Ghostwire: Tokyo is a paranormal love letter to the city

theverge.com:

Ghostwire: Tokyo is a lot of different things. It’s a paranormal buddy cop drama, a high-octane action title, and a spooky exploration game from a studio known primarily for its horror titles. But according to producer Masato Kimura, none of those elements were the starting point for the game. “The entire concept stemmed from the city of Tokyo,” he tells The Verge.

The game takes place in a nearly empty version of the city, thanks to a mysterious event called “the vanishing” that causes the sudden disappearance of nearly every person in Tokyo. In their place are folklore creatures and evil spirits roaming the streets. Players wield magic to fight enemies while searching every nook of the city for lost spirits to save. Ghostwire pulls players through everywhere, from iconic locations like Shibuya Crossing to more mundane places, like back alleys and generic office buildings.

According to director Kenji Kimura, much of the inspiration came from the duality of Tokyo, a city that’s both strikingly modern and rooted in history. “There are office buildings constantly under construction, but if you turn the corner, you can walk directly into a shrine,” he says. “When you walk into a shrine, the air feels different, it almost tastes different, so it feels like you’ve walked into a different plane. Sometimes you can be walking down the streets of Shibuya, turn down an alleyway, and, a few steps in, you’ll be surrounded by normal houses or a completely different setting. We wanted to take that idea of stepping into another world in a very natural way.”

Given that development studio Tango Gameworks is based in Tokyo, much of the research simply involved going for lots of walks. There are plenty of games set in Tokyo — from Persona