Ghostwire: Tokyo (2022/2023)

“If Doctor Strange took a wrong turn into Japan and had to fistfight ghosts.”


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Lets start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

🎬 Trailers

The trailers sold it as surreal, neon-soaked horror-action — faceless spirits walking through the rain, headless schoolgirls giggling as they floated, and a Tokyo consumed by fog where only one person remained alive. The vibe was instantly weird, but that was the hook. Nobody quite knew if it was horror, action, or supernatural thriller — and in a way, it was all three.


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📖 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

The story kicks off in Shibuya, Tokyo, where a mysterious fog suddenly consumes the city. Everyone vanishes, leaving only clothes and umbrellas scattered on the ground. The dead have been pulled into limbo, and spirits now roam the streets.

You play as Akito, a young man who survives the disaster by merging with the spirit of KK, a ghost hunter with unfinished business. Together, they fight the Visitors — grotesque supernatural entities — while hunting down the masked figure responsible for the catastrophe, Hannya.

It’s part horror, part superhero origin story, part fever dream.


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👥 Character Rundown

Akito – The reluctant hero. He’s just a normal guy caught in an impossible situation, slowly growing into the role of protector.

KK – The gruff ghost hunter who inhabits Akito, giving him powers. His backstory ties heavily into the supernatural threats and grounds the narrative.

Hannya – The antagonist. His mask, his cult-like following, and his apocalyptic goals make him feel both theatrical and terrifying.

Mari – Akito’s sister, caught in limbo, serving as Akito’s emotional motivation.



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🕹️ Gameplay & Combat

Ghostwire’s combat is basically Doctor Strange if he fought yokai. You channel Ethereal Weaving, a form of magic where Akito whips his hands in elaborate sigils, firing off bursts of elemental energy — wind, fire, and water — each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Enemies have “cores” exposed when weakened; ripping them out with glowing spirit-threads feels both brutal and ritualistic.

Exploration is semi-open world. You cleanse torii gates to push back the fog, unlock new areas, and exorcise haunted spaces. You also rescue lingering spirits, ferrying them out of limbo to restore Tokyo’s population. Side missions dive deep into Japanese folklore, sending you to deal with yokai, haunted houses, or tragic restless souls.


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🎥 Cinematography & Atmosphere

Tokyo itself is the star. Rain-slicked streets reflect neon billboards, empty convenience stores hum with fluorescent light, and fog creeps down narrow alleys. It’s eerie, but gorgeous. The camera work in cutscenes often feels like a supernatural J-drama — tilted angles, claustrophobic zooms, and distorted perspectives mirror the unease of Akito’s world.

The ghost designs are some of the most haunting in modern games:

Faceless Salarymen (Slender Men lookalikes) in suits, representing soulless work culture.

Headless schoolgirls skipping and laughing, mocking lost youth.

Raincoat Visitors wielding umbrellas, uncanny in their blank faces.

Tall Woman, a stretched yokai with elongated limbs, straight nightmare fuel.


Each ghost has weak points (usually their glowing cores), but their designs are so uncanny you almost don’t want to get close.


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✅ Pros

Original and absurdly creative — nothing else plays quite like this.

Combat blends martial arts, magic, and horror seamlessly.

Tokyo is beautifully realized — part ghost town, part living folklore museum.

Ghost designs are terrifyingly imaginative.

Side quests flesh out Japanese myths most players have never seen in games before.



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❌ Cons

Repetitive: cleansing torii gates and fighting waves of Visitors can feel formulaic.

Story pacing can drag, especially in the middle chapters.

Release model was messy: PS5 and PC got it first in 2022, Xbox users waited a full year. This was doubly frustrating since PS5 consoles were so rare at the time.



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💭 Final Thoughts

Ghostwire: Tokyo is weird. Absurd. Sometimes clunky. But it’s also one of the most original supernatural games of the last decade. It fuses folklore, urban legend, and superhero action into something wholly unique. For all its flaws, it sticks with you — a neon fever dream of faceless spirits and desperate humanity.


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🎯 Rating: 8/10

It’s not perfect, but it’s unforgettable. And yes — it still makes my list of favorites.


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⚠️ Spoiler Warning – Extended Breakdown

The deeper you go into Shibuya, the clearer Hannya’s plan becomes. He isn’t just unleashing spirits at random — he’s trying to open a permanent gateway between the living and the dead. His cult kidnaps Mari, Akito’s sister, intending to use her as a vessel to stabilize the connection.

KK’s backstory intertwines with Hannya’s motives. KK once hunted Hannya’s group, but failed to stop them, dying in the process. Now bound to Akito, KK seeks redemption. Their partnership evolves: at first tense and reluctant, eventually becoming a brotherhood.

The Visitors escalate in design and ferocity. Salarymen spirits swarm in tight alleys, their umbrella attacks deflecting wind projectiles. Headless schoolgirls skip and shriek in eerie giggles, lunging with unnatural speed. The Tall Woman stalks entire streets, her elongated arms smashing cars aside as she shrieks. Other yokai-inspired bosses include a spiderlike entity skittering along shrine walls and a drowned maiden dragging herself out of sewer grates. Each encounter is unsettling, especially as their glowing cores are violently ripped out by Akito’s hands.

The cinematography amplifies the horror. One standout sequence traps Akito in a warped apartment building where hallways stretch, doors vanish, and gravity bends. Furniture floats in flooded rooms as voices whisper from radios. It feels like a playable fever dream, shifting from urban horror to surreal nightmare.

By the final act, Akito and KK storm Hannya’s sanctum — a shrine warped into a surreal void, its floors replaced with rivers of corrupted water. Mari lies suspended in ritual bindings. Hannya reveals he seeks to reunite with his dead family, but at the cost of merging worlds. His “noble” cause collapses into obsession, and the final battle pits Akito against waves of Visitors before a duel with Hannya, whose mask glows with shifting kanji symbols.

Akito and KK manage to save Mari by severing the ritual, but at a cost. KK, his purpose fulfilled, fades from Akito, leaving him truly alone for the first time. The bittersweet ending shows Mari recovering, but Akito looking over the empty, half-restored city — Tokyo will never be the same. The supernatural scars remain, even if the fog lifts.

It’s a strange, haunting conclusion, fitting for a game that never once plays it safe.