Since Gamescom 2023, I’ve been talking a lot about Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden and the potential this game offers. For me, this Don’t Nod project was the most impressive game I got to try out during the German congress, and so I was a little disappointed, but also happy that the game was postponed at the last minute and won’t be in 2023 appear. Now that it’s on sale and I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy this narrative adventure, it’s clear that the extra time was beneficial to refine and improve the performance at the last minute, but also to shoot this one Play on a Titan in the heart of February 2024.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is Don’t Nod’s latest project, which is completely different from what we expected from the French company. This is not a story where narrative comes first and gameplay second, where current societal trends are embraced and the characters are portrayed as artistic and very progressive individuals who are essentially trying to shake up the status quo, like it was the case. in Life in Strange and Harmony: The Fall of Reverie, for example. Banishers is more akin to the modern God of War sequels, with fast-paced combat and exploration accompanying a central, powerful and mystical story revolving around two very coherent and developed characters. In many ways it’s Don’t Nod through and through, but at the same time this project feels completely unique, truly top notch and AAA, and different to what we’ve come to expect from the French studio, with Vampyr perhaps being the only previous project title intended to be published. Fits a similar project.
The story of this game is set in North America at the end of the 17th century and follows the ghost hunter duo consisting of the Cuban Antea Duarte and the Scot Red mac Raith. These two very unique characters act as mentor and student, but also as lovers, and it is these two dynamics that form the majority of the character construction throughout the story, even more so when Antea is murdered very early on in a mission and leaves his Ghost (the same spectral entity that the couple has been eliminating throughout their lives). From here, the story takes the pair through the lands of New Eden as they attempt to discover the core of the great threat looming over the North American colony, while making important decisions to bring Antea back to life. Or vice versa, let his spirit die. In typical Don’t Nod fashion, these decisions affect the narrative in numerous ways, culminating in an ending that depends on the choices you make.
Advertising:
Don’t Nod’s narrative brilliance is never once in question in this game. The characters seem real and have enormous depth, the story itself is complex and has unexpected twists, and the branching dialogue offers the player numerous opportunities to manipulate the narrative as they wish. Be it simply in the way people relate to red (and only red, since most NPCs cannot see Antea in her spectral form) or in the way they make critical decisions that relate to that Affect lives of NPCs by either blaming them for their actions and ripping their soul from their body by choosing to banish a spirit that haunts a living person, or allowing that spirit to gently leave the plane of existence of the living to rise. Don’t Nod h asn’t held back when it comes to letting its narrative excellence shine.
The combat is also solid. It’s not as polished as God of War’s and lacks some of the subtleties that make Santa Monica Studio’s battles so lively and fluid. But essentially it works, and the options offered by Red’s unique attacks and Antea’s unique abilities give the player a lot of freedom in how they approach combat scenarios. The most important thing about combat, however, is that it’s not as difficult as you might first think. Most enemies are fairly predictable, slow, and easy to avoid, and since Antea is a ghost, you can’t die while you’re in her form, which reduces the difficulty. This means he is able to use Antea’s melee combat to destroy a specter’s wards before switching to red to put a musket ball into the specter’s skull, deliver a few slashes with his sword and finally the Using the Banish move to deal massive damage and end the fight works effortlessly in practice. What’s not so effective in the action are the action RPG elements, such as rarely needed healing potions, and also the way progression works.
Advertising:
Although the narrative keeps the player engaged and constantly moving, the RPG elements feel more like an afterthought. As you gain experience, you level up to improve basic attributes and earn skill points, which you can spend on skill trees to unlock new skills and combos. Additionally, you can find objectives and activities around the world to further improve certain attributes and collect tons of resources that you can spend on improving your items and equipment. The system basically works, but it lacks meaning as you never have to think about how to improve and evolve Red and Antea, simply because the combat is never really challenging. It seems that Don’t Nod is aware of this. The resource system, for example, could be something that you think of solely as a background activity, where every time you arrive at a camp you simply check whether you have enough petals to upgrade Red’s armor or brooch, or whether you have completed enough have “Spectral Nests” or “Void Voyages” side quests to obtain the rarest resource required to upgrade a level five item to six. The point is that he is present but not running the game.
This extends to the activities of the world. The disturbing side quests are fantastic and essentially act as little story arcs with important decisions tied to the main story. But the remaining tasks are significantly less interesting. If anything, start treating it like other open-world games, where you see a question mark on the map and decide whether the landmark is actually worth visiting to discover. Unless you like finding an activity that you can repeat over and over to earn resources that you never actually need to spend.
But here’s the thing: the lackluster world activities and RPG elements don’t detract from the fact that Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is an exceptionally compelling story. From the very first moment you will be fascinated by the story of Antea and Red and the contract they have been entrusted to fulfill. As you travel through the world, arrive in beautiful, well-designed new locations and biomes, meet strange new characters and fight cruel bosses that begin to explain why New Eden is as haunted as it is, everything falls into place brilliant for reasons. If you’re looking for a narrative adventure game, there’s a lot to enjoy here, and Don’t Nod deserves praise for that, especially for creating a game that feels AAA and premium and not overloaded with microtransactions or anything like that is this. It’s a fantastic example of what Don’t Nod can achieve, and while there is room for improvement, overall it’s an excellent product.
