The charm of Japanese folk, by now we know it well, is more and more vivid and florid, like a cherry petal regardless of the weather that surrounds it, always ready to shine in its wonderful chromatic guise. Thus the topic in question, net of all the reiterations of the case, continues to amaze, fascinate and seduce entire audiences. Based on these solid assumptions, a large part of the ideology of Shinji Mikami's new creature seems to have been born, who took the stage with his chest swollen with pride for a project that, from these first steps, seems to promise great things. And so, on the scene of an E3 2019 so far all in all modest - also due to the numerous leaks on the eve - falls like a bolt from the blue Ghostwire tokyo, new - ambitious - project of the master of survival horror, father of works of the highest level of the genre such as the first Resident Evil and the most recent The Evil Within.
It goes without saying that the expectations around the new Tango Gameworks work are already skyrocketing and we are already savoring - with our minds - the atmosphere of dystopian and ghostly Tokyo, the scene of a new horror to be discovered.
Disappearances and apparitions
The events of Ghostwire Tokyo take place precisely in the Japanese town, whose inhabitants gradually began to disappear without a trace. This element already seems to abundantly direct the title in the direction it wants to take, which also winks at the most recent horror productions and, above all, coming from external elements, such as cinema and television.
So let's expect ghosts, various apparitions and moments in which jumping from the chair will seem the only possible way, in search of an elusive and difficult to recognize truth. The player, in fact, will be entrusted with the arduous task of trying to find out what lies behind the mysterious disappearances. A bit like what happened in The Evil Within, the atmosphere on the streets will be one of those oppressive, suffocating ones, of those that make you think you are in constant danger.
A characteristic trait that of Mikami and his team, whose work carried out in the latest productions has been able to give moments of great psychological terror. Because yes, we are sure that, once again, to steal the show will be yet another - exhausting - fight against one's own sanity and one's own clarity, first of all. Ghostwire Tokyo, after all, seems to want to insinuate into the player's mind that everything around him could be the fruit of his imagination, a shapeless pile of memories, nightmares and blurred visions of something that never really existed. In doing so, the visionary title presented by Ikumi Nakamura he does not disdain the presence of frightening, deformed creatures that, as in The Evil Within, represent the surface of an agglomeration of secrets well hidden by the watchful eye of a far superior force in action.
From the preface to the action
Before delving into the dark meanders of understanding what the playful style of the title will be, a bit halfway between Murdered and a modern variant of the lamented chapters of the saga Project Zero (Fatal Frame), it is good to point out one thing immediately. According to Mikami himself, Ghostwire Tokyo will not be a survival horror, but an action-adventure, thus suggesting a totally different approach in terms of gameplay. It is not yet clear what the role of our alter-ego will be, nor what it will be able to do, but a little something in this sense has already reached our ears. It is known for sure, for example, that our playful counterpart, the one on the other side of the screen, to be clear, is in possession of paranormal abilities, capable of chasing away, practically "exorcising" the demonic creatures that roam the city.
Basically, a double interpretation of things can emerge from these elements: the game style more focused on action and further away from the aims of survival horror could lead to greater variety in approaches, but the fact that the protagonist is forced to chase away the creatures with the strength of his paranormal powers he can reveal a sort of limitation in approaching the various clashes.
This choice seems to us almost exclusively dictated by the desire to emphasize once again an even more dreamlike imaginary, less tied to the dogmas of a reality that seems to be crumbling little by little. As in the aforementioned titles of the Project Zero saga, therefore, we may never be able to get rid of our ghostly opponents, but only slow them down, an element that, set with the rest of the information at our disposal, could give to the title that right dose of adrenaline-pumping terror, directly linked to the constant sense of danger that pervades the player.
A new story to tell
What is most pressing on our minds, however, is certainly linked to the narrative sector of the title. The desire to discover what lies behind the new imagery created by Mikami is almost unstoppable, net of the very little information in our possession so far. And it couldn't be otherwise. As we also said at the beginning, Ghostwire Tokyo seems to want to draw heavily from the legends of ghosts and mysterious demonic manifestations - see Kakurenbo - thus breaking through those self-imposed walls with that The Evil Within, more tied to a more "central" enemy and which in some cases left little room for imagination.
And so here, off every kind of brake: it ranges from the woman with very long black hair (in The Ring style) to the masked spectrum, up to the appearance of the classic haunted house and, above all, of a deformed, almost animal-like creature, which lets leak all the unmistakable style of the Tango Gameworks guys and his dad.
Ghostwire Tokyo, therefore, seems to set itself the goal of further increasing the crazy vein that pervades the Mikami productions and already from these very first flashes shown on the E3 stage he was able to say he was able to offer great things to the public.
Ghostwire Tokyo is one of the biggest surprises of this E3 2019. The return of Mikami, not with The Evil Within 3 as everyone thought, but with this new IP, promises really great things for all fans of the genre. The strengths of the production, leaving aside the style of an atmosphere that has already kidnapped us, are represented by a totally different approach offered, far from the aims of the most classic survival, and by the desire to create a colorful and well-finished imagery, capable of draw on the huge library of Japanese folklore in the genesis of creatures, ghosts and various supernatural beings. It remains to find out how the background story will be set, which for now seems to have a lot in common with that of the team's previous works: the two chapters of The Evil Within. Once again, the player is called upon to defeat an elusive and well-hidden evil that could potentially lurk in places - or people - even in sight, in a way that is completely imperceptible to our "too human" eyes. In short, the appointment with Ghostwire Tokyo is one of the most anticipated in the near future and we, honestly, are already in love with it.
