If you have Xbox Game Pass or PC Game Pass and you haven’t played Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden yet, this is the article that’s going to make you install it tonight. The story is the best thing Don’t Nod has made since Life is Strange, the setting is unlike anything else in the Game Pass catalog, and it’s been sitting there quietly while everyone chased the obvious picks.
The quick verdict: play it. The combat is functional rather than exciting, and the mid-game drags in a few spots. But the writing and the central moral dilemma are good enough to carry the whole thing.
What You’re Actually Getting Into
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden released February 13, 2024. It was developed by Don’t Nod — same studio behind Life is Strange, Tell Me Why, and Vampyr — and published by Focus Entertainment. It’s an action RPG set in New England in 1695, which immediately puts it in different territory from basically every other game on the service.
You play two characters: Red mac Raith and Antea Duarte, a couple who work as Banishers — professional ghost hunters. At the very start of the game, Antea dies and becomes a ghost herself. The rest of the story is Red (and the ghost of Antea) trying to figure out what to do about that.
The complication: Antea can be resurrected, but only if Red condemns enough living people by pinning the blame for hauntings on them instead of releasing the actual ghost. Spare the ghost, save the innocent — but Antea stays dead. Condemn the living, and there’s a path back for her.
That’s the engine the whole game runs on, and Don’t Nod doesn’t make it easy to optimize. Every side quest involves investigating a haunting, uncovering what actually happened, and choosing what to do with that information. The scenarios are written well enough that you’ll feel the weight of each choice. Some of the side quest narratives — a grieving father who blamed himself for his son’s death, a woman whose husband died and left behind something darker than grief — hit genuinely hard.
The Combat: Fine, Not Great
You switch between Red (melee, flintlock rifle, physical world) and Antea (ghost powers — slams, pulls, ethereal projectiles) mid-fight. Against living enemies, Red does most of the work; against spectral enemies, Antea’s attacks are the only ones that connect. At higher difficulty levels, the switching creates real tactical decisions. On normal, you’ll mostly spam whatever feels good.
The combat is Vampyr-tier: competent, not inspired. Enemies are repetitive by hour 15. The parry system works and feels decent, but it never develops into something you’d describe as “deep.” If you’re coming from God of War: Ragnarök or Black Myth expecting tight third-person action, lower those expectations.
The exploration is where the pacing problems show up most. Banishers has a semi-open map divided into regions, and you’ll spend a fair amount of time moving through caves and ruins that look great but don’t contain much of interest. The traversal isn’t bad — the environments genuinely are beautiful — it just goes on longer than it needs to.
What Saves It: Voice Acting and the Two Leads
Chipo Chung voices Antea and Garret Dillahunt voices Red. Both of them are excellent. The dialogue between these two characters — written across 25+ hours of banter, argument, grief, and love — is what makes Banishers work. You actually believe this is a couple who’ve been through a lot together and are facing something impossible. That’s harder to pull off than it sounds, and Don’t Nod pulls it off.
If you played Indika on Game Pass and appreciated that it had something to say beyond the combat, Banishers is in that camp — story-first, gameplay-serves-the-narrative.
How Long Is It?
HowLongToBeat puts the main story at around 25 hours. If you do most of the side quests (you should — they’re the best part), you’re looking at 30-35 hours. There’s a second playthrough in theory if you want to pursue both possible endings, but one run is satisfying enough to stand alone.
Metacritic landed it at 78/79 depending on the platform, which feels accurate. It’s a legitimately good game with a couple of noticeable weaknesses — not a masterpiece, not a disappointment.
The Game Pass Math
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden retails for $49.99 on Steam and $59.99 on console. On Game Pass, you’re getting 30 hours of a well-written story-driven action RPG for the cost of your subscription. That’s the best version of Game Pass working exactly as advertised.
If you’re wondering whether the subscription is still worth it in 2026, we broke that down in full here. Short version: months like this — when underrated catalog gems like Banishers are sitting there ready to play — are what justify the price.
For comparison: Space Marine 2 just hit Game Pass and got a lot of justified attention. Banishers has been here longer with less noise around it. Sometimes the quiet one is the better one.
Who Should Play It
- You liked any of Don’t Nod’s previous narrative games (especially Vampyr)
- You’re fine with serviceable combat if the writing is exceptional
- You want a game with moral choices that actually feel like choices
- You’re burned out on the usual open-world template and want something with a distinct setting and tone
Who Should Skip It
- Combat is your primary reason to play games — Banishers won’t satisfy that itch
- You don’t have patience for slower pacing in the mid-game
- You already played through it at launch — there’s no new content, this is the same game from 2024
Verdict
8/10 on Game Pass. At full price on Steam it’s a 7/10 — worth it eventually, but you’d want a 50% sale. On Game Pass, there’s no reason to wait. The story will stay with you longer than most of what’s been added to the service lately, and that’s exactly what a hidden gem is supposed to do.
Find it on Xbox Series X|S, PC (Game Pass), or buy it on Steam for $49.99 — but seriously, just use your subscription. If you need a Game Pass Ultimate gift card to top up your subscription, Amazon usually has them at face value.
