Ghostwire: Tokyo

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Ghostwire: Tokyo
Single-player

Ghostwire: Tokyo

occultist
. The player character, a boy named Akito who was fatally injured in a car crash, is found and possessed by a spirit who imbues him with several abilities, allowing him to fight against the specters, investigate the disappearances of Tokyo's population, and save his family.

The game is played from a

skill tree by generating enough experience
from combat. The game additionally boasts several side-missions off the main story path that rewards the player with various collectibles and items that can augment Akito's abilities while providing further context on the game's world and characters.

The game was announced during Bethesda's

Kuji-kiri
.

Ghostwire: Tokyo was released on March 25, 2022 for

Xbox Series X/S
was later released on April 12, 2023 alongside the "Spider's Thread" content update, which introduced new enemy types, unlockable skills, side-missions, story cinematics and areas within Tokyo to explore. The game received favorable reviews upon launch, with praise directed towards the game design, presentation and narrative, while the lack of technical polish, limited depth of combat and repetitive game content drew divisive reactions.

Gameplay

Ghostwire: Tokyo is an

health, its core is exposed and the player can use takedown moves to destroy it. By defeating these spirits and collecting Yokai, the character will collect spirit points and resources used to upgrade their abilities.[3]

Plot

The game begins with a spirit (Kazuhiko Inoue / Stephen Oyoung) flying over the scene of a traffic collision. The spirit is looking for a body to possess and decides on a boy named Akito Izuki (Kensuke Nishi / Cory Yee) who was rendered unconscious from the accident. Akito wakes up, still in control of his body except for his right hand, which is under control of the spirit. Soon after, a terrifying fog rolls in, turning anyone caught in it into a spirit, but Akito is spared thanks to the spirit possessing him. A man in a Hannya mask (known only as Hannya (Shunsuke Sakuya / Feodor Chin) appears on the digital signs near the area and uses a spell to summon evil entities, known as visitors, sealing the disembodied spirits of the civilians away in cages all across Shibuya. Akito is told by the spirit he needs to hunt Hannya down to stop him, but Akito convinces the spirit to let him go check on his sister, Mari Izuki (Asami Seto / Anne Yatco), who is in a coma at the local hospital.

The spirit grants Akito spirit-based powers to help him fight his way to Mari's room, but find that Hannya has beat them there and wants to use Mari for some sort of ritual. When Akito tries to interfere, Hannya stabs him through the chest and kidnaps Mari. As he lays dying, Akito has a flashback, showing that Mari is comatose due to a house fire. Akito talks to the spirit (who tells Akito to call him KK) and agrees to help him stop Hannya. KK saves Akito's life and tells him to go to a safe house KK had set up before he died.

At the safe house, KK reveals he was part of a team of investigators who tried to stop Hannya but failed. KK sends Akito to the Kagerie Observation tower to scan the town for clues, where they spot one of Hannya's allies going into an underground train station. The two follow and find an underground shrine where Hannya and his allies are preparing for their ritual. KK reveals that Hannya plans to steal enough souls to destroy the barrier between the world of the living and the dead so Hannya can resurrect his dead wife and daughter. Hannya and the others escape, leaving Akito to fight Hannya's ally, but in the course of the fight the enemy's mask gets blown off, revealing it is actually a puppet made from KK's human body. The puppet capitalizes on KK's shock to separate KK from Akito and seal him away, leaving Akito powerless.

Akito manages to escape to the surface and heads back to KK's safe house to figure out how to find him. There he meets one of KK's old partners, Rinko, who gives him KK's commuter pass case and a picture of KK's wife and son. Rinko also helps Akito use his lingering connection to KK to find and reunite with him. Just as the two reunite, a pillar of light appears, showing that Hannya has started his ritual. The two pursue Hannya and confront him. Hannya's two other allies reveal themselves to be puppets made from Hannya's wife and daughter. Akito defeats the daughter puppet, but is delayed enough for Hannya to unleash a giant spirit monster upon the town and escape into the toxic fog.

Unable to follow on foot, KK reveals that Rinko made a custom motorcycle capable of passing through the fog. After collecting additional parts to complete the bike, the two travel to Tokyo Tower and confront the mother puppet. At the top of the tower, Hannya takes Mari and jumps into the mouth of the giant spirit monster. Akito is attacked by the KK puppet again but manages to destroy it.

