One of 2022’s most overlooked video games is free right now on PC
2022 was a great year for video game releases — so great, in fact, that a game like Ghostwire: Tokyo, an altogether good game brimming with character and compelling ideas, may have been relegated to many players’ backlogs. I know that was the case for me. However, I spent much of the 2022 holiday season exploring Tango Gameworks’ ghost-infested facsimile of Japan’s bustling metropolis, and I had a blast. And until Nov. 2, you can download the game for free on PC, provided you have an Amazon Prime subscription.
An open-world action-adventure, Ghostwire: Tokyo marked Tango’s first departure from its excellent The Evil Within series since its founding in 2010. However, the studio’s survival-horror roots are still on full display. Which isn’t a surprise, considering the studio was founded by Resident Evil director/producer Shinji Mikami.
You spend most of the game exploring the haunted alleyways, rooftops, and gardens of the titular city, which has been engulfed in a malignant fog that turns civilians into disembodied spirits. Ghostwire may be known for its hand-based magical combat, but it’s absolutely dripping with ethereal, macabre atmosphere at every turn.
In terms of scale, Ghostwire is infinitely more digestible than the gargantuan open worlds that defined the video games of the 2010s. It’s more akin to the recent Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which focuses on a single city, and thus, gets more mileage out of every square yard than, say, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. My favorite recurring quest-type in Ghostwire tasked me with parsing through the former lives of Tokyoites-turned-spirits. One needed me to find a keepsake that they had hidden in the recesses of their home, while others asked me to cleanse their house of a
Read more on polygon.com
