Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden - A Haunting Action RPG Adventure is a single-player, narrative-led action RPG set in the North American colony of New Eden in 1695. It follows Red and Antea, lovers and experienced Banishers who investigate hauntings, confront hostile spirits, and decide how both the living and the dead should be judged.
Developed by DON'T NOD and released in February 2024, it places investigation and moral responsibility alongside real-time combat.
Game Overview
The core loop sends Red and Antea into settlements, forests, and other troubled regions to interview residents and examine supernatural traces. A haunting is rarely resolved by defeating the first spirit that appears.
Players must establish what happened, determine what the people involved are concealing, and learn why a ghost remains bound to the world.
Each investigation eventually requires a verdict. A living person may be blamed, while a spirit may be allowed to ascend or forcibly banished.
These decisions give the side stories a firm conclusion and also feed into the central conflict facing Red and Antea after an early tragedy leaves them divided between life and death.
Combat and Character Switching
Combat revolves around switching between the two protagonists. Red fights physically with a sword and firearm, while Antea uses supernatural movement and spectral attacks to pressure enemies.
Effective play means changing between them according to enemy openings rather than treating one character as an occasional special ability.
Progression lets players improve abilities for both partners and combine those upgrades with equipment effects. Exploration also uses their different talents: Red handles the physical world, while Antea can perceive and interact with supernatural elements.
The resulting pace alternates among dialogue, investigation, traversal, and combat instead of delivering uninterrupted battles.
Why the Choices Matter
The haunting cases work because their moral answers are often uncomfortable. An apparent victim may have hidden a serious wrongdoing, while a dangerous ghost may have an understandable reason for refusing to leave.
Reaching a verdict from first impressions can therefore mean judging the wrong person without understanding the entire event.
Decisions do more than change the final scene of an isolated case. Red and Antea make a broader promise concerning their future, and the player's conduct across New Eden determines whether that promise is followed consistently.
The important choice is not simply which dialogue response sounds kindest, but who ultimately bears responsibility once the evidence is known.
Exploration and Early-Game Advice
New Eden is explored through multiple regions with distinct landscapes and communities rather than one seamless urban playground. Following only the main objective is possible, but optional hauntings provide context about local history and the relationships among settlers.
Players who investigate side paths and listen to residents will understand the stakes of later verdicts more clearly.
Early on, learning dodge timing and character switching is more useful than relying on a single attack pattern. Equipment should be examined for activation conditions as well as basic statistics, since its effects can support different ways of alternating between Red and Antea.
During investigations, gather the available traces before accepting the first testimony as the complete truth.
PC Requirements Explained
The minimum specification lists 64-bit Windows 10 or 11, an Intel Core i3-8300 or AMD Ryzen 3 2200G, and 8GB of RAM. Graphics requirements are a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti or Radeon RX 580 with 4GB VRAM.
DirectX 12 and 52GB of available storage are also required.
That minimum is intended for 1920x1080 at 30 FPS using the Low preset. Meeting it should therefore be treated as an entry point, not a promise of high settings or especially smooth combat.
Anyone sensitive to frame-rate drops should target more than the minimum, particularly because dodging and switching characters feel better with steadier performance.
The recommended specification moves to a Core i5-10600K or Ryzen 5 5600X, 16GB RAM, and a GeForce RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6700 XT with 6GB VRAM. Its stated target is 1920x1080 at 60 FPS on the Very High preset, and an SSD is recommended.
The listed GPUs do not offer identical performance, so settings should still be adjusted for the actual card, desired resolution, and frame-rate target.
Make room for the stated 52GB before installation and use an SSD when available. The supplied requirements do not establish what is needed for 4K or high-refresh-rate play, so those targets call for hardware comfortably above the recommended tier.
Gaming laptops also vary by GPU power limits, making the exact laptop configuration more informative than the graphics-chip name alone.
Reception and Common Reactions
Player feedback commonly favors the relationship between Red and Antea, the human stories concealed within the hauntings, and the difficulty of the verdicts. The colonial setting and focus on guilt, loss, and unresolved obligations also distinguish the game from a conventional medieval-fantasy RPG.
Its strongest moments tend to come from seeing how an apparently local mystery reflects the protagonists' own dilemma.
Less enthusiastic players may find the combat encounters or travel between objectives repetitive. Dialogue and investigation occupy a substantial share of the experience, so someone approaching it solely as a demanding combat game may find the pacing slow.
Its decisions can also be frustrating for players who want a clearly marked correct answer or a route that leaves everyone unharmed.
Who Should Play It
Banishers is well suited to players who value character writing and difficult decisions as much as action. It is especially appealing to anyone who likes reconstructing events from testimony and evidence before passing judgment.
Fans of narrative RPGs such as DON'T NOD's Vampyr should recognize the emphasis on personal consequences, although this remains its own story and setting.
Japanese and several other languages are supported, and the game includes full controller support and Steam Achievements. Its entirely solo structure lets players read at their own pace without coordinating with a group.
It is a strong fit for someone who wants to take responsibility for one version of the story rather than compete with or assist other players.
Caveats and Who May Not Enjoy It
Players seeking co-op, competitive modes, or constant high-intensity action should look elsewhere. Investigation, conversations, and travel are fundamental parts of the design rather than brief interruptions between fights.
It is also better understood as a sequence of regional stories and explorable areas than as an unrestricted sandbox world.
The narrative repeatedly deals with death, grief, guilt, and the consequences of harming others. Not every conflict offers a comfortable answer, and the game may feel emotionally heavy to anyone looking for uncomplicated heroism.
Players who want the choices to feel personal should also avoid reading every outcome in advance, since uncertainty is a central part of deciding Red and Antea's fate.
