Ghostrunner is a manic and mad dash into the cybervoid. It’s a sci-fi slasher with a digital ninja who terrorizes the evil people who have taken over Dharma Tower.

It’s from developers One More Level, 3D Realms, Slipgate Ironworks, and publishers All In Games and 505 Games.

And it’s a lot of fun. While also being a gut-punch. It’s a fast-paced indie game with a steep learning curve. It demands perfection but it rewards players with a beautiful canvas of breathtaking movement that's painted in the blood of whoever gets in the way of the Ghostrunner. It’s a light-footed dance where the stakes are life and death and the music changes at a moment’s notice.

So, without further ado, let’s leap into the game and see what’s going on.

STORY

Ghostrunner fuses familiar cyberpunk tropes with the dramatic flair necessary to justify the existence of its wall-running protagonist. The world has suffered some cataclysmic event that signaled the end of humanity’s time on the Earth’s surface, except for the isolated safety of Dharma Tower, which is the sole refuge of mankind’s remnants. As with any retro sci-fi setting, however, a class system with severe inequality arose, from the bottom of the tower to the top.

If Judge Dredd and the fast-moving world of Mirror’s Edge collided, it might look something like the futuristic hellscape of Ghostrunner. And the beginning of the game takes place some years after an internal power struggle sends the tower down a destructive trajectory.

Jack, known as the Ghostrunner, has been reconstructed by resistance fighters and starts the slow and arduous climb up the tower to confront the antagonist Mara. Don’t get me wrong. The Ghostrunner moves quickly. Time-bending fast. But he’s got a long way to go. And the journey involves a lot of opposition along the way, as well as revelations about the past and discoveries about the present.

The story runs secondary to the action. The reason any gamer plays Ghostrunner is for the gravity-defying, sword-wielding power of the soft-spoken hero. But it is nice that there’s a compelling reason to keep fighting. In a game where death comes more frequently than success, you want to cheer every step forward. And the appealing (if somewhat derivative) tale of oppression and revolution—through the bloody hands of one determined fighter—is one that will keep gamers persevering in spite of failure and frustration. 

GAMEPLAY

Gameplay is electrifying at its best, with smooth sequences of running, jumping, and slashing—broken up with intermittent slow-motion pauses and character abilities that provide an additional boost of speed and brute force. 

The only snag is the torrent of death that will pour over you. You’re going to die. Most of the time, it will be your fault. Poor timing, the wrong angle, or inaccurate spatial awareness. Other times it will be an unlucky shot. And sometimes it will be a glitchy variance on what is otherwise a smooth run.

Let me clarify. Death is not an issue. It’s not a weakness in the game. It’s central to the design. Each death scratches another mark on the wall, taunting the player and asking them if they still have the determination to keep going. The more dying a player does, the bigger the question. It will take more grit to persevere. And that building frustration will either shake your groove and make you die more or it will help you burn hot and refine your movements.

There are some arduous parts of the game that did make me pause, though. One particularly draining section for me was a parkour-heavy stretch of wall-running, jumping, and slow-motion dodging that involves an absolutely bonkers tower full of rotating lasers. Two different checkpoints tortured me over the course of 100 deaths or more. I don’t actually know the number because I had to stop playing after a while and returned, only to find that I needed to restart the whole level. But those two close-quarter areas brutalized me. I discovered some unorthodox ways to navigate the laser maze in order to not go crazy. It was one of the two parts in Ghostrunner that frustrated me enough to quit and come back another day. 

The other part that did that was a boss fight that gave no overt indication of how to fight or win the encounter. It took me a while to discover the adversary’s tells and then to figure out a rhythm. I easily died over 50 times just trying to figure things out. But the level shows I completed it with only 3 deaths because I came back the next day and cleared the fight in record time. 

And that’s something important about Ghostrunner. In each section, you might encounter moments—or long stretches of time—that feel unfair or unnecessarily difficult. However, after some practice (or maybe time away from the game) you will discover the right way to proceed. More importantly, you’ll look back at previous sections and realize how much better you’ve become at the game.

Seeing your skills improve is valuable and it slowly gives more energy and more momentum as you progress to the end of the story. Each fight and each big sequence remind the player how far they’ve come. It’s where the game gets addicting.

All of the gameplay aspects still feel satisfying by the end of the game, as well. Slashing through a pistol-wielding thug always connects with the same bloody oomph. Touching down on the ground after an extended section of walls, hooks, and slides over an empty abyss bestows upon the player a sense of invulnerability.

For every low, there’s a big high. It’s a delicate balance, but Ghostrunner toes the line with the same finesse as the eponymous sword-toting champion. 

VISUALS

The cyberpunk feel of the game is very welcoming to me. I love sci-fi stories. I think they confront very real and very meaningful parts of our humanity and the slick visuals are an exciting way to depict the future. 

