Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a 2024 action role-playing game developed by Don't Nod and published by Focus Entertainment. The game was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on 13 February 2024. Upon release, it received generally positive reviews from critics.

Gameplay
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a third-person action role-playing game. In the game, the player assumes control of a pair of ghost hunters named Antea Duarte and Red mac Raith. The pair goes on a mission to investigate a small but haunted community named New Eden, though Duarte becomes a ghost in the process. Players can make use of both Raith's conventional weaponry and Duarte's spirit abilities to combat hostile enemies. In the game, players will have to make numerous choices, influencing the game's story.

Plot
In 1695, Banishers and lovers Antea Duarte and Ruaidhrigh "Red" mac Raith travel to colonial New England to answer the call of their friend Charles Davenport to banish a particularly powerful curse afflicting the town of New Eden. The pair discover that the curse has trapped New Eden in an eternal winter and has claimed the lives of many townsfolk, including Charles himself. They meet the town leaders - Governor Fairefax Haskell, huntress Thickskin Newsmith, and Captain Saul Pennington - as well as Charles' widow Esther. Antea summons Charles' ghost, who warns her that a Nightmare, the rarest and most powerful type of ghost, has come to haunt New Eden. Antea then reluctantly convinces Charles to take his ascent to the afterlife and leave the mortal realm forever. Later that night, Antea and Red attempt to confront the Nightmare, but she easily overpowers them both, killing Antea and throwing Red off a cliff.

Red awakes in a cave, having been saved by the witch Seeker under orders from her master Siridean. Seeker and Red parts ways, leaving Red to find his way back to New Eden himself. He then finds Antea's ghost, who agrees to help him take revenge on the Nightmare so that they can recover her body and she can properly ascend. However, Red also considers performing a dark ritual that requires human sacrifice in order to resurrect Antea. They come across survivors led by Thickskin and sister Kate who fled New Eden, which is now fully under the Nightmare's control. They banish an evil spirit haunting the area, only to discover that Thickskin culled the "weak" members of her group while Kate is complicit in her lover Deborah Comenius being executed as a witch. Red then makes the choice of either sparing or sacrificing Thickskin for her crimes. Later, the pair are led by Seeker to meet Siridean herself. Siridean explains that the pair need to weaken the Nightmare by destroying her fragments that roam the outskirts of New Eden, and then confront the Nightmare directly in the Void where she is vulnerable.

Red and Antea then travel around the outskirts of New Eden, where they encounter other New Eden survivor groups led by Haskell and Pennington. However, in their investigations to solve the hauntings plaguing the groups, the pair uncover evidence that both Haskell and Pennington were chiefly responsible for the wrongful arrest, trial, and execution of Deborah as a witch, blaming her as the source of a plague that ravaged New Eden several years ago. The Nightmare is actually Deborah's vengeful spirit, returned to take her revenge on all of New Eden. Red has the choice of either sparing or sacrificing Haskell and Pennington for their crimes. During this time, Siridean passes away from old age, but not before warning Red and Antea that they must make sure they both desire the same thing.

With the Nightmare's hold over New Eden weakened, the pair prepare to return to the town, but cannot do so without Seeker's help. As they search for Seeker, they discover her true identity as Grace, Pennington's daughter who was mysteriously exiled from the town. Seeker helps them enter a special Void portal that will take them to New Eden, but they are forced to fight Naruku, an evil spirit Antea banished as a child. Upon reaching New Eden, they confront the Nightmare, which they discover is a Retribution spirit feeding off of Deborah's anger at her wrongful death. With the truth of her death finally revealed, Deborah refuses to aid Retribution any longer, allowing Red and Antea to banish it. With her desire for revenge gone, Deborah takes her ascent to the afterlife.

Afterwards, there are multiple endings depending on Red's actions:
 * If Red decided to resurrect Antea and sacrificed most of the townspeople, then he successfully resurrects Antea and they both leave New Eden together. However, they both remain traumatized by the terrible sin they have committed and eventually begin to practice dark magic.
 * If Red breaks his oath to resurrect Antea or let her ascend, then the ritual fails and Retribution returns. As punishment for failing to help Deborah, Retribution accelerates Seeker's aging, revealing her to be Siridean, and as punishment for failing to uphold his promise to Antea, Retribution traps Red in a time loop where he is sent back to the time he was rescued by Seeker, with no memory of what happened.
 * If Red decided not to resurrect Antea, he allows her to take her ascent. Depending on how many other spirits he convinced to take their ascent rather than banishing them, Red either eventually comes to terms with Antea's death and raises a family to train as the next generation of Banishers, or he never recovers from Antea's loss and makes the journey to Cuba to inform her family of her death.

Development and release
In 2019, Focus Entertainment and Don't Nod Entertainment launched a new development deal after the success of Vampyr, and commenced production. It is a "spiritual successor" to Vampyr. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden was revealed during The Game Awards in December 2022. The game was originally scheduled to release for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on 7 November 2023. On 26 September, it was delayed to 13 February 2024 in order to avoid an "intense" release window.

Reception
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.