Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden Reviews

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is ranked in the 83rd percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
Feb 12, 2024

Overall, Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden is an interesting and innovative action RPG with a few flaws here and there that stop it from being perfect. Its emotionally strong core story will keep players pushing to the end, while its key moral mechanic does have enough complexity to make players think about their decisions. It may have its clunky moments, but it's nonetheless something beefy for players to sink their teeth into.

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4 / 5.0
Feb 18, 2024

“Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden” thus stands out due to the storytelling prowess of Don’t Nod, offering a rich, emotionally charged journey that melds action, adventure, and narrative depth into a memorable experience. While not without its flaws, the game marks a significant step forward for the studio, hinting at the untapped potential for future titles in this vein. It’s a journey worth taking, not just for the thrills and challenges, but for the questions it poses about love, sacrifice, and the afterlife.

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INVEN
Top Critic
8 / 10.0
Feb 16, 2024

The narrative, crafted through repeated moral dilemmas, allows players to immerse themselves deeply in the story. While the depth in combat may be somewhat lacking, the captivating world of New Eden undoubtedly provides the thrill of an adventure.

Review in Korean | Read full review

Dexerto
Top Critic
Feb 12, 2024

Banishers isn’t going to appeal to those who demand continuous action and top-tier combat. The fact is, there are just so many games that do hacking, slashing, and shooting so much better. Banishers is for those who want to be told a scary story and face some difficult moral choices along the way. It’s for those who relish the opportunity to play as a pair of seventeenth-century supernatural detectives and solve some spooky mysteries while coming up with a solution to an inevitable, and much more personal problem. Banishers felt like we were living in a Washington Irving story such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, so if you think this sounds like a vibe, then we’d highly recommend it.

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8 / 10.0
Feb 13, 2024

I didn't wait for Banishers, and I didn't expect the game to be such a pleasant surprise for me. It's a wonderful and quite long adventure, filled with side stories. Banishers is a game haunted by the ghost of satisfaction – satisfaction from good gameplay and a great story. I want more.

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8 / 10.0
Feb 12, 2024

Banishers: Ghost of New Eden is an intriguing tale of heartbreak and hauntings set in the backdrop of colonial America. Though slow to start, it’s packed to the brim with chilling paranormal cases to solve and haunting ghost combat; you’re sure to have a spookily good time with this title.

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Feb 12, 2024

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a solid game that will leave you happily playing for hours at a time as you're sucked into the ghostly world of 1695 New England.

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8 / 10
Feb 13, 2024

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden has turned out to be another strong IP for developers, Don’t Nod. The game features unique, real-time character-swapping to access different techniques and a solemn story that works best when it’s focused on the protagonists, Red and Antea. While the enemy variety is lacking and the investigation elements can be a tad tiresome, this 25-hour action RPG should absolutely be on your radar.

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8 / 10.0
Feb 12, 2024

I believe that Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden fills a specific niche in terms of genres, offering a unique blend of consequential story telling whilst also delivering a satisfying action role playing experience. It’s not perfect by any means, but it is a huge step forward in terms of creativity in the gaming medium and I’m all for it.

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Feb 12, 2024

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is an example of Don’t Nod doing what Don’t Nod does best - deliver an enthralling, story-driven title that had me hooked in its world and characters from the opening titles. It’s elevated by inspirations from other titles with bigger budgets in this genre and is all the better for it with a stunning world that invites you to explore. The combat sections fall a little flat, and the run-time feels ever so slightly too long. However, the weight of the storytelling more than offsets these frustrations and will drive players through to see the ending of this magnificent adventure.

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4 / 5.0
Feb 12, 2024

While it could use more enemy variety and some areas that are more open, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a highly engaging action RPG featuring a love story I wanted to see through to its haunting conclusion. There are a lot of RPGs releasing in the first couple of months of this year, and with many of them being higher profile, it would be easy to overlook Banishers, but I hope players don’t do so. This is the exact sort of title we need studios to invest in more often.

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8 / 10.0
Feb 12, 2024

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.

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8 / 10.0
Feb 12, 2024

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a heartfelt love story, and both Red and Antea are incredibly memorable leads. The detailed haunting cases, difficult choices, and dense atmosphere add up to one of DON'T NOD's best narrative titles in years. Banishers gracefully improves upon the foundation laid by Vampyr in more ways than one, but it's often bogged down by repetitive combat that takes too long to get going. Despite that, it's an adventure worth embarking on, that's refined and respectful of your time.

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8 / 10
Feb 12, 2024

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden oozes class, with a 20 to 30-hour story and plenty of off-the-beaten paths to explore – most with a reward at the end. You’ll be pitted with some disgusting and distressful story moments, some out-of-the-book thinking, and some genuinely hard decisions. The combat and accompanying skill trees will keep you invested and satisfied, whilst allowing enough different combinations you’ll feel each playthrough is different enough to warrant another one, and at the center of it all is a love story between two lovers who want nothing more than to be together forever, but the forces at play seem intent on stopping that. My only hope is that the game sells as well as the lasting memories it has left me with deserve, and we get a new, genuinely unique franchise from this.

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8 / 10.0
Feb 12, 2024

After 30 hours that it takes to complete the main story of the game, the only thing that is certain is that Banishers: Ghost of New Eden manages to keep the interest undiminished and many will return to it for the alternative endings it offers.

Review in Greek | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Feb 12, 2024

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a journey into a wonderfully dark, serious and sometimes harsh world. You can expect many tough decisions, great characters and interesting twists, especially in the so-called "Haunting Case" side missions. Apart from that, the combat is unfortunately disappointing, remaining far too repetitive and clunky, and there is too much aimless wandering in the search for mission objectives. However, fans of the occult and the supernatural à la The Witcher or detective stories should definitely pick it up.

Review in German | Read full review

8 / 10
Mar 2, 2024

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

8 / 10.0
Feb 12, 2024

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a breath of fresh air among games I've played in recent years. Haunting Cases are amazing and world design is impressive. on the other hand, it suffers from different issues like low enemy variety, camera positioning and sporadic frame rate drop. That being said, it still delivers an amazing experience from start to finish.

Review in Persian | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Feb 12, 2024

Don't Nod's best work yet. The impressive story, the immersive period atmosphere, the well-written characters and stories, and the smooth and enjoyable action are blended together, and it works very well.

Review in Turkish | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Mar 13, 2024

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.

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