Review: Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden – Erasing the Past

Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, GeForce Now, Microsoft Windows

Initial release date: February 12, 2024

Developer: Don’t Nod

Mode: Single-player video game

License: proprietary license

Composer: Trevor Morris

Genres: Role-playing video game, Adventure game, Fighting game

On a chilly, foggy June evening in 1695, Antea Duarte and her lover/protege Red mac Raithe make their way to New Eden Town in search of employment. They are both working as banishers, a kind of investigator, to put an end to a haunting in New Eden Town. It becomes evident that a large portion of the town has been abandoned as our heroes get closer. Are they arriving too late? It appears very likely that they will meet with the key figures in the town’s leadership. The three leaders are not very friendly and are at odds with one another. More significantly, Charles, Red and Antea’s buddy who had called them to assist with the haunting of New Eden Town, has passed away. It becomes evident from speaking with his widow Esther that Charles, a man of God, tried to end the haunting on his own but was assassinated in the process. Shadows, murders, and hauntings from our past. These are the jigsaw pieces that together depict the haunting of New Eden Town in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, the newest game by Dont Nod.

What at first appears to be your typical AAA action-adventure game with some light action-RPG elements—something we’ve all become perhaps a little too used to—turns out to be a deep and intricate tale about sacrifice, love, and the people we leave behind. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden isn’t a novel gaming genre for Dontnod, but it’s one they ought to continue. With hauntings and stories scattered around the area, the story is lively, untidy, and engaging, providing an engrossing glimpse into life in New Eden Town prior to the banishers’ arrival. At its core, Banishers is an action role-playing game. It features an active battle system that lets you cope with a wide range of enemies by dodging, parrying, and using many other moves. Banishers offers a variety of difficulty settings, including a story-only option that considerably eases combat, in addition to an interesting battle system. It’s encouraging to see that a developer with a reputation for crafting compelling storylines understands that their target market is diverse and will consist of a range of gamer types. I finished my game on Normal difficulty, for reference.

Banishers, who play in a soulsian fashion, possess a concoction that gives them health regeneration. Although it can be modified to hold more, this potion only has a limited number of charges. However, banishers can also recover charges by eliminating enemies. The majority of the enemies in this game are lost souls that are stuck between, assuming such places exist, heaven and hell. Ghosts can charge at you from a distance, dance around, or take control of lying bodies. A spirit that is possessed gains more strength and basically gains a second health bar. After you kill the possessed corpse, the ghost will reappear from behind and battle you again; if you’re not careful, you could even have to find another body. When the orange banish bar above your health bar fills up, the player can banish a spirit by either killing it completely or doing serious damage to stronger spirits.

By leveling up your weapons, armor, rings, and concoction, you can increase damage, decrease damage, and improve your health as you advance through Banishers. Similarly, you gain two distinct skill points when you level up through task completion or ghost-killing, or as you finish hauntings. Level ups get you one skill point, which improves your fighting’s more physical elements. Completing hauntings grants you another skill point, which enhances your fighting’s spiritual elements. Every improvement is presented to the player as an either/or choice; accepting one locks out the ability to receive further upgrades. The skill trees are also not very deep; at most, you are only one upgrade away from selecting a certain upgrade if you’re looking at it. The skill point system is based on leveling up and finishing hauntings, although upgrading your gear is entirely linear and depends more on gathering ingredients and completing tasks.

The game Banishers has a lot of depth. My time tracker indicates that I played the game for more than 40 hours, but I only felt like I had about 15 to 20 hours left to play. In addition to hauntings, there are non-combat related activities including finding treasure, uncovering points of interest, and de-cursing cursed objects. You can get elite gems and scourge accretion, which are necessary for upgrading equipment, by finishing these combat challenges where you’ll be facing off against large groups of scourge or a select handful that are extremely strong. The sheer quantity of gear and upgrades needed for every piece of gear in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden may appear overwhelming, but it becomes insignificant in comparison.

I’m not going to go into too much detail regarding the story because there are a few really early story events that drastically alter how the game is played and set the stage for how it is played throughout. I purposefully left things ambiguous since I believe every plot event has a significant impact on the game if you intend to play it. It should be highlighted, nonetheless, that given the historical context of 1695 in the New World, the hauntings depict events amongst colonists there in a realistic—or at least superficially realistic—way. When documents aren’t widely accessible, crimes like murder are easier to get away with. Similar to this, even if they were witnesses to an incredibly awful event, people can lose themselves after it and aren’t always conscious of their mental health. Being the judge in Banishers, which is basically what Dontnod has you do, is not something I enjoy. It is necessary to assign responsibility in order to terminate the haunting, and this can be done by ascending, banishing, or accusing. However, the gift of perspective that banishers receive through spirit communication is invaluable.

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden questions our morality in treating ourselves as well as others. In one specific haunting, Andrew, a man, experiences a spirit that doesn’t appear to be malicious. Asking around reveals that this man is experiencing night terrors, and talking to him face-to-face reveals that he is not getting enough sleep. Our heroes learn that the ghost of the man is genuinely attempting to help him forgive himself as the haunting progresses. Haunted by the accidental death of his comrade on the battlefield, Andrew would not talk about it. Because of this, his friend’s soul remains silent and asks only that Andrew forgive himself. It’s possible that this came across as a feel-good solution to the very simple issue of survivor’s guilt, but it was refreshing to see a haunting that was caused by someone else in a world where evil spirits haunt people for their transgressions. It could be argued that Andrew was haunting both himself and his friend.

Regretfully, I must talk about Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden’s performance. As mentioned above, a PlayStation 5 was used to play this review. I could tell that the frame rate was dropping during the game because I was spending the most of my time below 30 frames per second. After experimenting, I discovered that the game could be made to play at a buttery-smooth 60 again simply shutting and reloading it. Yes, it’s a straightforward remedy, but it hasn’t been fixed for over a month after the game’s release, and I think anyone planning to play Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden should be informed of this problem.

Early on, it was clear that Banishers would use its exploration of New Eden Town to tell its story in an emotionally charged manner. Even though not much of the game is set in New Eden Town, the town itself takes on a life of its own as it haunts every single individual you come across. Furthermore, I don’t believe Dontnod is as well-known for its action role-playing games as they are for their exquisitely made narrative games. I’m glad to report that Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden was a huge fan favorite. Don’t Nod tackles a rather complicated concept and develops it in a really rewarding way by giving its stories context, creating compelling people, and giving them nuance. Similarly, even while there isn’t much new to the fighting, there has been enough variation added to make it interesting and fun for the entire game. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden’s action and gameplay took me by surprise, but its gripping story of love, tragedy, and sacrifice had my attention the entire time.

Review Overview

Gameplay – 78%

Story – 85%

Aesthetics – 83%

Content – 75%

Accessibility – 80%

Value – 78%

Overall Rating – 80%

Good

Summary: Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden’s action and gameplay took me by surprise, but its gripping story of love, tragedy, and sacrifice had my attention the entire time.