Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden (2024)

I'll be open about the fact that part of my high regard for this game probably comes because the themes dovetail with this stage of my life, and so YMMV. But if it had come out years ago, as was the apparent original plan, I think I still would have finished it and thought that that was a remarkable experience, and one worth playing if the concept interests you. Some of the themes are on the heavier side and while I found the game to be hopeful overall, this might not be the one to reach for if you are looking for escapism from some of the horrors of our present world.

Banishers is quite beautifully written. Red and Antea made for fantastic company on this journey, and their relationship is one of my favorite depictions of any romance in a game. The supporting cast is by and large full of pretty unpleasant people, while still being so compelling that as much as I was repulsed by some of them, I was still deeply invested in what came next for them and agonized over some of the moral choices. Unfortunately, the gameplay mechanics really trip up the story after a certain point. Combat has some great ideas, but partway through the game it stopped being fun. This ties into the real weakness of the game: pacing. Banishers is one of those games with an open world and not enough content to reasonably fill it. The environments are gorgeous, but once the combat loses its charm the maps start to feel bloated. There's a lot of running back and forth and getting pulled into increasingly dull combat encounters that you just can't run away from. Side content is needed for earning your epilogue and it helps flesh out the main story (and much of it is quite well-written), but paired with the open world, that puts the taut main story on the backburner for too long at times. Tightening up the maps and adding some anti-frustration features would have been welcome. As it is, I plan to make use of mods and trainers on my next playthrough.

While the open world doesn't serve the game, this definitely ranks as a favorite of mine. Four stars out of my customary four.

A bit over halfway, and I'm enjoying this so far. I think it's quite well written, and definitely shows how the studio has kept growing stronger over time. That said, I do think that one weakness with the narrative is that there's not a lot of differentiation between Ascending and Banishing spirits. Red and Antea differ on which one to use (the pro-banish Antea says her way is safer, the pro-ascent Red says his is gentler), but I don't feel like the game explains the difference or the narrative really explores it. Not having that nuance undercuts most of the big dramatic choices that have come up.

I also think the game could have benefited from an option to reexplore or double down on your Oath partway through. I could see our increasingly disillusioned protagonists either giving up on doing the "right" thing and going all in, or committing to the promise they made to either hold fast to their vows or to burn it all down for each other. It might not change anything, but it'd be an interesting bit of writing.

This game is like a hauntingly beautiful, melancholic melody that sticks with you long after you're played it. Dark, cold, depressing, desolate, quiet, introspective, rich with lore, story, characters. All backed by beautiful serene landscapes, oscar-worthy acting, and high production costs that help enhance the overall experience.

My only gripe with the game is that the combat did end up getting repetitive with minimal enemy variety (the boss fights were very cool though), and just ultimately too long. By the halfway mark I was ready to just rush through to the end.

I believe this is the same creatives at Dont Nod who also developed the also awesome, criminally underrated Vampyr game which is also worth checking out.

Rich stories, well-written characters, and cool but simple combat. However, I cannot give it 4 stars because:

• same unskippable mini cutscenes for every little interaction, such as stopping to rest, canceling resting, opening doors, installing rope to climb down, using abilities, casting spells...
• the map is boring, making exploration feel like a heavy chore and navigation difficult because it's easy to accidentally circle around since everything looks the same. Trees, rocks, barrels, wooden boxes, and more trees. I didn't experience 'stop to enjoy the scenery' moment like I did when playing Horizon.
• requires you to progress through the game to unlock some areas, forcing you to revisit the same places again and again
• some areas are not worth exploring imo. The rewards are underwhelming. Probably just for people who wants to collect achievement

I'd say give it a try for 2 hours and see how you feel from there.

This game apparently wasn't promoted a lot, I stumbled upon it by accident (on Reddit iirc) as it was praised for its emotional storytelling. I'm a sucker for a good story any day, so I was hooked.

