Impressions from the game Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Maybe it’s just me, but while I remember the impressive reveal trailer and storyline of this game, for some reason I always thought it was going to be another “dialogue adventure” in the style of Life is Strange, the creators of which from the French studio Don’t Nod are perhaps the most famous. While you’ll also find this style of storytelling and gameplay in the game, it’s actually a fairly large-scale action adventure where you’ll explore a vast desert and fight with sword, rifle and magic against all sorts of supernatural monsters.

I was given the opportunity to try out almost the entire second chapter of the game on PC, and I must admit, that wasn’t the only surprise I got. The game tells the story of lovers named Anthea and Red, who, in the fictional setting of New Eden (set in Massachusetts in 1695), engage in exorcisms, which sometimes involve spells and rituals, but sometimes involve good old-fashioned sword and rifle work. The couple’s situation is complicated somewhat by the fact that Anthea dies during one of these hunts. But this can’t separate the lovers, and Anthea now continues to accompany Red, although he is the only one who can see and hear her spirit. Incidentally, the entries in the main menu indicate that Anthea’s death will be seen in the first chapter of the game, but it was not included in this demo.

The basic structure of the game involves traveling between the manors of this “New Paradise” in the 17th century American desert, where you will gradually investigate and eventually punish the attacks of all sorts of ghostly entities – the game divides them into several different categories and has different nomenclature for them, even weapons or rituals. While each such hunt represents a chapter of the story, in the background there is a main plot unfolding, in which you have the opportunity to not only figure out the mysterious reasons for Anthea’s death… but, depending on your decisions along the way, you can also decide whether your darling will be resurrected at the end of the game, or, conversely, you will help her quietly “ascend” to the next level of existence and thus grant her soul salvation. This in itself may indicate that resurrection will have some unpleasant side effects – from what I could see, it may involve the elimination and absorption of those who perhaps do not deserve it. I dare to reveal all this, because the creators and characters either do not hide it at all, or, perhaps, deliberately lead the player in the wrong direction.

Anyway, in the second chapter you will first have to carefully negotiate the terms of your mission, which will be to hunt down a mysterious “wolf beast” terrorizing one of the local settlements, with the right dialogue choices. This settlement is run by a pair of sisters, the older, scarred “Thick-skinned Newsmith”, who is extremely ruthless in helping a handful of settlers survive the brutal ravages of the wild. However, the younger Kate is very upset by her sister’s behavior, and you will have to carefully sort out the relationship between them, not least to get her younger sister to lend you her musket for this dangerous mission. The game also features an inventory, collecting all sorts of raw materials and upgrading your clothes, weapons and talismans, as we are used to in RPGs (including a color scale differentiating the level of a given item).

After that tense sequence where you have to choose your words carefully when communicating with the two sisters, I headed out into the desert to look for signs of the mysterious beast. By the way, you only control one character at a time, but you can switch between Red and Anthea at any time – each has their own unique abilities during both exploration and combat. Over the next hour or so, I explored all sorts of tracks in the wilderness (wrecked stagecoaches, colonist corpses, suspiciously large wolf tracks, etc.) and made my way through a small cave labyrinth along the way. It all culminated in an encounter with a truly enormous wolf, made partly of trees, partly of corpses. This boss had three different (but fairly quick) phases, where I had to direct my attacks to different parts of its body. After defeating it and figuring out why this evil spirit had appeared in this region in the first place, I had to make a decision and pass judgment on the two sisters who had a lot to do with it.

I was extremely impressed by the overall setting of the game and all the characters, not just the central couple. All the dialogue is written in a very historical and rough way, which makes it feel human and helps to stand out from the difficult choices you have to make all the time. I also really enjoyed the exploration and combat, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s always the right amount of time and the right level of difficulty, at least in the second chapter. Incidentally, the game has five adjustable difficulty levels, so it can easily appeal to both players looking for action and challenges, as well as those who are only interested in the story. Art-wise, the game reminded me a lot of the style of Life is Strange, although of course it has a much cooler color palette considering the setting and genre. Technically, it pedaled relatively well, but it’s clear that it could use some performance optimization. In any case, I quickly grew to like both main characters and I’m very excited to see how their story unfolds when the game launches on PC and new consoles on November 7th.