Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden is an exciting new action RPG game and it tells the tale of two lovers who become Banishers. Together, they journey through New Eden to break a curse on the town. Throughout the game, you’ll discover the tragic story of these lovers in New Eden Town. While the game does a good job of teaching you how to play as it goes along, there are still some things we wish we had known when we first started playing. Check out our Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden Beginner’s Guide for tips and tricks that will help you throughout your journey.
Beginner’s Guide – Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
Our Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden Beginner’s Guide is all about helping you figure out different things that you should be aware of if you are just starting to play the game.
Get To Know Red and Antea
Once you finish the tutorial in New Eden Town, you’ll meet up with Antea, who will join Red as a playable character. Each character has their own health bar: Red’s is white, while Antea’s is green, representing her spirit. You can swap between them whenever you like, and they fight in different ways. Antea is better at fighting possessed corpses, but every time she attacks or gets hit, it uses up her Spirit meter. Red’s attacks can recharge this meter, letting you switch between the two during battles.
As you keep playing the game, Antea will learn new Manifestations. These are strong abilities that can be used in fights and while exploring. They can help Red reach places that need certain Manifestations to unlock.
Pick Up and Explore Everything
While exploring New Eden, you won’t come across many resources, but whatever you find will be handy. Everything down to hoof fungus or piece of leather serves a purpose, like upgrading gear or performing rituals. Collect everything you come across, even if you’re not sure how you’ll use it. It’ll likely be needed for gear upgrades later on.
Pay Attention to Glowing Rings
Red and Antea each have their own strengths in the game. Sometimes, you’ll notice rings glowing on your right hand, accompanied by a sound. This tells you which character you can use or what item you can interact with nearby. If the ring glows red, there’s usually a ritual site nearby or an item for the Cursed Chests that Red can pick up. On the other hand, if it glows green, there might be a hidden item that only Antea can uncover or an area that needs a Manifestation to move forward.
Perform The Right Ritual
In his role as a banisher, Red can choose from three rituals: Harken, Make-Manifest, and Summon Scourge. Each has its own purpose:
- Harken helps recall memories by acting them out.
- Make-Manifest reveals ghosts.
- Summon Scourge isn’t encountered in the game’s initial 10 hours or so.
What’s crucial to note is that there’s no punishment for messing up a ritual other than losing some resources. You can simply attempt a different ritual if things don’t work out. Typically, you’ll use Harken when searching for clues, Make-Manifest for confrontations, and Summon Scourge to potentially summon a scourge later in the game.
Choices Matter
As you play the game, you’ll come across lots of decisions to make. Some might not seem too big, but the really important ones happen after you finish a Haunting Case or during a main story quest.
After completing a Haunting Case, Red and Antea have to make some really important decisions. These choices have a big effect on the story and especially on what happens to Antea at the end of the game. You’ll get to pick from three options when you reach the end of a Haunting Case or at certain points in the main storyline.
- Blame: When you choose Blame, the settlers may die, but you’ll get essence for Antea, helping with her Resurrection ritual.
- Ascend: If you choose Ascend, you let the ghost gently leave this world.
- Banish: This choice is about the Banishers. Selecting Banish means performing a Banishment ritual on the ghost.
Take Your Time
Think of Banishers as being surrounded by bumpers rather than being strictly guided like a train on rails. While it shares elements with open-world games and action RPGs, such as the freedom to explore and tackle challenges in any order, there are also blocked paths that you’ll need to revisit later, gear upgrades, and skill tree choices. However, it’s not entirely open-world, as the game guides you through its story and introduces mechanics and ways to unlock blocked paths according to its own schedule.
You have some control over the pacing, and you can choose to wander off if you wish, but the story unfolds in a predetermined order, and upgrades like a rifle are introduced at specific points in the game. One aspect you have more control over is when to engage in haunting cases, and sometimes you can decide whether or not to pursue them.
Haunting Cases Give Skill Points
Ghost investigations, known as haunting cases, are short side missions where you play as a banisher. Your job is to look into a haunting, uncover clues and intentions, and then deal with the ghost. Many of these missions are part of the main story early on, but even if they’re optional, they offer important rewards like skill points and essences.