Unfortunately Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden could not convince me on several levels:

• The battle system was not my cup of tea at all. It's mostly melee with very limited possibilities. There's a light and a heavy attack that needs loading, these two are the default attacks for both characters, using those two builds up a gauge for a banishing attack (this is the strongest attack available). Red can also use a rifle (that needs forever to reload) and Antea has a leap attack. Overall, this struck me as very off the mill. Sure, there is a skill tree that can empower certain abilities, but I'm not much of a melee fan and this couldn't convince me, it felt awfully repetitive (I still managed to get the trophy for winning all the battle pits in Horizon Forbidden West, so I can excel in melee when I find the battle system motivating).
• The characters did not really reach me on an emotional level. The relationship/romance between Red and Antea is a central part of the story and I just didn't feel it. Antea seems rather cool and collected while Red is the more emotional part of the duo and that dynamic just gave me buddy vibes, but not at all romantic. While I usually root for the character or team I play, these two did not convince me at all, I found their personalities rather flat and bland. I really liked Antea's sarcastic sense of humor though, but other than that, I found no connection.
• The Haunting Cases (which are basically quests) are very lackluster for my taste. It's always the same: search this and that area, pick up the highlighted clues, open the case file to see the final solution and confront the people involved. I would have preferred some sort of puzzle element here, I wanted so much to be more involved in those cases. I felt like just being in the audience. The only thing I actually got to do was to decide how to end the misery at hand: blame a living person, banish or ascend the ghost.
• Fast traveling sucks big time in this game. You can only fast travel from a camp and those are few and far between, so brace yourselves for doing a lot of walking.
• Then there's the minor point that the character's facial animations were very PS3 level, but that's something I can gladly live with when everything else is great.

Parts I enjoyed:

• The equipment options and the upgrading system. Sure it wasn't exactly innovative, but it was fun anyhow. I love upgrading.
• The overall atmosphere was great, this game has some seriously eerie sequences that are well crafted.
• Exploring the map was fun, there are some areas that aren't too easy to reach so it's a bit of a puzzle to find out how to get there. This was really well done.
• There are some cursed chests that contain new equipment and can be opened by casting a spell with certain voodoo-like dolls that can be found all over the map. Also a fun part!

Unfortunately the negative parts weighed heavier for me than the positive and I found myself increasingly bored. Therefore, I gave up after 27 hours into the game, which I consider a fair chance. Off to the next adventure.

So, after taking a relatively lengthy break, I have finally finished this game.

I loved the premise. I loved the hauntings. I loved the characters and their stories. I loved the voice acting, and the general art direction. I loved the music.

That being said, the game was flawed. There was far too much empty space for the amount of story the game tells. Far too much walking. More damning still, far too much back-tracking. Far too many pointless fights with far too little variety when it comes to bosses.

I also didnt particularly love the fighting system, though I suppose some fights were challenging enough and that made them enjoyable.

I played the Resurrection ending, and saw the others on youtube. I am content with how each one plays out. I knew from the start Resurrection was not gonna be bliss and flowers. It wasn't in Life is Strange, and it isn't here. That being said, in both cases, and perhaps for all the endings, I wish they elaborated just a little more. All the endings feel a tad rushed, even if ultimately satisfying.

I would definitely be interested in another game that kept the good and improved the bad, namely the too-big world and the less-than-stellar fighting.

The conclusion was touching, and the overall story was pretty good, but the gameplay didn't work for me. Combat felt repetitive and pretty easy most of the time - more like a chore to get out of the way.

The "open-world" wasn't fun to explore or even move through. Felt pointless. Just 2-3 activities to do in the world and most of them were boring and not fun. Liked some of the side-missions and how they change depending on your choices throughout them.

There's replayability here, but I doubt I'll play it again to see the outcome of different choices.

An emotionally intense journey with satisfying RPG elements and a world beautifully designed. Thank god it was not all open world, otherwise i would have bored myself to death after 2 hours. Everything seems in a near perfect balance ( graphics, sound, story, characters, design).

The universe is rich and it does not only hit into your moral compass, it takes you by the hand and slowly buries you into its personal hell, giving you enough space to resurface and breath, so you can dive again and clean everything below.

Could be better i guess..

