GHOSTWIRE: TOKYO
Visit Japan for a spook-tacular shooter…
★★★★★ OUT NOW PC, PS5
The third game from Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami’s Tango Gameworks begins in counterintuitive fashion, welcoming us to the world’s most populous city before offing all its inhabitants. Victims of a plan by a megalomaniacal villain in a Hannya mask to unite the worlds of living and dead, they haven’t quite shuffled off this mortal coil just yet: rather, their souls are stuck in limbo in Japan’s capital. As the only living boy in Tokyo, hero Akito – kept alive-slash-possessed by the recently departed paranormal investigator KK – sets out to rescue all 240,000 of them, while attempting to free his younger sister from the clutches of this masked madman.
What follows is one of the most thrillingly esoteric big-budget games in a while. Tango leans into the folkloric history of its real-world setting, filling this dazzlingly realised urban space full of captivating ghost stories. But Akito’s own is equally gripping: an orphaned young man whose inability to deal with his parents’ premature passing has left him estranged from his sibling, he must finally confront death in order to save her. In his way are Visitors, physical manifestations of human rage that take various forms: from tall women with rictus grins armed with giant pairs of scissors and faceless salarymen wielding protective umbrellas, to high-kicking headless school kids.
Busting these ghosts feels good, thanks to the shuddering haptic feedback through the controller as you use ‘spectral weaving’ to tear out their cores and send them permanently to the afterlife. Akito can wield wind, water and fire spells to keep them at bay, while paper talismans are used to conjure thickets to break line of sight, or bursts of electricity to stun groups of enemies when you need space to heal. Or you can grapple out of harm’s way, latching onto flying tengu demons to whizz yourself from street level to Tokyo’s rooftops in seconds.
Up here you’ll find more souls to save (in another offbeat flourish, they’re captured in paper dolls and transmitted through jury-rigged payphones to return them to human form) and torii gates to cleanse, demisting the streets to reveal more side quests and collectible tchotchkes. These can be traded with cat demons for cash to be donated at offering boxes; divine intervention reveals the location of statues that boost your supernatural abilities. The result works as both a paranormal action game and a celebration of Japan’s rich culture – a distinctive combination you’ll remember long after the city’s resident evil has been sent packing.