveal them, you must collect the required recourses in order to perform the rituals. The harkening ritual reveals memories. Make-manifest rituals make ghosts and specters reveal themselves. A summoning scourge ritual will summon a powerful specter named Scourge to appear, leading to a boss fight.
For example, you’ll need three pyrites, chunks of faded brass-like ore. And you’ll need just one seashore candle, a thin, medium-sized plant with long leaves. Get them, mix them together, and you can perform eye-gazing rituals. But you must carefully select the correct ritual because rituals will consume the resources, even if you pick the wrong one.
With the magic for an investigation, Antea can unveil and interact with hidden spectral elements. In this mode, she brings Red to the other side of the veil and displays ethereal elements like spectral stains or webs. When Red’s Bane ring on his right wrist is triggered with a blue aura light, he’s close to the elements. You’d need to switch to Antea for her to uncover the hidden sources.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden has one of the best-written, captivating, immersive, and dramatic stories in a video game I’ve ever played, followed by incredible combat mechanics, abilities, weapons, and animations. Albeit, it needs a little more polishing to get a more playable fighting experience. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a game that’ll grab and maintain your interest, and I would recommend yet another fine project from Focus Entertainment to anyone. Yes, including God of War fans.