Akito and KK follow Hannya into the giant's mouth. Inside, they pass through a series of doors representing Akito and Mari's memories, revealing that Akito was an emotionally closed off person, which was only exacerbated by his parents' deaths. With the loss of her parents and Akito's coldness towards her, Mari fell into an almost suicidal depression. The two heroes catch up to Hannya as he opens a direct gate to the underworld, but before he can finish the ritual, Mari's spirit appears and throws him into the gate. As her spirit starts to fade away, she tells Akito that her accident wasn't his fault. She reveals that she had a chance to escape the fire but went back to grab their parents' wedding rings as they were the only thing they had left of them. As Mari dies, Hannya climbs back out and fuses himself with his daughter and wife's spirits, turning himself into a monstrous amalgamation. The two heroes finish him off for good, freeing all the souls Hannya captured. The spirits of Akito's parents arrive to escort Mari to the afterlife as Akito promises her that he'll lead a good life from then on. With the crisis averted, Akito returns to the living world and KK's spirit leaves his body permanently.

Development

In June 2019, during

Unreal Engine 4.[6]

On September 21, 2020, Bethesda Softworks' parent company,

Windows on March 25, 2022.[11][12]

On March 15, 2023, the game was announced to be releasing for the Xbox Series X/S on April 12, 2023 alongside a new content update for the game.[1]

Reception

Ghostwire: Tokyo received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[13][14][15]

Reviewers linked the lack of polish and antiquated nature of the game's action elements to a "different era of action game design",[22][25] while others, though reviewing the title positively, acknowledged the narrow target audience due to said elements.[18][19][22]

Combat was criticized for lacking depth through its lack of combos, rudimentary skill tree, and slow and imprecise movement, but was praised for its engaging presentation, kinetic feel, and its use of the

DualSense controller. Movement was also criticized for being slow and imprecise during combat.[18][19][22][24] Several review outlets felt that the Ghostwire: Tokyo's premise was largely compelling, and that its story and characters were tightly written, but that none of these elements were fully realized.[22][25][28][30]

Many outlets also claimed that the game felt particularly uninspired and repetitive after a while, and that it failed to do anything new or interesting with its premise in terms of gameplay. They also felt that the game's structure of cleansing gates was largely repetitive and criticized the underutilized potential of the linearly designed open world. The visual style and theming, atmosphere, dense design, and compact scale of the world was largely praised.[16][18][19][22][24][28]

Some commended side quests for their weirder tones, engaging design, and short length,[18][22] while others criticized them for being unmemorable and repetitive.[24][25][28][30] Enemies were heavily praised for their haunting designs, but were criticized for the lack of variety and unchallenging design. Bosses in particular were deemed underwhelming in nature.[16][19][22][24][28]

Prior to release, a number of outlets noted technical issues with the PC version of the game, citing stuttering as an issue.[25][30][34]

The PlayStation 5 version of Ghostwire: Tokyo was the sixth bestselling retail game during its first week on sale in Japan, with 10,144 physical copies being sold.[35]

The game won the Award for Excellence at the 2022 Japan Game Awards.[36] The game has reached 4 million players by May 2023.[37] And reached 6 million players by September 2023.[38]

Future

Possible sequel

A sequel to Ghostwire: Tokyo was mentioned in a Bethesda Softworks publisher roadmap as scheduled for the 2024 fiscal year period ending March 2025. The roadmap was part of a series of documents Microsoft had submitted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) during a hearing in May 2023 concerning their acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which was finalized that October.[39] The release timeframe is potentially out of date due to the document's materials preceding the acquisition of Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax Media by Microsoft in March 2021.[40]

