Ghostwire: Tokyo hands-on preview – a magical shooter

metro.co.uk:

GameCentral gets to play the opening two chapters of the new first person adventure from the creators of The Evil Within.

In our first preview of Ghostwire: Tokyo we admitted that there wasn’t really much useful we could say about it, since we didn’t get to play it or speak to the developer. It looked interesting – with a unique mix of Japanese mythology, open world exploration, and first person shooter elements – but it was hard to discern the tone from just watching a video, since there are horror elements but it didn’t seem to be trying to be scary.

We’ve now had the chance to play the first two chapters of the game – around five hours of gameplay – and we can confirm that, unless there’s some significant changes later in the game, this definitely isn’t a survival horror. To be fair, it’s not advertised as such but when your game is all about ghosts and yōkai that’s going to be the inevitable first assumption.

Despite having played so much of the game we’re still a little unclear on the plot and motivations, but it starts off with a very Shin Megami Tensei style supernatural apocalypse, where everyone in Tokyo is suddenly vaporised, Rapture style, and only their clothes, and mobile phones filled with tragic last messages, are left behind.

The culprit is a so-far nameless antagonist whose plans remain vague but seem to involve him doing away with corporeal existence entirely, supposedly for the benefit of all. You technically play as two different characters, the first an ordinary young man named Akito, who is knocked down and killed by a car in the opening panic. The second is a mysterious sorcerer known only as KK, who starts off the game in incorporeal form but, unable to possess a living person, settles for Akito.

Altho