Ghostrunner parkoured its way onto the PS5 recently, about eleven months after its initial launch on the PS4. The first-person, cyberpunk, parkour action game runs even smoother and loads a bit faster on the PS5 compared to its PS4 counterpart, but otherwise the core gameplay remains the same.
Published by 505 Games and co-developed by several studios including All In! Games, One More Level, 3D Realms, and Slipgate Ironworks, Ghostrunner puts players in a pretty typical future cyberpunk dystopian setting where humanity is up against the ropes and it’s pretty much down to you save everyone and reshape the future. To do so, players control Jack, aka Ghostrunner #74. A cyborg-like ninja who wields a sword and can parkour around with the best of them, Jack is on a mission to reach the top of Dharma Tower to confront Mara, aka The Keymaster, a Dr. Octopus-like character who is determined to keep the people confused, enslaved, and dependent upon her reign as she seeks to further blur the lines between organic and technology.
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Gameplay is pretty straight-forward in Ghostrunner, and the game itself is actually quite short, though that largely depends on how much you die. The opening sequence sees Jack thrown (by Mara) from atop Dharma Tower allll the long way down to the bottom of the City. You mission over the next few hours (figure five to seven, but could be less or more depending again on how often you die) is to reach the top of Dharma Tower, defeat Mara, and give the city and the future back to the citizens. First, though, you have to free your maker, the Architect, who is one of those gray-area characters that might raise a few sus-flags along the way as you begin to reveal more of the story. The Architect is helpful in that he guides you to getting new abilities and answers some questions, but his demeanor makes you wonder.. Both he and a character named Zoe that you help out in the first hour of the game are in your ear for the entire game, filling in bits about the story, the past, and so forth. Zoe is with a resistance group called The Climbers, who have to this point been unsuccessful in dethroning Mara. The game doesn’t really have any pauses for cutscenes or any interactive dialog, but Jack does speak-up to continue conversations as you parkour about, and there are certain times when you’re taken into a fully cyber world (known as the Cybervoid) to receive your next ability upgrade (and as you do so, more of the story and character development takes place as you converse with The Architect).
A few key points about Ghostrunner is that everything is one hit, one kill, yourself included. Most enemies that you encounter have projectile attacks, and the key to avoiding these is either strike first, or to implement the bullet-time dodge feature which allows you to scooch direction in mid-air to redirect your path. Before long you also unlock new abilities that allow you to reflect projectiles (Tempest) and even blast out your own (Surge), but these abilities have a cooldown timer and your most often used method of fighting is to dodge and lunge in for the slashing kill. Note that most enemies cannot be skipped, except for some spider bots in the latter portion of the game, because your path is almost always blocked by a locked door that only opens after all of the guards in the area have been killed. There are never that many guards in an area, but given that they can kill in one hit means you will have to be exacting in your platforming and attacks. Guard placement is a little tongue-in-cheek because they are typically just standing in a spot until they see you, and they don’t have much room to roam — they’re kind of just braindead bowling pins to knock over if you get my meaning.
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Anyway, in addition to being able to slow time for a bit to dodge and move quickly, Jack also can use other abilities to help him swiftly navigate the area. Players will slide some, and wall-jump and grapple to preset points constantly. Honestly, I think you spend at least as much time with your feet on walls or in the air as you do on the ground because you are constantly wall-running and bouncing from one conveniently placed wall to the next, and grappling from one spot to the next. Other advantages Jack has include short-term power-ups that are placed at certain points in some levels. These do things like slowdown time (so that you can get through a spinning fan), jump-pads to launch you higher areas, and these bluish cyber ninja stars that allow you to hit buttons (or enemies) from afar to trigger switches to open the next path, for example.
There are a dozen or so levels within the game, but none of them are particularly long at all. At the end of each level your stats for number of deaths and time taken and so forth are displayed, and there are leaderboards for that as well. Expect to die a lot, though very rarely from platforming and environmental hazards but mostly from enemies (or at least that was the case for me). Thankfully, checkpoints load instantly, and you’re never more than a few seconds from where you died from, so that helps quite a bit. Level-design is very linear, and there is really no time when you’re just lost or unsure of where to go — this game is built for speed any way that you slice it, so it makes sense that the levels are done this way. Fortunately, given the relative brevity of the experience, and the instant checkpoint load times, Ghostrunner walks a fine line of not overstaying its welcome because it really is pretty narrow in its gameplay loop and level design.
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On the PS5, and probably also on the original release as well, some additional cosmetic content was released. There is also Wave mode, which pits you against increasingly difficult waves of enemies. You can choose an upgrade before entering the Cybervoid Arena to better your chances, and if you can survive all twenty of these waves there is an extra sword and gloves in it for you. I also noticed that a Level Select option from the main menu gives you three options to make certain elements of the game easier or harder (increased enemy placement, etc).
As far as presentation, Ghostrunner looks and sounds great. I liked the voice of The Architect the most as far as voice-acting goes, and the techno soundtrack was fitting and helped create a solid groove to play to. The music not only helps set the atmosphere and tone in Ghostrunner, but at times it can get you in a sort of rhythm that makes the rapid platforming more engaging. Visually, it’s a pretty standard dark, dystopian, neon-light splashed cyberpunk setting that feels like it’s right out of Blade Runner or Dredd, and the visuals can get pretty repetitive to be honest, but it technically looks and performs great.
In sum, Ghostrunner on PS5 takes what was already a pretty compelling game and spruces it up just a very little bit. This is a short, narrowly-focused game that is built for speed — to that end, it does very well, but just know that going in and don’t expect a full-blown FPS-like experience. That in mind, I think you’ll appreciate what the devs were able to accomplish here.
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