Ghostwire: Tokyo, Bethesda’s last PlayStation-exclusive game, has been a mystery for years now. First shown at E3 2019, the game got a cryptic trailer filled with creepy visuals and no indication of how it would actually play. A gameplay trailer eventually confirmed it was a first-person action game with magic, but the specifics remained unclear.
Players control Akito, who fuses with a legendary ghost hunter named KK and sets out to find the mask-wearing person responsible for the disappearances, Hannya. KK gives Akito powers called “spiritual weaving” that allow him to sense spirits, cast spells, and shoot magic out of his hands. Magic isn’t just for battles. Through the demo, I saw Akito unlock a door by physically drawing runes on the screen, use spectral vision to follow a wandering spirit, and get up to a rooftop by grappling onto a legendary creature called a tengu.
While it could be described as a standard “map game,” the usual video game tropes are offset by visual creativity. One of the game’s primary “collectibles” comes in the form of spirits. When Akito finds a spectral being floating in the street, he raises a paper katashiro up to absorb it. He then walks over to a phone booth and flips open the telephone inside to reveal a device that lets him deposit captured spirits.