Stop me if this doesn’t sound like a good idea. You’re a robotic ninja, just escaped from imprisonment, and its your job to wall-run, slide, and air-dodge every bullet that comes your way – so you can slice everything in front of you.
That’s the supremely simple pitch for Ghostrunner, a first-person “slasher” game that’s due out later this year. A demo for Ghostrunner went live on Steam last week, owing to the fact that indies like Ghostrunner would normally demo at gaming conventions.
But since those aren’t an option, it’s time for demos to make a comeback. Featured as part of the Digital Dragons Indie Celebration, Ghostrunner is the kind of game that would have absolutely cleaned up at a PAX. The demo supports rudimentary ray-tracing already, and even then there’s a ton to like. You’re a cybernetic ninja. The entire city has a touch of Blade Runner with the constant rain, and it’s backed by a soundtrack from Daniel Deluxe, who also did the soundtrack for DESYNC a few years back.
As for gameplay, Ghostrunner plays out a little bit like an FPS game crossed with a bullet hell shooter. You’re dead in one hit, so the objective is to dodge as much as possible and to not get caught in crossfires. To help you out in this regard, you can wall-run, grapple, and you can hold your dash to let you slightly dodge left or right, avoiding incoming projectiles.
In between bouts of slicing are some basic platforming elements. What’s contained in the demo isn’t especially challenging, but there’s enough layouts that the demo alone is fun to replay just to speedrun. The movement is relatively quick, and while the game doesn’t tell you outright, you can even reflect bullets by attacking at the right moment.
Ghostrunner is coming out in the third quarter of this year for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. (The video strap mentions Switch, but that hasn’t been officially confirmed. Apologies.)
For more info, follow the official Steam listing here.
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