Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden shows more of its tragic supernatural romance
Afterlife Is Strange
There are still too few video games that feature non-transactional romance. Hopefully Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden can help change that. It's a third-person action RPG from the makers of Vampyr and Life Is Strange that's about smashing monsters, but its pair of ghost-hunting protagonists are also lovers. A new trailer was shown during tonight's Geoff Fest.
Too many games are about a guy with a dead wife, but at least this time the dead wife is a playable magical ghost. The two lead characters of Banishers are Red Mac Raith and Antea Duarte, who have seemingly been on a mission to rid the world of ghosts for a while before the story begins. Things went awry on their previous mission, which is what led to Antea now being a ghost herself, and now you're setting out to find some way to get revenge and make Antea fleshy again. Although in the meantime you'll make use of Antea's new spirit powers, and Red's weapons, to continue fighting lots of specters.
There's plenty of combat in the trailer above, but Banishers is from Don't Nod, seemingly operating in their Vampyr mode, and so there are story-changing moral decisions to make as well in the "spare" or "sacrifice" vein. I'll place a bet now on, if you 'spare' too many other ghosts, then Ghost Wife can't ultimately be brought back to life. Or, oh, she can't be brought back without Red sacrificing himself, lest you spare the other ghosts. That'll be it.
It's maybe also worth remembering that although Life Is Strange is beloved, Vampyr had a more mixed reception. Alec found a lot of problems to articulate in his Vampyr review, for example. At the same time, it was a rich and interesting game. I'm hoping Banishers is similarly ambitious and unusual.
NotE3 and Summer Game Fest 2023 is over for another year. You can find out all the latest news by visiting our E3 2023 hub, or you can catch up with our round-up posts of everything that was announced at Summer Game Fest, the Xbox Games Showcase, the PC Gaming Show, Day Of The Devs, and our top highlights from the Wholesome Direct.