Obviously, given the narrative of Ghostrunner, it’s not a utopian world. You’re not going to see bright pastels or an abundance of light. The environment is harsh, with dark blacks and blues, pulsing reds and yellows, and the smeared palette that reflects the dystopian and mechanical structure housing what’s left of humanity.

You don’t even see that much of Jack other than in small cinematic scenes at the beginning and end of the game. The things you focus on are the katana blade in front of you, the next victim, and the next path that brings you closer to the end. All of these are clearly visible and carry the right color markers to help players tune in to what matters. 

If you’ve played any of the Deus Ex games, or Cyberpunk 2077, or any of the sci-fi games with similar aesthetics, you’ll feel right at home in Ghostrunner. It’s like playing through Altered Carbon if you’ve seen that television series. 

I liked how everything looked and, most importantly, it didn’t detract from the gameplay which is how you want it. 

REPLAYABILITY

This isn’t an adventure that allows you to go to “New Game Plus” or start over with a different character. What Ghostrunner promises in a lesson in voluntary masochism and self-improvement.

Each level concludes with a timestamp for completion and a record of your deaths. Replaying in this game means doing better. Finishing faster and dying less often. Find your rhythm. Hone your reaction time. Increase your spatial awareness. Elevate your game IQ. That’s what it’s about.

It’s a speedrunner’s dream. That’s who will continue to grind in Ghostrunner. Someone who looks at their time and their death count and says, “Ah, I can do better.” And I kind of love that. It’s part of what made me appreciate Bloodborne and other Souls-like games. There’s a dark contrast of self-loathing and self-love that are fighting for supremacy. Your brain says enough and wants to move on. Your heart doesn’t want to quit.

Some players will finish the final level and not look back. Completing the game will be enough. Other players will start again right away, jumping back to previous levels and improving their performance. It just depends on what kind of gamer you are.

WHAT IT COULD HAVE DONE BETTER

There are inconsistencies that I experience while playing. What felt like the exact same jump or the same strike or the same character power would end with a different result multiple times, which is frustrating in a game that requires precision and fast reflexes.

A jump that would send me leaping toward a removed wall section one life would send me flying over the top of the same wall the next life. Or a sword strike that killed two opponents in one attempt would only successfully kill one opponent the next time in what appeared to be the exact same conditions. 

These were the fluctuations that would inevitably get my blood pressure on the rise. A single moment in a long sequence that occurs out of sync with the rest of my movements, which invariably led to my demise. 

I did encounter one bug, though, that almost cost me my save file. One level requires the activation of large fans that lift the Ghostrunner over certain obstacles and one particular fan was not working. Other players online seemed to encounter the same issue, though with different fans on that same level. Thankfully, I was able to rely on my mountaineering experience from Skyrim to jump back and forth repeatedly until I circumvented the game error. Other players were not as lucky, however, and I can imagine that it would detract from the gameplay experience if that manner of bug surfaced multiple times. 

And, finally, my own critique of the game design is the checkpoint and level complete system. You cannot leave a level unfinished. Even if you reach certain checkpoints, you’ll need to complete an entire level before stopping. Otherwise, your progress is lost and you must start from the beginning. It’s a strange choice from the developers and one that I don’t appreciate now that I’m a father. Finding thirty minutes to play isn’t always difficult. But on a particularly difficult stretch, I might need an hour and a half to finish a level after learning the flow and rhythm of that environment. So, forcing me to work within a single time slot for level completion is definitely a turn-off. I understand that there is an advantage to the idea of doing something all at once, for continuity and immersion, but it’s not realistic to where I’m at in my life.

Fixing the bugs, changing the save and checkpoint system, and cleaning up any irregularities with the character movement would really enhance the gameplay experience and I think would bring my impression of Ghostrunner to a higher level.

VERDICT

I really wanted to give Ghostrunner a lower score. There were so many times when I was ready to stop playing. When I thought to myself, “Screw it. I’m done with this game. I’ll review it unfinished. Time for me to move on to the next one.”

But at the end of the day, it’s an addicting ride. Blazing-fast load times make death just a fleeting moment. It’s something you’ll experience time and time again. I died over 1000 times while playing Ghostrunner. And you know what? I’d do it all again. I’d suffer hundred-foot falls, blaster shots, sword slashes, electrical surges, and all of the other numerous causes of death that take Jack down.

Because it deceives you in just the right amounts. It makes you bleed and makes you yell out in frustration. Then, when you return the next time, you realize you’re better than you were the last time and you can do it.

It could use a little polishing here and there, but for the most part, Ghostrunner is a mesmerizing indie game that will stick with me for a while. I haven’t had this much fun moving around in a game since Mirror’s Edge and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Those really cemented my love for games with innovative and dynamic movement. And Ghostrunner has rekindled that love into a bright flame… that frequently gets me killed.

You shouldn’t pass up the chance to play this. Don’t worry. Dying is just part of life.