Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden beginner tips before you start

Banishers: Spirits of New Eden Drop into a creepy world full of ghosts and curses. It’s a soft start and the game does a good job of teaching you the mechanics as it introduces them, but there are still things we wish we had known when we started.

Us Banishers: Spirits of New Eden guide will help you get started with tips we picked up during our first 10 hours of play.

Collect everything

There aren’t many resources you’ll come across as you wander the world around New Eden, but what you will come across shall be useful. Every hoof hoof, piece of leather and lilac hyacinth has a use, namely equipment upgrades and rituals.

Collect everything. Even things you don’t know how you’ll use because they’ll probably show up in gear upgrades a little later. Of course, you’ll end up carrying 200 wild chervils, but it’s better to have extra than not enough when it comes time for a ritual.

Perform the appropriate ritual for the task

Red has the ability to perform three different rituals during his banishment tasks: Rake, Make-Manifest, and Summon Scourge. Each has a different usage scenario:

• Raking is remembering something by replaying a memory
• Make-Manifest causes a mind to reveal itself
• Summon Scourge… well, Summon Scourge doesn’t appear in the first ten hours of the game.

Image: Don’t nod/focus on polygon entertainment

More importantly, there is no penalty for performing the wrong ritual, other than the loss of some resources (see above). You can always just try again with a different ritual. In general, though, you’ll use Harken when searching for clues, Make-Manifest for a confrontation, and Summon Scourge to (presumably) summon a plague later in the game.

Elements of gameplay that haven’t been introduced in a while are actually a theme worth mentioning…

Don’t rush the game

Phrases like ‘story-driven’ or ‘story-focused’ don’t really explain the game mechanics, so consider Exiles not so much because it’s on rails, but because it’s surrounded by bumpers.

Exiles has some features of both open world games and action RPGs – you are free to roam the map and take on challenges in any order you want, you will find impassable paths that you have to return to later, you upgrade your equipment and choose skills according to a skill tree, but don’t approach the game as if it were a real open world.

It guides you through the story and adds mechanisms and ways to open those blocked paths on its own schedule. You’re in charge of the pacing – you can digress if you wish – but the story unfolds in a set order and you get upgrades like a gun on the game’s own timeline.

One thing you have a little more control over is when to do scary things – and sometimes whether or not you should do them.

Solve terrifying cases for skill points

Ghost Cases are quick little side quests where, in your role as a banisher, you investigate a ghost, find hints and intentions, and then take out the ghost. Especially early on, many of these are in the path of the main story, but even if they are optional, they have an important reward: skill points and essences.

Image: Don’t nod/focus on polygon entertainment

Additionally, terrifying cases play into the game’s larger storyline (and moral dilemma), so they will move that story forward. (For more information, check out our walkthroughs for two haunting early game cases, ‘The Old Friends’ and ‘The Flesh is Weak’.)

At a campfire where you rest, you have the option to go to your skill tree in the game’s Evolution menu. There you spend skill points and essences to unlock new fighting skills. You can even switch skills you’ve already unlocked for free, so you…

Experiment with the Evolution skill tree to suit your game

During battle, you’ll switch back and forth between Red and Antea to take advantage of their strengths. Antea is better at knocking spirits out of corporeal bodies, while Red is better at breaking spirits with his banishment weapons. Red can block incoming attacks, while Antea ignores opponents’ blocks.

Combining your two fighters and their light and heavy attacks takes some getting used to. But you can adjust that with the skill trees.

Image: Don’t nod/focus on polygon entertainment

By spending skill points and essences in the skill trees, you can customize the way Red and Antea fight. You do things like adding a hit from Antea after Red hits three times, or adding a charged heavy attack or just getting an extra health decoction.

Skills are located along paths and you cannot choose two branches at the same time. For example, on the Unveil tree you have to choose or Pocket of Holding for an extra health drink or Tag-Team to add a fourth light attack. You can’t have both. Fortunately, you can swap skills you’ve unlocked freely at a campfire. Do that. Often. Experiment and find a set of skills that work for you.

Speaking of fighting…

Timing dodges are tricky

This isn’t a huge tip, but it took us a long, frustrating time to get used to it. During battle, when the glowing threat ring turns red, it means an attack is coming.

Image: Don’t nod/focus on polygon entertainment

However, if you immediately dodge, the attack will refocus and hit you anyway. Think of it more as “an attack are about to happen” than “an attack is taking place.” When you see the red glow, you have a few seconds left before you have to dodge.