• combat is dull and wonky. theres only like couple types of enemies and u just hit2. harder difficulty just make them bullet sponge not smarter. only 1-2 hard fights
• voice and lip syncing out of place sometimes. buggy environment, screen tearing
• to me, the chemistry between the main characters are just not there.. kinda too forced of a romance and end up feel like they are acting in play or something..Antea particularly .. her personality also non consistent from start to finish.

But otherwise,

• story is the saving grace . i kinda like the settings and environments. side quests also unique to each other. ( but i prefer a balance between story and gameplay)
• voice acting kinda neat
• graphics okay. facial expressions could be better

on side note, i had some issues fps drop/glitching during traversal and mountains area. finally finish it, moving on 6.5/10 for me

4th Game Completed in 2024

Man, it's been an absolute joy watching the evolution of French developer Don't Nod over time. My first game of theirs was the ambitious but deeply flawed Remember Me, then I played Life is Strange and thought it was pretty good, then I played the criminally underrated Vampyr (which you should absolutely play if you're into late Victorian history or vampire fiction), and now this one.

Banishers is a game set in colonial New England, as two Banishers from England are dispatched to deal with a cursed town. Things go to shit pretty much immediately, and what follows is one hell of an interesting - if somewhat underachieving - story that's exceptionally well-told.

So there's two stories here: One is Banishers, one is The Ghosts of New Eden. The latter is significantly better than the first for a number of reasons, but let's first talk about the good one. The core focus of this story revolves around an exceptionally powerful spirit wreaking absolute mayhem on a small community trying to build itself up. Figuring out why becomes apparent pretty quickly, but actually setting things right is a lot of work. The people of New Eden are remarkably complex - there's a deep trauma in each and every individual story that led them to the events of seven years ago, and learning about those horrors and healing broken souls is a big focus of this game. At the same time though, the game also has moments of genuine horror. The subject matter is remarkably dark and bleak; true to the era it represents. It tackles complex social issues with a compassionate lens, while introducing a wide cast of seriously interesting characters. Whether you love a townperson's presence or come to despise them, they are exceptionally well-characterized, and very rarely is the morality of a situation black and white. Thickskin Newsmith, Ferdinando Miller, Helen Preese, Flora Abbot, Lammy Haskell and the O'Hara sisters are but a few characters that stick in my mind as, "Holy shit, I've never seen a person like this in a game before, and I'm totally here for it!" These are bizarre, flawed, authentic characters that are given incredible life with outstanding writing and acting behind them.

But the way these traumas manifest - in hauntings, in physical embodiments of rage, in the way the whole game constantly feels damp, and dirty, and off is really an achievement in storytelling. There's some truly exceptional stuff in here - even in the sound design and art direction. And there's some setpiece boss fights that are just some genuine WOW moments of theming, of art, of emotional impact... Absolutely stunning. The main story is exceptionally strong, though it's kind of divided into like three chunks based on the region you're traversing through. The entire Fort Jericho section in particular stands out as one of the better segments of a game in recent memory... There's some really cool shit going on there. The only real weak portions mostly occur through the Mire Lands, which is meant to be a sort of intermediary connecting the other three chapters together. Overall though, it's a fantastic narrative altogether, and there were a few segments where I was literally sitting there stunned, in complete awe of what I just experienced. Like, just holding my controller, staring at the screen like, "Wow".

The side quests are... A mixed bag. While all of them present an interesting commentary on humans and their relationships, I want to say like 75% kind of feel flat. Not BAD by any means! But just kinda even-keel. But then there's that 25% where you're just like, "Holy shit, that was outstanding," and you just kind of sit there in a state of mild awe. Broadly speaking I think there could have been room to reduce the number of these haunting cases and increase the quality, perhaps adding some better sub-bosses or more intricate event planning. But collectively it's some solid, "7/10, mostly worth your time" kinda thing.

