Step into the eerie world of Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, where every shadow hides a secret and every corner of New Eden’s vast map beckons with mysteries to uncover. Before you embark on this supernatural journey of combat, rituals, and exploration, mastering the art of character switching and uncovering hidden treasures will be your key to survival. Ready to break the curse and banish the nightmares? Here’s what every beginner must know to get started strong on PC, PlayStation, or Xbox.
Pick up everything
In Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, it’s crucial to pick up everything you come across during your exploration. The game features unlimited inventory space, so there’s no reason to leave behind any weapons, resources, or quest items. Many useful items glow or shimmer, making them easy to spot, and collecting these resources is essential for upgrading your gear, performing rituals, and progressing through the story. Additionally, chests, enemy drops, and environmental objects often contain valuable materials, so thorough exploration and gathering will significantly enhance your chances of success in New Eden.
There aren’t a ton of resources that you’ll find as you wander the world around New Eden, but what you find will be useful. Every hoof fungus, scrap of leather, and lilac hyacinth has a use – namely, gear upgrades and rituals.
Pick up everything. Even things you don’t know how you’ll use since they’ll probably come up in gear upgrades a little later. Sure, you’ll eventually be carrying 200 wild chervils, but it’s better to have extras than not enough when it’s time for a ritual.
Perform the right ritual for the task
Performing the right ritual for the task is essential in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, as each ritual serves a specific purpose in solving Haunting Cases and progressing the story. There are five key rituals you will encounter: Harkening to reveal past memories, Make-Manifest to summon and communicate with ghosts, Summon Scourge to call forth powerful boss specters, Unbounding to unlock cursed chests, and Void Traveling to enter and exit the Void dimension. Each ritual requires specific resources found throughout New Eden, and performing the incorrect ritual wastes these valuable materials without any benefit. Paying close attention to the ritual site’s cues and selecting the appropriate ritual ensures you uncover crucial clues, summon necessary spirits, or gain access to hidden areas, making mastery of these rites vital for success in your ghost-hunting journey.
Red has the option to perform three different rituals in the course of his banisher duties: Harken, Make-Manifest, and Summon Scourge. Each has a different use case:
- Harken is to remember something by reenacting a memory
- Make-Manifest makes a ghost reveal themselves
- Summon Scourge. well, Summon Scourge doesn’t come up in the game’s first 10 hours or so.
More importantly, there’s no penalty for performing the wrong ritual beyond losing some resources (see above). You can always just try again with a different ritual. In general, though, you’ll use Harken while looking for clues, Make-Manifest for a confrontation, and Summon Scourge to (presumably) summon a scourge later in the game.
Elements of gameplay not being introduced for a while is actually a theme worth mentioning.
Don’t rush the game
In Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, patience is key-don’t rush through the game. The world of New Eden is vast and filled with secrets, resources, and valuable gear that you can discover by thoroughly exploring the map and investigating every point of interest. Taking your time allows you to gather essential materials for upgrading your equipment and completing rituals, which are crucial for progressing smoothly. Moreover, the game encourages experimentation with skills and playstyles, and you can always reset talents if needed, so there’s no need to hurry your decisions. Enjoy the story and exploration at your own pace to fully experience the rich gameplay and avoid unnecessary early challenges.
Phrases like “narrative-driven” or “narrative-focused” don’t really explain game mechanics, so think of Banishers not as being on rails so much as it is surrounded by bumpers.
Banishers has some of the trappings of both open-world games and action-RPGs – you’re free to wander the map and tackle challenges in any order you want, you’ll find unpassable paths you’ll have to return to later, you upgrade your gear and choose abilities along a skill tree – but don’t approach the game as if it was truly open-world.
It’s guiding you along its story and it will add in mechanics and ways to open those blocked paths on its own schedule. You’re in charge of the pacing – you can wander off if you want to – but the story unfolds in a set order and you’ll get upgrades like a rifle on the game’s own timeline.
One thing you have a little more control over is when to do – and sometimes whether or not to do – haunting cases.
Solve haunting cases for skill points
Solving Haunting Cases in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a crucial way to earn valuable skill points that enhance your characters’ abilities. These cases act as side quests where you investigate haunted settlers to bring closure, each offering a unique story and rewarding you with experience points and Essence points upon completion. Essence points are vital for unlocking new skills in Antea’s Evolution skill tree, allowing you to tailor your gameplay and improve combat effectiveness. Additionally, finishing Haunting Cases involves making important choices that impact the game’s narrative, making them both rewarding and meaningful to your progression in New Eden.
