3.5/5 ★ – TalonJedi's review of Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden.

From the very well crafted minds and writers of Vampyr, comes a very somber tale with heavy emotion written until the bitter end that revolves around 2 ghost hunting folks, both lovers, Red and Antea, when (it’s in the synopsis so it is not a spoiler) Antea meets her demise and becomes a ghost herself and Red must figure out a way to either help her ascend to the next plane of existence or resurrect her from the dead. As you can imagine for those who have played Vampyr and other Dontnod titles, they manage to make it very interesting where there’s stakes and consequences for your actions at every turn as you take on numerous haunting cases where you have major plot choices to make that will lead to Antea’s resurrection or ascent. By banishing ghosts in each haunting case it’ll lead you closer to helping your fallen lover ascend to the next reality as a spirit but you can also blame and judge humans at the end of each haunting case, which shall hopefully lead to Antea’s resurrection. The more humans you blame and suck their soul from like Shang Tsung, the more chances you have at successfully performing the ritual which will bring Antea back from her untimely demise. However it may or may not come with a heavy price tag you see as the more humans Red blames and kills, the heavier it weighs in on his own sanity and persona, causing him to question his own existence at times wondering if this was the right choice to make by being selfish or not while Antea’s ghost who is haunting Red and also the second playable character, also holds some resentment for her situation towards Red so it’s like being caught between a rock and a hard place for the poor Scotsman. Gameplay wise it’s a typical euro jank hack and slash action game that isn’t necessarily that challenging but pretty cool nevertheless to watch you pull off combo attacks and ghostly powers you unlock for Antea which doubles as progressing throughout the game map as well. The map is also a controlled open world like in games such as Tomb Raider, Metroid Prime and the newer God of War games. Meaning while most of the map appears as a sandbox most of it is blocked off until you progress thru the story enough to unlock the next power up to allow you to move forward into some areas. The map also takes some cues from Dark Souls games allowing you to unlock previously closed off paths with shortcuts galore back to earlier areas. Overall, Banishers was a great experience mostly for it’s narrative and is only really hindered by it’s bloated length I felt which probably could have been neatly wrapped up in half the time it took me to finish, clocking in at almost 35 hours without doing any of the side activities other than the hauntings.