Ghostwire: Tokyo's magical finger guns look great in new showcase

rockpapershotgun.com:

I become more interested in supernatural, open world, first-person magic 'em up Ghostwire: Tokyo with every new thing I see of it. Today, Tango Gameworks broadcast a 20 minute-long showcase and developer interview that had enough stealth, grapple hooks, and paranormal finger-guns to convince me completely. You can watch the full thing below.

Developers Tango Gameworks are best known for gruesome horror series The Evil Within, and studio founder Shinji Mikami is best known for gruesome horror series Resident Evil. Ghostwire: Tokyo isn't a Mikami-directed game, however. In an interview with VG247 today, Mikami spoke about founding Tango Gameworks with the desire to highlight the "outstanding talent of young creators."

And Ghostwire: Tokyo isn't a horror game, either, despite drawing on ghosts and creepy Japanese folklore. Instead, it's a supernatural action game, with moments where you'll be sneaking about with a bow-and-arrow but far more where you're facing the eyeless gentleman and headless schoolgirls, er, face first.

I love the thought of wandering around a relatively open and accurately recreated Shibuya, but it's the magic combat I'm most excited about. The protagonist is partnered with a spirit that allows him to use magic attacks via hand movements, causing swirly polygonal artefacts to appear, fireballs to slam against ghosts, or magic thread to lash around enemies. I'm not sure how it'll feel versus the chunky satisfaction of a shotgun, but it certainly looks great.

Ghostwire: Tokyo is in the interesting position of being owned by Bethesda (a Microsoft-owned publisher, now) but a timed console exclusive on PlayStation. Today's stream prompted quite the conniption between console warriors in the chat. No