The crossroads of Shibuya, its pedestrian crossings, its giant television screens, or its statue of the dog Hachikô… The place is a must in Tokyo, for its inhabitants, for tourists and now for players. It is there, where more than 2 million people meet every day, that the Ghostwire: Tokyothe latest game from the creator of resident Evil and The Evil Within, Shinji Mikami with his studio Tango Gameworks. It is available since Friday exclusively on PS5 and PC.
Yokai, demons and spells
When a strange, thick fog descends on Tokyo, the entire population disappears leaving only their clothes on the ground. All ? No, the hero Akito escapes this event which turns out to be supernatural and caused by the mysterious Hannya with the mask of a Japanese demon, typical of nô theatre. Akito owes his life to KK, a spirit world detective, at the Yu Yu Hakushowho takes possession of his body and gives him superpowers to better fight the “Visitors”, turns them into yokai, ghosts, and other demons from Japanese folklore.
No zombies, no monsters, no guns or shotguns, Ghostwire: Tokyo already marks its originality by its gameplay, the weaving of ether, spells which make it possible to purify, banish or destroy the yokai. The rendering, with a gesture between the Kuji In and Doctor Strange, is visually pretty and dynamic, though repetitive along the length. It participates in taking the game out of the category in which it would have naturally been put due to the liabilities of its creators, the survival horrorto venture into action, RPG and of course, impossible to escape it today, theopen-world. Or theopenTokyo.
A Tokyo of the end of the world
This is where the main interest of Ghostwire: Tokyo, which allows you to explore the Japanese capital almost to scale, at least for the Shibuya district. But it’s not just any Tokyo, since emptied of its inhabitants, immersed in an end-of-the-world atmosphere, but also terribly familiar. Whether you have had the chance – well, the luxury – of going to the Japanese capital or whether you know it by proxy – through mangas, anime, or cinema – you will be on familiar ground, even conquered, with a city all in verticality, dead ends, neon lights, statues, temples… between modernity and tradition?
The expression has the gift of horrifying the Japanese and the Japanese, but there is a bit of that in the way the game has been able to mix urban legends and Japanese folklore, even if the narration is ultimately set back from the ‘exploration. It’s a safe bet that you’ll pause the game to see if Japan has lifted its restrictions on tourist travel because of Covid-19 (Unfortunately no).