Ghostrunner Review: A Dystopian Wonderland

Ghostrunner is a Cyberpunk thrill ride of brutal combat and pure kinetic energy. Set in the dystopian landscape of Dharma tower, Ghostrunner tasks you with slicing through an army of enemies on your way to dethrone the tyrant. With a focus on one-hit-one-kill combat and fluid movement, Ghostrunner cements itself as a hidden gem of 2020. Without further ado, here’s our Ghostrunner review.

Apex Predator

Ghostrunner is a game about movement. The protagonist, the mechanical Ghostrunner, sprints across walls, bullet-times his way around enemy bullets, and slices enemies in half in a single, instantaneous slice, stopping only when the gunfire catches up to him – even if it’s just one bullet. 

Instant-death combat is hard to get right, yet Ghostrunner nails it. Countering your minuscule one-hp health pool with a wide variety of abilities and instant respawns after death. As frequent as death was in my 6-hour playthrough (737 times!), Ghostrunner never makes it feel frustrating. The hitboxes are perfect, the physics are consistent, and the enemy AI is predictable. The only variable is whether or not you have what it takes to make it through this encounter alive. 

Neon Prison

The backdrop to the visceral mayhem of Ghostrunner’s combat is Dharma Tower, the last home of humanity after ‘The Burst’, a world-ending event which left the outside world uninhabitable. This world is decorated in the normal trappings of Cyberpunk fiction. Neon signs and unavoidable marketing flooding the higher-end residential districts, as countless people live in slums under the thumb of the people at the top. Although these tropes aren’t exactly new for the genre, Ghostrunner doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. It’s a simple story about overthrowing the tyrant at the (literal) top of the tower. The titular Cyborg fighting his way from the depths of society in the lower levels up to the metropolis above. 

This generic backdrop is perfectly fine in the context of Ghostrunner, since you’ll be going so fast the entire world feels like its blurring behind you as you move at ridiculous speeds. All this is not to say that the world is poorly designed though, as when you slow down to admire it, you’ll find a highly polished, captivating world. 

The Tyrant

At your journey’s end is Mara, the ruler of Dharma Tower that is leading it to ruin. Surprisingly, this simple end goal is paired up with a satisfying story. Such a large amount of depth for such a short combat-focused game. Fear not though, there are only two cutscenes! Almost all of the story that gets handed out is experienced through voices speaking to you inside the Ghostrunner’s helmet. This leaves you free to slice and dice your way through the enemy hordes during narrative moments, rather than sit around waiting for a drawn-out cinematic to finish. 

The Cybervoid

The Cybervoid is a realm inside the Ghostrunner’s circuitry. A place where impossible geometry exists and the floor shifts around you. A curiously intriguing concept for a level, which makes it even more of a shame that these segments provide the only low points in Ghostrunner. 

The Cybervoid is usually used to teach you how to use new powers and abilities, as well as have you do some light puzzle solving on the way. On the surface, this is completely fine. However, when you’re in the Cybervoid, many of your movement powers are turned off for no good reason. This leads to a feeling of being unfairly slowed down. In a game about fluid movement and the freedom to go as fast as you dare, the decision to make these segments so restrictive is puzzling. Especially when you factor in just how often these levels appear (around once every hour for me). 

The Verdict

Ghostrunner is a visceral slasher that breaks new ground in the genre, pushing the player to become an apex predator through vicious trial and error. Its world begs to be explored, and its combat is a delight to experience. It is a must-play for fans of high-speed first-person combat. 

Gaming Exploit’s Ghostrunner final score – 8/10

Ghostrunner is available now on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.  

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