Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden is a game of twos. It has two protagonists and two broad ways of playing, leading to two broad narrative outcomes, and is created by a company who, as Don’t Nod’s lead narrative designer Elise Galmard explained to me at a preview event, feel like they make games for two different audiences - fans of noodly narrative intrigues on the one hand, and of fantasy combat games on the other. Among the game's challenges, of course, is to blend these halves convincingly.
A spiritual (hah) follow-up of sorts to 2018’s fairly well-received Vampyr, it takes place in the alt-historical realm of New Eden, which is kind of 17th century colonial North America through the lens of Dragon Age: Inquisition with a pinch of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. The titular Banishers are a ghost-hunting couple, the Scotsman Red MacRaith and the Cuban Antea Duarte. Antea is killed at the very beginning of the game, during a battle with an especially noxious spook, but she soon returns as a spirit, and your overall story objective is to either resurrect her body or help her "Ascend" to the afterlife.