I remember it vividly. E3 2019, before Covid hit. During Bethesda's conference, after some apologies about the then-sad state of Fallout 76, Shinji Mikami, the legendary director of Resident Evils 1 and 4, God Hand, Vanquish and many othes, came on stage to introduce the next game by his studio Tango Gameworks. This new title wasn't another sequel to their previous The Evil Within series, but a new IP entirely. He wasn't directing this time, but the super cute creative director Ikumi Nakamura stole the show and hearts of many in the audience. And this new game looked cool as fuck, with a creepy urban fantasy vibe featuring spirits from Japanese folklore roaming around modern Tokyo.
At the time, I was super impressed. But Now that I've had the chance to play Ghostwire: Tokyo on PS+, I have to admit - it's mid as hell in my opinion. Sure, the art style is great and the atmosphere is richly desolate, but everything else is just not good. The combat involves blasting faceless monsters with elemental magic, and while the animations are cool it feels weightless and unsatisfying, and happens so often it becomes repetitive. The enemy AI is janky, the characters are uninteresting and the main plot is forgettable.
In a nutshell, I'd describe it as a supernatural Japanese take on the Far Cry formula, without guns (but you still get a bow at least). It's an FPS where you can stealth your way around enemies or shoot them head-on, fly around the map, pick up collectibles that teach you about local culture, and free up outposts (shrines in this instance) to clear the map and unlock new missions. Except I had more fun playing Far Cry 4 a few months before than I did with this.
Where the game really shone for me was in the sections without combat. There's a free DLC mission that involves exploring a haunted school, with a bit where you get stalked by a creepy anatomy model that can jumpscare you and reset your progress if you turn away from it. You have to keep it just in your line of sight at all times, and it's a pretty tense moment in an otherwise boring game.
Anyway, the reason why I'm bringing up a game from last year is because it recently hit 6 million players, and I personally find that hard to believe. Additionally, there are leaks saying that Bethesda are working on a sequel, which hopefully keeps the atmosphere and vibe and improves on pretty much everything else. While Mikami and Nakamura have both since sadly left Tango, they at least released the absolute banger that was Hi-Fi Rush after this mediocre title.
If you want to play a game where the main character dies right at the beginning, only to get posessed by the ghost of a dead guy who he must begrudgingly work with to get revenge on the villain who killed the dead guy, and it plays like an Ubisoft game but isn't, play Shadow of Mordor instead. But if you have played Ghostwire, tell me, what did you think? Did you enjoy it? What are you hoping for from the sequel? Sound off below!
