Post Script
Why Ghostwire: Tokyo’s cultural authenticity makes its open world more appealing
You wouldn’t necessarily think it from the Japanese game industry’s output over the past few years, but it wasn’t all that long ago that its star seemed to be on the wane. Publishers and developers, wary of a widening technological gap and keen to attract a global audience, felt the need to tailor their games towards the western market – with mixed results. These days, of course, it’s a different story: Elden Ring is merely the most recent example of a Japanese studio staying true to itself and achieving great success overseas. And there are dozens more, from the Persona and Tales series enjoying their biggest sales to date to the renaissance of Yakuza.
It’s fair to say that, structurally speaking at least, Ghostwire: Tokyo feels quite a lot like a western open-world game. A sandbox that expands as you complete tasks. A map that becomes crowded with icons representing a variety of activities. Tailing missions, after a fashion. And a detective mode of sorts, albeit something approaching a best-in-class example of the form, where a ping sends a ripple effect across the environment, briefly reducing it to wireframe before leaving residual outlines of key objects for a short time. There are more surprising influences, too. We’re reminded of Crackdown as we head across rooftops to gather glowing objects – the souls of Tokyo’s citizens might not be agility orbs, but the experience points go towards upgrading our skills, and the process of capturing them is gratifying. And in the gentle frictions of investigation and exploration we even detect a hint of Paradise Killer.
But what ultimately makes Ghostwire: Tokyo work as well as it does – and helps it overcome its issues with repetition and occasionally underwhelming mission design – are the specificities of its setting. All of the rich contrasts of Japan’s capital are here, rendered in convincing detail: you can walk by the distinctive cylindrical tower of Shibuya’s 109 department store (429 as it is here) one minute, past the tiny pubs down Drunkard’s Alley the next, and shortly afterward find yourself passing through towering torii gates into Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Here, you might drop money into a donation box in return for divine assistance: as Akito claps his palms together, an icon marking a Jizo statue (to which you can pray to increase your elemental attack limit) appears on the map, saving you the job of locating it yourself. Or you can ask it for help finding elusive tanuki, which can be disguised as anything from a daruma to a vending machine.
As we suggested it might in E369, Ghostwire: Tokyo proves its worth as “a game’s worth of spooky stories and urban legends”, its folkloric elements slotting in neatly into a setting where modern and ancient influences meet, the spiritual and the corporeal equally at home. Tango has drawn upon traditional Japanese tales for many of its sidequests, while stirring in ingredients of its own. Many of the asides are self-contained ghost stories, from one that sets you on the trail of a painted dragon that has escaped from a mural to an unsettling visit to a piano tutor’s home, a haunting rendition of Moonlight Sonata – played by Shinji Mikami himself – leading us to exorcise the spirit of a jealous composer.
Then there are those mischievous yokai, from the kappa caught unawares munching a cucumber laid out on a plinth to the longnecked rokurokubi peering around corners and the itten momen, gleefully darting out of reach until it forgets where it’s going and bonks into a sign. In each case, the chase might not be long or difficult (even if the Pokémon games could stand to learn from the way Tango makes you put a bit more effort into the catch), but the character of these creatures is enough to have us seeking out every one. Forty hours in, as we chow down on some spectral oden to finish off another hunt, we’re reminded once more that it’s Ghostwire: Tokyo’s distinct Japanese flavour that makes it so moreish.