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Ghost busting in colonial America should be spookier than this

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Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

9.4

CinematicVampireAction RPGActionHuntingDemonsRPGHorror

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SHOULD I PLAY BANISHERS: GHOSTS OF NEW EDEN?

Check this one out if you’re a fan of other games from developer Don’t Nod, like Tell Me Why and Vampyr. In Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden you play a pair of ghost hunters—the banishers in the title—who have traveled to colonial New England to find their mentor and colleague, who has warned them of a terrible curse. It’s a great setting with some beautifully drawn characters filling out the story, but it unfolds at an awkwardly slow pace and features mediocre (if inoffensive) combat.

TIME PLAYED

I played five hours of Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. Much of that time was spent getting to know the two main characters, Antea and Red, and working my way through the lengthy introduction that sees them arrive in the haunted village of New Eden and confront the specter in the town’s meeting house. I learned about the various rituals the banishers use to find clues and summon ghosts, upgraded my equipment using materials I foraged, and eventually traveled to a hunters’ camp on my way back to New Eden after the first fateful encounter with the powerful ghost there. I also completed two of the game’s many haunting investigations, which involved interviewing the people involved and following up on clues that led me to the ghost’s motivations and grievances.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT BANISHERS: GHOSTS OF NEW EDEN?

• Great central characters. Antea and Red are partners in the banishing business as well as in life, and the love they have for each other is the emotional core of Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. They’re well written and performed magnificently, and I found it easy to like and admire both of them. Antea was the more experienced banisher, while Red was more of an apprentice, and when people they met made incorrect assumptions about who was in charge, Red was quick to correct them, courteously but firmly. As the plot developed, their relationship was pushed to what would normally be the breaking point, and I was rooting for them every step of the way.

• The setting feels fresh. Strangely, there are very few games set in the American colonial period, and as anyone who’s seen Robert Eggers’ The Witch knows, it’s perfect for spooky stories. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden definitely isn’t as scary as The Witch—I thought it was more on par with the beginning of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow. Still, the untamed wilderness of 17th century New England had an undeniable witchy menace to it, and I enjoyed exploring the areas around New Eden and the hunters’ camp, poking into dark caves and clambering up sheer cliffs to try to catch a better view of the surrounding forest.

• Paranormal investigations. Banishing ghosts is a lot more complicated than just showing up with a proton pack and blasting away. I had to figure out the root cause of the haunting each time I accepted a banishment job. Ghosts always had a reason for being somewhere and causing mayhem, and in order to send them on their way, I had to get Red and Antea to figure out what that reason was. This usually involved interviewing the people affected by the haunting and finding any physical object that was acting as a tether to hold the spirit in the world of the living.

Each case was interesting and surprising, and they all ended with a fascinating choice: I had to decide whether to forcefully banish the ghost, allow it to peacefully ascend on its own, or blame one of the living people involved in the haunting. There were consequences for each course of action, and I’m genuinely curious to find out how it’ll all play out.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT BANISHERS: GHOSTS OF NEW EDEN?

• Combat is clunky. The combat system isn’t bad, but it’s certainly nothing to write home about. The enemy lock-on system felt a bit unresponsive at times, and I was frustrated on several occasions when I tried to unleash my charged special attack and nothing happened. Apart from that, there wasn’t much to complain about—but on the other hand, nothing to highlight and applaud, either. Even with the ability to instantly swap between Red and Antea during fights, I never found them particularly interesting or challenging.

• The creep factor is missing. I kept waiting for Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden to start getting properly scary as I played through the opening hours, and that just never happened, despite the game having plenty of opportunities to spook me. Maybe it was building toward a more intense middle and ending, but I felt the initial setup was missing an eerie punch that could have added a welcome level of dread to everything that followed. We’re hunting colonial ghosts, right? This ought to be scary!

• A very slow start. It took a couple hours for me to reach a point in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden that wasn’t completely on rails, and even five hours in, I felt I had very few options about where to go or what to do next. The action was frequently interrupted by cutscenes and dialogue, and a lot of the time I was in control was spent simply walking down long, empty trails to my next objective with nothing much happening to break up the trips. A slower-paced game is fine, but Banishers felt a bit too barren as I explored the initial areas.