Notes

  1. ^ Japanese: ゴーストワイヤー：東京, Hepburn: Gōsutowaiyā: Tōkyō

References

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  2. ^ Tarantola, Andrew (June 11, 2020). "Bethesda reveals gameplay for its 'Ghostwire: Tokyo' supernatural thriller". Engadget. Archived from the original on June 23, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
  3. ^ a b Morton, Lauren (June 15, 2020). "GhostWire: Tokyo: everything we know about the spooky action thriller". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on February 7, 2020. Retrieved June 24, 2020.
  4. ^ O'Connor, Alice (June 10, 2019). "The Evil Within studio spooking us again with GhostWire: Tokyo". Rock Paper Shotgun. Gamer Network. Archived from the original on June 11, 2019. Retrieved January 31, 2020.
  5. ^ Hall, Charlie (September 4, 2019). "The star of E3 2019 is leaving her big Bethesda game, GhostWire: Tokyo". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on September 5, 2019. Retrieved January 31, 2020.
  6. ^ Kayser, Daniel (June 20, 2019). "Celebrating Unreal developer success at E3 2019". Unreal Engine. Archived from the original on July 31, 2020. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
  7. ^ Bass, Dina; Schreier, Jason (September 21, 2020). "Microsoft to Buy Bethesda for $7.5 Billion to Boost Xbox". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on September 21, 2020. Retrieved September 21, 2020.
  8. ^ Robinson, Andy (March 9, 2021). "Microsoft confirms its Bethesda acquisition is complete and 'some games' will be exclusive". Video Games Chronicle. Archived from the original on March 9, 2021. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
  9. USgamer. Archived
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  10. ^ Hesse, Brendan (March 9, 2022). "Ghostwire: Tokyo Preorders Are Available Ahead Of Its March 25 Release Date". GameSpot. Archived from the original on March 16, 2022. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  11. ^ Watts, Steve (June 11, 2020). "Ghostwire: Tokyo Gets New PS5 Trailer At Reveal Event". GameSpot. Archived from the original on June 18, 2020. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
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  14. ^ a b "GhostWire: Tokyo for PlayStation 5 Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on June 21, 2022. Retrieved March 21, 2022.
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  19. ^ a b c d e Hester, Blake (March 21, 2022). "Ghostwire: Tokyo Review". Game Informer. GameStop Corp. Retrieved March 21, 2022.
  20. ^ Faulkner, Jason (March 21, 2022). "Ghostwire: Tokyo Review: 'Too familiar for its own good'". GameRevolution. Archived from the original on July 14, 2022. Retrieved March 21, 2022.
  21. ^ Wakeling, Richard (March 21, 2022). "Ghostwire: Tokyo Review - Shibuya Scramble". GameSpot. Archived from the original on June 15, 2022. Retrieved March 21, 2022.
  22. ^ a b c d e f g h West, Josh (March 21, 2022). "Ghostwire Tokyo review - "Feels like a throwback to a different era"". GamesRadar+. Archived from the original on June 14, 2022. Retrieved March 21, 2022.
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  25. ^ a b c d e Mellor, Imogen (March 21, 2022). "Ghostwire: Tokyo review". PC Gamer. Future plc. Archived from the original on April 21, 2022. Retrieved March 21, 2022.
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  31. ^ Kaser, Rachel (March 24, 2022). "Ghostwire: Tokyo review — A ghastly formula". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on May 12, 2022. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
  32. ^ Cryer, Hirun (March 21, 2022). "Ghostwire: Tokyo review – Possessed of spirit and enchanted by that Shinji Mikami magic". VG247. Archived from the original on July 1, 2022. Retrieved March 21, 2022.
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  34. ^ Corden, Jez (March 21, 2022). "Ghostwire: Tokyo PC early review impressions — Sensory overload". Windows Central. Archived from the original on March 21, 2022. Retrieved March 21, 2022.
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  37. ^ Carter, Justin (May 5, 2023). "Tango Gameworks' Ghostwire: Tokyo has haunted 4 million players". Game Developer. Archived from the original on May 6, 2023. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
  38. ^ Macgregor, Jody (September 17, 2023). "6 million people played Ghostwire: Tokyo". PC Gamer. Retrieved September 24, 2023.
  39. ^ Skrebels, Joe (October 13, 2023). "Welcoming the Legendary Teams at Activision Blizzard King to Team Xbox". Xbox Wire. Retrieved January 26, 2024.
  40. ^ "Leaked Bethesda roadmap reveals unannounced releases including Dishonored 3". Eurogamer.net. September 19, 2023. Retrieved January 26, 2024.

External links

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