Ghostwire Tokyo is an upcoming game from Tango Gameworks, the Bethesda subsidiary previously responsible for The Evil Within and its excellent sequel. And even though parent company Bethesda has since been acquired by Microsoft, Ghostwire Tokyo remains a timed console exclusive on PS5, much like Arkane Studios’ Deathloop.
Ghostwire Tokyo was first announced at Bethesda’s E3 2019 conference and, after a brief delay which saw it moved out of 2021, we now know it will release on March 25 2022.
Ahead of this release date, PlayStation recently hosted a dedicated showcase for the game, showing ten minutes of first-person gameplay and explaining a little more about what to expect from the mysterious and creepy version of Tokyo that Tango Gameworks has crafted. We also had the chance to see the game in action during a half-hour hands-off demo and found its mix of martial arts, magic and supernatural horror in a semi-open world to be “a hodgepodge of concepts that’s as tantalizing for its combination as for its promise.”
Read on to find out everything we know so far about Ghostwire: Tokyo.
Ghostwire Tokyo: Cut to the chase
- What is it? A first-person horror adventure from the creators of The Evil Within
- When can I play it? March 25 2022
- What can I play it on? PS5 (timed console exclusive) and PC
Ghostwire Tokyo release date
Ghostwire: Tokyo’s release date is confirmed for March 25 when it will launch on PS5 as a console exclusive as well as PC. An Xbox release might come but not for another year as the small print in a February trailer for the game states that it is “not available on other consoles until at least 03/25/23″.
Ghostwire: Tokyo was originally supposed to be a 2021 release but in July 2021, it was announced that it was to be delayed into 2022.
Ghostwire Tokyo trailers
PlayStation Showcase 2022 with gameplay
A February 2022 PlayStation Showcase has given us our best look at Ghostwire Tokyo yet with 10 minutes of gameplay featuring combat and exploration as well as behind-the-scenes chats with the game’s development team. You can watch it for yourself below:
PlayStation Showcase 2021 “Hannya” trailer
This 2021 Ghostwire Tokyo trailer showcases a variety of monsters and supernatural powers being used by protagonist Akito.
Additionally, the game appears to have a somewhat open-ended level design, demonstrated by one section that sees the protagonist use a power to warp to the top of a building from street level.
It’s all looking like the kind of thing Tango Gameworks does best: mind-bending, high concept horror that’s bound to throw us for at least a few loops when the game launches.
2020 gameplay reveal trailer
This trailer from 2020 gave us our first real glimpse at what kind of game Ghostwire Tokyo was shaping up to be, introducing the first-person perspective and some minor story elements. This trailer debuted before the game was delayed, so it’s not necessarily representative of the final release.
E3 2019 announcement trailer
The first we heard of Ghostwire Tokyo was during Bethesda’s E3 2019 press conference. It was revealed by veteran designer Shinji Mikami (previously responsible for Resident Evil and The Evil Within) and the game’s then creative director Ikumi Nakamura, who had previously worked on The Evil Within and Bayonetta.
Ghostwire Tokyo setting
Ghostwire Tokyo is set, funnily enough, in Tokyo. But not one we’d happily visit as starry-eyed Western tourists. According to the official website, this Tokyo is under siege by an unhinged occultist by the name of Hannya, whose powers have caused the entire population of the city to vanish into thin air. Quite literally, as we see in the trailers above.
Replacing them are hordes of yokai-inspired creatures known as the Visitors, including headless schoolgirls, faceless men in business suits, and more. There also appears to be a strong umbrella motif – the handy rain protector appearing throughout the gameplay trailers. We’re sure this will be symbolically significant in some way, but we’re not sure as to what part they’ll play as of yet.
As you might expect, we’ll be visiting a variety of iconic locations across Tokyo, including the Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo Tower, and various shrines, parks, and alleyways.
So far, the game is reminiscent of a marriage of Shin Megami Tensei’s apocalyptic Tokyo setting and Dishonored’s first-person combat, a combo we’re very much okay with.
Ghostwire Tokyo gameplay
Ghostwire Tokyo has us controlling Akito, one of Tokyo’s last living humans, who must team up with a friendly spirit called KK to figure out what’s going on in this demonic rendition of Tokyo and find a way to save his own family. It’s not too dissimilar, then, to Sebastian Castellanos’s motives in The Evil Within duology, so similar themes could persist in Ghostwire Tokyo.
With the help of KK, Akito can make use of a wide range of supernatural abilities to combat the demons of Tokyo. These abilities will be upgradeable according to Ghostwire Tokyo’s official website, so it’s possible we’ll become devastatingly powerful by the end of the game.
In a hands-off demo of the game, we got the chance to see an early segment of Ghostwire: Tokyo in which protagonist Akito stumbled through Tokyo’s abandoned streets encountering its new demonic denizens for the first time while making friends with KK, the spirit living inside his head. These early portions were largely linear, with the player regularly coming across groups of evil Visitors to send back into the void or jumbles of debris to scale in short first-person platforming segments.
It’s not all linear, though. Players will be able to move around the world, picking up the odd side quest and opening up more areas to explore by purifying Tori gates of corruption by killing the groups of enemies that have taken control of them.
Speaking of killing enemies, we also got the chance to see Akito’s karate-meets-magic spellcasting abilities, or ‘ethereal weaving’ as the devs called it. Combat in Ghostwire: Tokyo doesn’t involve martial arts so much as making complex hand signs to shoot spells from your fingertips.
There’s no punching, kicking, or wild somersaulting through the air so those hoping for a full-blown brawler won’t find it here. For much of the preview we saw, combat was a visually impressive slow back-and-forth, with the player throwing down hand signals before stepping back to dodge incoming attacks.
Ghostwire Tokyo news and rumors
March release date confirmed
As rumored, Ghostwire: Tokyo has been confirmed as releasing on March 25 2022. It will launch on PS5 as a console exclusive and PC.
2022 release date
This latest piece of news accompanies the newest Ghostwire Tokyo trailer, revealed during the PlayStation Showcase of September, 2021. Ghostwire Tokyo had been delayed into 2022, but we now know that the game is projected to release in early 2022 (or Spring, as the trailer notes).
Barring any further delays, this means we’re likely to see Ghostwire Tokyo release for PS5 and PC sometime between February and June, 2022.
Xbox Game Pass release?
No, Ghostwire Tokyo isn’t coming to Xbox Series X/S straight away, unfortunately. Much like Deathloop, the game will enjoy a period of timed exclusivity on PS5.
However, while it’s important to note that nothing has been confirmed as of yet, if/when the game does arrive on Xbox consoles, it could potentially see itself added to the Xbox Game Pass lineup, considering Bethesda is now part of the Microsoft Game Studios family.
If so, Ghostwire Tokyo would join a litany of other Bethesda-owned titles on Game Pass, including Skyrim, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Doom Eternal and many more.
You can pet the dog
Executive producer Shinji Mikami gave fans a very special update shortly after Ghostwire Tokyo’s first gameplay reveal. In a short teaser explaining what he hoped to achieve in the new title, Mikami confirmed the only detail we needed to hear. Yes, you can pet adorable doggies in Ghostwire Tokyo, who are sure to offer an adorable, welcome reprieve.