Now the other story. Banishers. sigh Okay. Red is a really well-written, interesting protagonist. A really patient, calm, tolerant dude with a bit of a jokey side. He's, for all intents and purposes, your main character. Antea, the other lead, dies early in the game, and you're given a choice on whether or not you want to give her ascent to the afterlife, or sacrifice the townspeople to revive her with black magic. But here's the thing. Antea sucks. She's miserable, brooding, petulant, constantly berates and condescends Red, starts arguments for no reason, and comes off as extremely manipulative as she's his mentor, on top of being his lover. Yes, she does have a character arc. There's reasons why she's the way she is. But you don't learn any of that until the last, like, 10% of the game. Similarly, she does have some great moments where she stands up for women and marginalized people, but those won't come until several hours in. So when you're given a binary choice AT THE START OF THE GAME of whether to kill people to save this woman, the choice kind of becomes a simple one. Not only that, but that game HEAVILY discourages you from sacrificing the townspeople as, no matter what mistakes they've made, none of them are perfect. There's some good in most people. Not everyone - I did banish two totally irredeemable ghosts. But broadly speaking, you're shamed for killing innocents. So if you're going to make this a choice, and if you're going to heavily market this game as a love story, why do you then write such a toxic, abusive relationship? I'm kind of baffled. She is, nevertheless, a realistic person who has problems, and I do think she's overall quite well-written and well-acted. I just don't like her.

Antea also becomes a bit annoying for the same reason Navi is in Ocarina of Time... EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. you do certain actions in the game world, Antea will chime in with a voice line. Every time an enemy takes aim at you, whether you see it or not, she shouts "Watch out!" like Red is a dumb apprentice. Every time there's a ghost ward, she will mention it, even if the path you're on takes you in and out of a warded zone. And while I know this is a bug, I do think it's hilarious... Even while she's actively fighting, sometimes her voice line, "Can I get a chance to fight too?!" comes out and it's like, GAME, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME. XD

So that segues nicely into the gameplay stuff. I've seen reviews say the combat in this game sucks... It most certainly does not. What sucks is the balancing. On easy, the game is a cakewalk, most of the time. On normal, the enemies are way too damage spongey. But this is also a game that lets you create a set where you can add knockback to every rifle blast, and that knockback causes a shockwave that staggers surrounding enemies, and it will never not be fun to stun-lock some idiot, from range, running at you with a pitchfork. XD It has enough going on mechanically to stay fun, and it's not drowning in systems bloat like a lot of games tend to be nowadays. I do think the encounter rate during traversal of completed areas is too high though, and it doesn't even make much sense in lore. I hit the level cap without ever trying to grind - though I did get like 98% world completion.

So the overworld gameplay itself... Absolutely loved it. Truly. It has some trappings of open world design, and the map does feel maybe like 30% too big, but I got damn near 100% world completion in 64 hours, which I think is totally reasonable. But where the game REALLY shines is in navigation and like... Navigation puzzles. Getting around feels fun. Paths are almost never a straight line, you will frequently wind in and out of caves and crevasses and woodlands and old ruins, and that's aided by an EXCEPTIONAL compass tracker thingy that guides you on the optimal path at all times. Collectibles and items are gated behind these really great environmental puzzles that are well-designed without being too "guess what the developer is thinking". Plus the world itself is GORGEOUS, with lots of really interesting things to see and diverse places to explore.

One thing that does bother me though? The fast travel system. You must run to a campfire to travel to another campfire. You cannot fast travel from the overworld. This alone added several hours to play time that I wish I could have back. The guided navigation mitigates this a lot, but you also can't set a pin manually. You have to rely on whatever waypoints the game gives to you.

It has some technical issues too. It seems to have some weird issue with the cache (PS5 version played) where play sessions of a few hours, or passing through several dense areas in a single session, will cause the game to drop frames and reduce graphical quality. I've seen this in most PS5 and XBSX games, but never this bad. It's a non-issue if you close and restart every couple of hours, but it's a weird problem. I also hate that the map takes like 5-10 seconds to open, which is a massive pain when you're trying to find a specific place that does not have a waypoint.

Overall, I was really impressed with Ghosts of New Eden, and while it does have its issues, it's a very strong package when taken as a whole. I think this is a very strong framework for better games to come, and given some easter eggs that hint at Vampyr and Banishers occuring in the same universe... I'm excited to see what Don't Nod puts out next.

