Checking out Ghostwire: Tokyo - Preview
Tango Gameworks is a developer that has been pretty quiet for a number of years now, they came out strong with their one-two punch of The Evil Within and its sequel and while we have known what was coming next, they haven’t been sharing much from Ghostwire Tokyo. That changed for me, as earlier in the week, I got to see almost 30 minutes of gameplay and what I saw impressed.
The presentation opened up with game director Kenji Kimura explaining a little bit about the game, what was interesting is that he prefaced his explanation with the phrase ‘next Spring everyone will disappear from Tokyo’, which for us means Autumn, so we could be seeing the game sooner than expected. After the presentation and just the other day, Bethesda did confirm the game is coming to PlayStation 5 and PC on March 25
Players will take control of Akito, a young Japanese man, who through a chance encounter, finds himself bonded with KK, a ghost hunter who failed to complete his last mission and as such now finds himself as a spirit. When Tokyo is attacked, the pair will need to work together, in order to discover what is going on and then restore the city to its previous state and to do so, Akito will need to use Ethereal Weaving, a supernatural ability. This ability is the only thing that will deal damage to the Visitors, the spiritual enemies that have flooded into the city, in the wake of the attack, be they slender man with umbrellas, or schoolgirls without heads. KK explains that the mastermind of the attack, the one he confronted and failed to kill, is Hannya and while his reasons for the attack are not yet known, he and his cable of mask wearing associates will need to be stopped if Akito has any chance of restoring the city and his family.
Thankfully Akito is not alone in his quest, apart from being bonded to KK, there are Yokai that will also inhabit the city landscape, some of them will help you, but most will not. Should you capture the more rambunctious ones, you can use their spiritual powers to upgrade yourself, but even that may not be enough to win back the city, that is where the few remaining humans come in. These folks are former friends of KK and while they are surviving in this new world, the reasons that they and KK split from each other, will need to be resolved, before they can fully commit to helping you, until that does, you will have to deal with things on your own.
If I had to describe that Ghostwire: Tokyo is, in a single sentence, I would say it is a first-person shooter, where you use finger guns, but mixes in elements of Eternal Darkness. If you saw the recent PlayStation Showcase of the game, details for that are here, then the first-person aspect will make sense. The game is played from that perspective entirely, which should help immerse players into this version of Tokyo, like never before. As the people have vanished, you will constantly be seeing clothes and accessories from them, littered about the place, which not only looks cool, but helps sell that sense that something sudden happened. When we finally got to see combat, it really did not look as I was expecting and that can be explained in two parts, the first is the ‘ammunition’ that Akito uses and the second is the finishing off enemies. I say ammunition because there is a counter of how many shots he has, before he runs out, so while it isn’t bullets, it still acts like ammo. The type that he had for most of the gameplay was the Wind variant, but later on he picked up Fire. What they do to enemies, if anything, we didn’t get to see, but the effects to the world are something we did see, and each has the potential to help you out in different ways.
Merely shooting enemies isn’t enough as well, though you can do so until they fall down, but once an enemy has taken enough damage, they will be staggered and when that happens you can extract their core and finish them off for good. What is interesting is that early on, the extraction was done against a single enemy at a time, but as Akito progressed, we got to see him extract from multiple staggered enemies at once, which was welcome. Extracting a core is good for two reasons, the first is that it allows you to refill your ammo, something that just killing them doesn’t do and the second is that it uses less ammo to do take them out.
With the first group of enemies dispatched, KK had then advised Akito to approach the glowing torii gate. Cleansing it allowed Akito to clear some of that fog from around the area, which expanded the amount of the city that he could explore safely. Entering it does slowly diminish your health, so you will want to avoid it as much as you can and cleansing the torri gates will help you do that. With the first gate cleansed, Akito discovered a katashiro, a traditional paper doll that is mainly used in purification rituals and here in the game, it allowed Akito to save lost souls and the more of those you save, the more upgrade points you can earn. Some of the spirits can be found just floating around, others can be found trapped by Visitors, so you will have to keep an eye out for them.
By now you are probably wondering where the Eternal Darkness part comes in, sure there are items floating around the world, bikes, boxes and such, but after having an encounter with Hannya, KK advised that Akito needed to get some better gear. Heading to his apartment, that is where the bow, something which was shown in the gameplay showcase was found, but it was upon attempting to leave the apartment that things got weird. One of Hannya’s henchmen had erected a barrier, attempting to keep them contained within, but there was a way to break it, but only if they were able to move quickly enough. This was where things got weird, as Akito was searching for the stones that kept the barrier up, the hallways in the building were painting themselves different colours, black ink blobs were moving around the place causing things to move over. Then out of nowhere, the lights would flicker, and the room would invert, or the lights would go out and when they came back on, Akito would be standing up in the middle of the sky. While the moments that I saw were pretty basic, one could imagine that later on, things will get really weird and if they are coupled with bosses or just basic enemies, it could be really fun.
While the gameplay demo was hands off, it did allow me to pay more attention to the visuals and even though the game is still being worked on, things looked really impressive. The world, even though it was devoid of other humans, still looked lived in, again there were countless signs that peoeple did exist there and that helped provide a sense of immersion, unlike anything. From an audio point of view, it was harder to judge things, but things sound good, I would be interested as to how much the 3D audio impacts the atmosphere, but Tango Gameworks have a strong history of being able to build up some wonderful and tense surroundings and I wouldn’t imagine that has changed.
Ghostwire: Tokyo honestly looks like it will be an amazing title, the game has some spooky elements, but isn’t as horror focused as the other titles from the studio. The open world design looks like it lends itself to a lot of exploration and the battles between Akito and the Visitors should keep players engrossed. I am more keen on seeing just how much weirder the paranormal influences can really be and then there is Hannya. On the surface he seems like he is nothing more than some madman who wants to destroy the world, but there has to be more to him and with his connection to KK, I can’t wait to discover what it all means.
Ghostwire: Tokyo is out on March 25th for PlayStation 5 and PC
