They don’t make many video games like Ghostwire: Tokyo anymore. The most recent launch from Tango Gameworks, the studio behind the terrifying Evil Inside sequence, Ghostwire: Tokyo is a big-budget motion recreation with a really particular focus. It isn’t stretched out with an unnecessarily massive open world or superfluous on-line options. As a substitute, it provides one thing pure and simple: a mixture of motion, journey, and scares in a decent bundle that may be wrapped up in lower than 20 hours.

On the outset of the sport, practically each particular person in Tokyo has vanished, leaving the metropolis overrun with yokai, folklore creatures, city legends, and vengeful spirits. You play as Akito, a human who was capable of survive the cataclysm by merging with a spirit named KK, who infuses him with supernatural powers. The newly cast duo have a couple of targets in entrance of them: amassing the spirits of regular Tokyo residents which might be nonetheless lingering round, rescuing Akito’s lacking sister, clearing town of a toxic supernatural fog, and stopping an evil mastermind from making a rift between the lands of the dwelling and useless. Only a gentle to-do listing.

Ghostwire truly seems like a mixture of two very totally different sorts of video games, which mix collectively moderately seamlessly. At its core, it’s an motion recreation that performs out sort of like a first-person shooter, solely with out weapons. You’re capable of wield a handful of various kinds of magic — wind, hearth, and water — all of which have totally different attributes. Fireplace is nice at lengthy vary, as an example, whilst you’ll wish to use water as soon as enemies get in shut. There’s a Doom-like balletic really feel to the fight, as you’re zipping round areas, ducking behind cowl, and swapping between magic varieties that you just blast out of your palms. Very like in Doom, it pays to be aggressive; killing enemies can refill your well being and magic, however you’ll want to stand up shut to take in the rewards. There’s additionally a really satisfying capability that allows you to rip out the hearts of enemies for an additional magical bonus. The motion has a splendidly tactile sense to it, as you’re actually utilizing your palms to wield spells and tear out hearts.

The sport has a really video game-y construction to it. Navigating Tokyo means wandering the streets in quest of each hordes of enemies to clear and shrines and temples which you could cleanse to do away with that evil fog and open up extra of the map. You even have to hunt out misplaced souls, who’re stranded everywhere in the metropolis, and use a paper doll known as a katashiro to soak up them after which ship them to security utilizing one of many many telephone cubicles in Tokyo. (Don’t ask me how telephone traces can transport spirits.) This serves as a sort of expertise system; the extra souls you save, the extra you may improve your varied skills. It’s a reasonably simple construction, however that’s additionally what I preferred about it. I had sufficient freedom to have the ability to discover with out ever feeling overwhelmed or misplaced. The one actual difficulty I had was a couple of moderately annoying sequences the place the sport briefly robs you of your powers, forcing you to make the most of stealth and an unwieldy bow and arrow to proceed.

Ghostwire is stuffed with some really creepy monsters: headless schoolgirls who will cost at you with reckless abandon, horrifying people with hair that sprouts out like gigantic spider legs, and a seemingly innocuous girl who wields a devastating pair of scissors. (I actually don’t like her.) The bosses, particularly, are large and disturbingly mutated takes on acquainted creatures. And the world will generally shift and alter in uncomfortable methods; generally that’s a home that turns into submerged in a darkish liquid, or smaller issues just like the white painted traces on the street abruptly floating within the breeze. At one level, I swore the ever-present rain was floating up.

However regardless of this — and although the sport comes from a studio based by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami — Ghostwire isn’t a survival horror recreation. It’s because I used to be so highly effective within the recreation that I by no means discovered myself operating for my life or in search of a spot to cover like I do in Silent Hill and Resident Evil.

The motion focus works properly, and the story — regardless of leaving out loads of element and rendering most facet characters very underdeveloped — has momentum to it, buoyed by the buddy cop-like relationship between Akito and KK. Their fixed banter about life, demise, and the state of KK’s condominium is loads of enjoyable. However the primary story is overshadowed by the sidequests.

Outdoors of the motion, Ghostwire seems like a first-person indie exploration recreation. It jogged my memory loads of 2015’s All people’s Gone to the Rapture. The streets of Tokyo could also be empty of human life, however there’s nonetheless so much happening; spirits in want of assist or KK’s outdated case recordsdata from his earlier life as a detective. These tales vary from sorrowful to hilarious and have my favourite moments from the sport. One notably darkish quest has you investigating a constructing the place everybody has mysteriously died by suicide, whereas one other is a couple of hoarder who can’t let go of their stuff. It’s a set of brief tales in regards to the metropolis’s residents and their relationship with demise. Consider it like Midnight Diner, however with ghosts.

I’d even be remiss if I didn’t point out town itself. Ghostwire renders Tokyo with an astounding degree of affection and element. You’ll discover acquainted locations, in fact, just like the Shibuya crossing and the labyrinth subway stations. However Ghostwire additionally sends you thru the again alleys and generic workplace buildings and the shrines and graveyards which might be hidden amongst the city sprawl. It’s notably eerie devoid of individuals –—although you’ll see a lot of piles of clothes from those that abruptly vanished — however stuffed with indicators of life, whether or not it’s buying luggage stuffed with snacks left laying round or music pulsating from the now-empty bars and eating places.

You’ll be able to even nonetheless store at these wonderful comfort shops since they’re now run by speaking, floating cats. In reality, animals play a giant half within the ambiance of Ghostwire; you may pet or feed the cats and canines left within the metropolis and even learn their minds for hints. (It’s, naturally, a lot simpler to get the canines to comply with some scratches than the extra standoffish cats. And the frilly petting animations really feel designed for max Twitter virality.)

As video games get greater and longer, extra slowed down by an growing must have all your consideration, experiences like Ghostwire have gotten more and more uncommon. Already this 12 months, we’ve seen the creators of Pokémon and Darkish Souls launch wonderful new video games that demand an unbelievable quantity of your time and vitality. Ghostwire, in the meantime, has components of open-world and role-playing video games, however they don’t overwhelm the core of the expertise. As a substitute, it deftly balances all-out motion with quiet exploration and wraps all of it up in a world stuffed with fascinating, unhappy, and hilarious tales to uncover.

It could freak you out, but it surely additionally respects your time.

Ghostwire: Tokyo launches March twenty fifth on the PS5 and PC.