Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden Reviews
Devilishly good stories and beautiful haunting visuals in a cool dark fantasy world overcome the bland combat.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is underwhelming as an action RPG, but is a must-play thanks to solid character drama and challenging moral decisions.
Banishers: Ghost of New Eden is a grim and gripping tale of two lovers coming to terms with love and sacrifice. Don't Nod have built another beautiful world to enjoy.
A fine AA open world action RPG with a compelling story and decent combat, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden might be one of the bests games you've never heard of. It deserves more than a ghost of a chance.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden masterfully weaves a narrative that not only captivates but also challenges players to reflect on their own moral compass.
Don't Nod has taken several key lessons from Vampyr and applied them to great effect with its second action RPG. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden might not be revolutionary in anything that it does, and from a gameplay standpoint, it can sometimes feel a bit too straightforward for its own good, but with a well-realized setting, captivating story, excellent protagonists, and genuinely compelling choice-and-consequence moments, it's an easy game to recommend to fans of the genre.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is well beyond anything Don't Nod has ever done. It successfully merges their renowned knack for solid characters and great stories, engaging and enjoyable combat and a unique setting to create an experience like no other. It's a incredible fun and easily the studios most ambitious game so far. It doesn't get much better than this.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden heavily leans into the premise of challenging decisions with dramatic consequences, and manages to pull off an emotional and haunting love story where those choices do feel like they truly matter. Red and Antea feel like fully-fleshed out, interesting characters, forever linked to one another but struggling to let go. New Eden is full of communities plagued by supernatural creatures and dark secrets that make each of them intriguing to explore. An over-reliance on combat and a little too much hand-holding when it comes to solving cases is disappointing, but Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden can still be chalked up as yet another storytelling triumph for DON'T NOD. Life for the living. Death for the dead.
Banishers Ghosts of New Eden's rough edges are easily compensated by its charm. I had a ball meeting the inhabitants of New Eden and making judgements accordingly.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a great adventure game that tells a love story mixed with life and death, set in the colonial era. It looks at remembering the sacrifices and bloody history.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a compelling tale of love and loss brought to life by phenomenal writing and performances with solid combat to boot, and it serves as a reminder that good storytelling remains a crucial element of video games.
Despite a stiff combat system that sometimes feels imprecise, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden presents a compelling story about love, human misery and crucial social themes.
Review in Italian | Read full review
If you’re already a fan of “AAA” style action RPGs you’re likely to enjoy Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden even more than I did.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden offers an original, engaging narrative-driven experience with impactful in-game decisions.
Ordained by a clear narrative, resolute characters, intriguing hauntings and an eventually favorable combat model, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a morally infused spirit smasher set in a large world that needed a little exorcism.
As the industry shifts more and more towards mediocre service-based AAA games, the value of traditional AA games is becoming more and more obvious, and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a prime example of that. It's not without flaws, but the bold decision making in world design and innovative storytelling separates it from the pack and makes it the best game by Don't Nod to date.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Banishers isn't without its challenges, but it's a cleverly put together adventure that doesn't mind the time spent.
Review in Russian | Read full review
The best art tells us something of relevance to the world around us. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a dark and intense fantasy of ghosts, vengeance, and human resilience through the bleakest of nightmares. It’s unfortunate that it offers such a strong allegory to the real world, yet it does and that makes it all the more thought-provoking, however inadvertent it was for the developers. Thankfully it’s also exceptionally good to play, even as it challenges your intellect and moral core.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a great example of less being more. What it does well, it does very well, but those elements are bogged down in a needlessly large, open world that's been padded out with thin gameplay. When you reach the meat of the game, it's usually worth the effort, but there's so much dilution that it has difficulty shining through. The poor performance also makes the tedious elements feel more so. Like its main characters, Banishers is stuck in limbo between excellence and blandness, and I can only hope that any sequel will focus on quality over quantity.