Highlights

  • Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden has a similar aesthetic and gameplay to The Witcher, with an emphasis on hunting supernatural entities.
  • The emotional and narrative crux of Banishers lies in the intimate connection between the protagonists, Antea and Red, as Antea's death turns her into a spirit.
  • The protagonist dynamic in Banishers, similar to Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, involves a playable human character and a playable wraith character, but with a unique romantic spin that will undoubtedly drive player choices and actions.

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden has flown under the radar a bit since its announcement, but it has shared gameplay reveals and overviews since with a release coming up right away in February. It’s been easy to compare Banishers to The Witcher thus far due to a similar aesthetic and an emphasis on individuals who hunt supernatural entities, though Banishers’ protagonists seem to only hunt those that are spectral. As Focus puts it, the goal of protagonists Antea and Red in Banishers is “to lift a mysterious curse and solve haunting cases.”

However, the intimate connection between Antea and Red seems to be Banishers’ emotional and narrative crux. Antea’s unprecedented death separates them and turns her into a spirit herself, becoming the thing they seek to banish, and can only interact with Red again as a spirit despite the lovers’ conviction that the realms of the living and the dead should remain distinct. This will surely challenge that conviction and make for an interesting story, and its gameplay may resemble that of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor as a result of its own protagonists being in an incredibly similar predicament.

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Ghosts of New Eden’s Protagonist Dynamic Mirrors Shadow of Mordor’s

Banishers’ Romantic Spin on Middle-earth’s Talion and Celebrimbor is Unique

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor’s Talion and Celebrimbor are not lovers, nor do they know one another at all before interacting for the first time as an exiled ranger and a Noldorin prince respectively. Talion and Celebrimbor also share Talion’s physical body—which would perish if not for Celebrimbor co-inhabiting it—while Banishers’ Antea and Red exist individually, but the parallels are still there with a playable human character and a playable wraith character.

Similar to Talion and Celebrimbor, Red uses a series of weapons in combat while Antea employs spectral abilities that also aid in traversal. The pair needs each other, and strategic use of what they both bring to the table in gameplay is paramount. Red doesn’t seem to be amplified by anything Antea can do; they work together, rather than through one another. The romance spin, then, is perhaps where the pair is most unique and will drive the choices and actions players make with regard to both protagonists.

Shadow of Mordor, alternatively, featured two protagonists who didn’t necessarily want anything to do with each other but knew they needed to stick around in order for a chance to live and get their revenge. This is also similar to Ghostwire: Tokyo’s protagonist dynamic, but once again without a romantic twist to it weighing on potential choices players have to make.

Banishers’ Protagonist Dynamic Sets Itself Up for a Devastating Ending

Because Antea and Red have a far more intimate relationship than Talion and Celembrimbor, there’s almost no way the game ends happily. At least, there’s no way there isn’t an ending possibility where the two are cleaved dramatically, possibly with an option where Red has to banish Antea.

It’s a neat spin to have the characters potentially conflicted about their own role in society when Antea is now a spirit, and if their relationship was as transactional as Talion and Celebrimbor’s then it probably wouldn’t be disconcerting at all. Neither Talon nor Celebrimbor would have kept the other around longer than they needed them, and their relationship never truly gets to a place where they’re ever close in any meaningful way.

Banishers will attempt to tug at heartstrings, and it’ll be interesting to see how those emotional threads are felt in gameplay, too. If Banishers is successful, players will hopefully want to keep this man and his spirit lover together for as long as they are able, though that might be an impossible task.