I strongly recommend this one to people who play games for story and atmosphere, though people who demand super complex combat may not jive with it.

Man oh man... Without spoilers, this is the second time this game has left me stunned from the main story. Like just holding the controller and staring at the screen in silence. (The Dark Woods and Fort Jericho main missions, for those who've played it).

I'm really excited to write a review for this one, because there's a lot to say, but my ADHD ass wants to go for 100% world completion and get all the trophies I can. But having completed mooooost of the story now, I can confidently say that this is one strong, well-written narrative.

And that's not even considering the side-quests, which are all self-contained stories in themselves.

I've come around a bit on the character Antea. I actually think she's quite well-written, and she has moments where she's a bit of a badass. But I still find her quite unpleasant, immature, and honestly kind of abusive. The writers did a good job though, they're presenting a flawed person who's been through some shit.

Man... Didn't expect something in this game to tear at the marrow of my bones like this.

Minor spoilers for a side quest in Banishers.

I had the opportunity to seek retribution for a man selling smallpox blankets to indigenous peoples as part of a scheme to take their lands. This is an issue I feel strongly about... Indigenous rights, worldwide, matter immensely to me. But the guy did try to make amends... In his own way. I hate him to my core for what he did, and yet... I feel terrible for killing him. A video game that makes you fundamentally question your morality, that's powerful stuff...

i still think this is a great game, particularly when it comes to character and narrative, but navigating the world really does feel awful. Add backtracking and it becomes atrocious.

Maybe the answer was to not have this sprawling spaces, regardless of how beautiful they are, because a lot of the time they actively work against the game, specially after you seen the first time and are just running back to some new activity or whatever.

Alternatively, they should have just left us fast travel from any point in the map to any established hideout. That would have ameliorated the worst of it at least.

By the GODS do I not like this character of Antea. She is constantly meeting Red's remarks with snide, sarcastic comments. I think the writers believe this shows them as a playful couple, but as someone who's seen most of his family members divorce at one point or another, it strikes me as incredibly toxic and condescending. I hate this character. You're supposed to make a tough decision between helping her spirit ascend and sacrificing the living to revive her... But there isn't even really a dilemma for me. Antea sucks and Red will be a happier man without her.

Overall though, I am REALLY loving this game. Easy GOTY contender for me. The whole game feels "damp" in a way that's tough to describe. Have you ever been camping in the forested lowlands of Canada and the American Northeast? It's that. The cold damp that pierces your bones and saps your energy. Everything feels sullen and uncomfortable and dirty in a way that drives the story, and there are moments of genuine horror that I did not expect from a narrative-driven RPG. Between this one and Vampyr, it's clear that Dontnod have some serious horror chops.

I am really enjoying this game, and its unusually calm and sullen tone, but I have a bit of a gripe.

I really, really do not like the female lead, Antea. She is presented as the male lead, Red's, lover and mentor... But they have absolutely no chemistry. Red has a strong personality, and is unsure of himself as an apprentice, but Antea comes off as both clingy and commanding. Given that she appears to be a bit older than he, it is honestly giving me creepy vibes. Like. She's his teacher. That's a power imbalance. She's emotionally stuff as a board, and I see no reason why these two characters would be lovers, and it all just feels icky.

I've also noticed this thing a lot of Focus-published games do where they have racialized characters, but completely stripped of any culture or authenticity to their identity - often casting white characters in roles of racialized people in an historical setting. Greedfall was REALLY bad for this, where their analogue for indigenous Americans was a racially diverse population of people that spoke with a weird fake Russian accent.

I am not an expert on the social justice of race, and I'll never claim to be, but it makes me feel really uncomfortable when devs use race this way, especially in an historical setting. It makes me feel like racialized people are being white-washed as to "not be offensive," but being inaccurate to who these people are and their cultural differences feels wrong.

With Antea in particular, it feels like they gave her zero personality so she wouldn't be "too black". I can't say if that is the case of not, but it feels that way. The actor really doesn't have much to work with, the character is really written like shit. Red gets all these quirky Scots mannerisms and turns of phrase, but Antea is just a boring Londoner? This ain't it...