Furthermore, haunting cases contribute to the game’s overall story and moral choices, pushing the narrative forward.
When you rest at a campfire, you can access your skill tree in the Evolution menu. Here, you can use skill points and essences to unlock new fighting abilities. You can also rearrange your unlocked skills for free, giving you flexibility in your choices.
Don’t Worry About Skills
When it comes to fighting, in the Evolution menu, you’ll find two types of skills for both Red and Antea. Red earns skill points by leveling up, while Antea collects essence after solving a Haunting Case. With these resources, you can unlock skills based on your preference. Red’s skills are highlighted in red, while Antea’s are in green.
The game wants you to enjoy the story without stressing over choosing the perfect skills, as all of them work well. You can reset your skills whenever you like. Although each branch of the skill tree can only have two active skills that are linked, you’re free to switch between them in any order you prefer.
A quick tip: If you select a skill that’s already turned on, you’ll get back the point you spent on it. This lets you use that point in another part of the skill tree.
Rituals Banisher
As you go through the game or a Haunting Case, you’ll encounter different rituals you need to do. At first, there are three rituals you’ll keep doing, and later, two more are added, making it five rituals in total. These are:
- Harkening: This reveals an echo from the past. You’ll use it during investigations in Haunting Cases.
- Make-Manifest: This makes a ghost or specter appear. You might use it to reveal a haunted person’s ghost or to fight specters at Nest or Elite sites.
- Summon Scourge: This brings forth a powerful specter called a scourge. It’s useful at Scourge sites and in the main story.
- Unbounding: Unlocks after progress in the game. It’s for Cursed Chests once you have all three materials.
- Void Traveling: Unlocks during the game and lets you enter or leave a Void Breach site.
Each ritual site—Nest, Elite, Scourge, or Void Breach—has a Spectral Malevolence at the bottom of the screen. These are combat rules you must follow to deal more damage to enemies. Pay attention to them or you’ll hardly hurt the spectral enemies.
TIP: Every ritual needs resources, and even if you do the wrong one, you’ll still use up those materials. So, it’s crucial to know how each ritual works to avoid wasting your resources.
Don’t Upgrade Equipment Too Fast
At the beginning of the game, fighting specters and enemies might be tough. You might feel the urge to upgrade your items quickly, but we recommend against it. By taking your time to explore the map, you can discover lots of new gear and equipment with passive skills that enhance both Red and Antea.
If you find the gear you really like and its passive skill matches your playstyle, you can upgrade it. But remember, upgrading low-level gear takes more materials than upgrading high-level gear. So, think carefully before deciding to upgrade your gear, especially in the early stages of the game.
TIP: Remember, different areas have different resources available. If you rush through upgrades, you might end up unable to get more upgrades later on.
Play Around With The Exploration Tree
In battles, you’ll switch between Red and Antea to use their strengths. Antea is good at kicking ghosts out of bodies, while Red is skilled at slicing through ghosts with his special weapons. Red can block incoming attacks, but Antea can ignore opponents’ blocks.
It might take some practice to mix the light and heavy attacks of both fighters, but you can adjust this using the skill trees. Investing skill points and essences in the skill trees lets you change how Red and Antea fight. For instance, you could make Antea punch after Red hits three times, add a powerful charged attack, or even gain extra health potions.
Skills are arranged along paths, and you can only choose one branch at a time. For instance, in the Unveil tree, you have to decide between Pocket of Holding for an extra health potion or Tag-Team for a fourth light attack. You can’t have both. Fortunately, you can freely switch unlocked skills at a campfire. So, try out different combinations until you find what works best for you.
Time Your Dodges
Here’s a small but important tip that took us a while to learn: When you’re fighting, watch out for the glowing ring around enemies. When it turns red, it means they’re about to attack, not that they’re already attacking. If you dodge right away, they might adjust their attack and still hit you. So, when you see the red glow, you have a moment to prepare before you need to dodge. Recall all those fat roll moments from Dark Souls…..
That is all for this guide. If you are looking to master combat in the game, make sure to check out our dedicated Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden Combat Guide and Parry Guide.
This concludes our Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden Beginner’s Guide. If you have any helpful tips that you would like to share with us, please feel free to do so in the comments section!