Haunting cases are quick little side missions where you, in your role as a banisher, investigate a haunting, find hints and intentions, and then dispatch the ghost. Especially early on, many of these are along the main story’s path, but even when they’re optional, they have an important reward – skill points and essences.
Beyond that, haunting cases figure in to the game’s larger story arc (and moral dilemma), so they’ll further that story along. (For deeper guides, check out our walkthroughs for two early game haunting cases, “The Old Friends” and “The Flesh is Weak.”)
At a campfire where you rest, you’ll have the option to go into your skill tree in the game’s Evolution menu. That’s where you’ll spend skill points and essences to unlock new fighting abilities. You can even switch around skills you’ve already unlocked for free which allows you to.
Experiment with the Evolution skill tree to match your play
Experimenting with the Evolution skill tree in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden allows you to tailor Red and Antea’s abilities to suit your preferred playstyle. As you progress, you unlock new Manifestation powers and perks across different skill trees-Unveil, Ensnare, and Fusion-each offering unique combat and exploration advantages. You earn skill points for Red by leveling up and Essence for Antea by completing Haunting Cases, enabling you to customize their skills strategically. Importantly, you can reset and reallocate your points at campfires or during exploration, encouraging you to try different combinations to find the most effective synergy between Red’s melee and rifle attacks and Antea’s spectral powers, ensuring a personalized and dynamic gameplay experience.
During combat, you’ll switch back and forth between Red and Antea to make use of their strengths. Antea is better at punching ghost out of corporeal bodies while Red is better at slashing through ghosts with his banisher weapons. Red can block incoming attacks while Antea ignores opponents’ blocks.
Mixing together your two fighters and their light and heavy attacks takes some getting used to. But you can modify that with the skill trees.
Spending skill points and essences in the skill trees lets you modify how Red and Antea fight. You’ll do things like add a punch from Antea after Red hits three times or adding a charged heavy attack or just getting an extra health decoction.
Skills lie along paths and you can’t chose two branches at the same time. For example, on the Unveil tree, you’ll have to pick either Pocket of Holding for an extra health potion or Tag-Team to add a fourth light attack. You can’t have both. Luckily, at a campfire, you can switch around skills you’ve unlocked freely. Do that. Often. Experiment and find a set of skills that work for you.
Speaking of combat.
Timing dodges is tricky
Timing dodges in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden can be quite challenging and requires practice to master. Unlike simple blocking, effective dodging depends on reading enemy animations carefully since there are no explicit signals to indicate when to dodge. Early on, it’s advisable to prioritize repositioning with dodge rolls rather than attempting perfect parries, as the timing windows for parrying are tight and enemies can be unpredictable. Mastering dodges is crucial because healing resources are limited, making it essential to avoid damage whenever possible.
This isn’t a huge tip, but it’s taken us a long, frustrating time to adjust to it. During combat, when the glowing threat ring switches to red, it means an attack is incoming.
What hidden secrets in New Eden can give me an edge early on
Early in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, uncovering hidden secrets like Spectral nests can give you a significant edge by boosting all your attributes and granting valuable XP, making these combat arenas essential to seek out and complete. Exploring abandoned campsites and breaking open hidden caches yields crucial resources such as leather, pyrite, and witch stone, which are vital for crafting and upgrades. Completing Haunting Cases by investigating spectral clues and making key choices rewards you with powerful items like the Wristband of Harmony and Aureola, as well as substantial XP gains. Additionally, paying attention to environmental cues like swirling lights can guide you toward secret locations and ritual sites that unlock new abilities and storylines. Mastering these hidden elements early will strengthen your characters and prepare you for tougher challenges ahead.
What are the most valuable spectral nests and how do they boost my stats early
The most valuable Spectral Nests early in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden are those classified as Spectral Activities, including Nests, Elite Rituals, and Endless Void Breaches. Clearing these nests boosts all your attributes, providing a significant advantage in combat and progression during the early game. While specific nests vary in location and difficulty, prioritizing these activities ensures a comprehensive increase in your characters’ stats such as Might, Agility, Luck, and Vitality, which are crucial for survival and damage output early on. This boost helps you tackle tougher enemies and complete quests more efficiently, setting a strong foundation for your journey through New Eden.
