Ghostrunner 2 is an unforgiving adrenaline rush you can’t get enough of
It’s perhaps my fourth attempt to crack this section of Ghostrunner 2 at gamescom 2023, but I’ve got a plan now: Sprint forward, make the jump over the abyss to the left, nail the target there with a throw of my shurikens, then parry the bullets of the next guy and take him out with a cut. Next, I jump on a railway around this building in the center, which I can slide along in fast speed, taking out more of the gunners with precise shuriken throws as I dash by. Bull’s eye – no need to turn around and come back here. I hit the timing on my jump and make it to the structure in the center, the tune of the cyberpunk-style synthwave soundtrack giving a rhythmic feeling to my actions, and face the final enemy of the area, a fellow sword-wielder. Our battle shall be legendary!
One wrong move, one erroneous click, and I’ll have to start from the checkpoint once again – but I’ve got this. I parry it attack at the perfect moment, triggering a lethal counter. One slice is all a cyber ninja needs. I find that I’ve unconsciously held my breath and release the air in a sigh of relief. “Well done,” the developer sitting at my side comments. “That was good timing.” Yay!
The only thing cooler than a ninja? A cyber ninja!
One More Level / 505 Games
Ghostrunner 2 is an adrenaline rush in the best of ways – you steer the protagonist, a ninja with cybernetic enhancements, through a fairly linear cyberpunk world to the beats of an intense and perfectly atmospheric soundtrack that almost makes it feel like a rhythm game. And, in a way, it is one: There are no HP bars in Ghostrunner 2. You get hit? You die. You hit an enemy? They die.
It’s simple, it’s lethal, and it makes sure that every click and decision counts. It makes you feel frail and vulnerable and incredibly powerful at the same time, and that’s a strange feeling in a video game, which is usually about fulfilling the player’s power fantasy. But it’s perfect for this, because making enemies as lethal as yourself is only going to make it all the more satisfying to overcome them.
The movement in Ghostrunner 2, just like in the original, feels very slick once you’ve gotten used to it. Your character automatically runs along walls once you’ve jumped on them and there is no need to press any button – and that’s exactly what irritated me at the beginning, because I’m so used to having to tell my character what to do. When I jumped onto a wall, I instinctively pressed the jump button again to initiate the wall-running, so it took some effort to get rid of that behavior.
You leave behind a trail of corpses wherever you go.
One More Level / 505 Games
Once I did, things felt very fluid – you run, jump, slide, jump a bit more, and build up some speed and momentum as you go through the parkour, making it feel even more amazing to nail a shuriken throw or decapitate an enemy with your blade as you practically fly by them, coming out of nowhere. This is exactly what it should feel like to be a cyber ninja.
Despite being unforgiving, Ghostrunner 2 didn’t feel frustrating to me. Being able to parry blades and bullets is a feature helping newbies like me out, aside from being an awesome ability to have in its own right. You’re not just a cyber ninja, you’re almost a bloody jedi. Checkpoints are a lot more frequent than in the predecessor, so there’s less ground to cover repeatedly if you’re running into a difficult section. As I mentioned in the opening, failing a segment also means that you learn a bit or two about it – where are the enemies, what do they do, which possibilities do the terrain give you? It’s like a puzzle. Some people see all the pieces at a glance and breeze through, others need to look more often to find and order the pieces before putting them together – and that’s fine, because the payoff is equally great in both cases.
Speaking of puzzles, aside from the combat sequences, Ghostrunner 2 has moments of peace and quiet as well. While mostly linear, the maps contain hidden areas with collectibles as well as some environmental puzzles to break things up – an important breather, a developer tells me, to let people calm down in-between the action scenes. Finding alternate routes also may help with the difficulty of a section, since a different way to engage may just be the thing giving you the edge.
Naturally, cyberpunk samurai are following where the cyber ninjas go.
One More Level / 505 Games
Another big addition to Ghostrunner 2 are the motorbike levels. They are just as adrenaline-filled as the battle and parkour sections on foot, but naturally feel even faster. In the level I played, my character was chasing another one through a series of tunnels and roads, so I always needed to keep on the gas despite all my instincts telling me to slow the hell down. This section had everything you’d want from a cyberpunk motorbike chase – jump ramps, wall-riding, sliding through closing doors, dodging giant ventilation fans, and slicing through power units with your katana to open the way forward. Later on, I’m told, there will even be motorbike combat. Yeah, we’re going full John Wick.
Unlike the part on foot, where the controls felt very smooth and natural after a while, steering the bike didn’t feel as great – it felt somewhat imprecise, the bike always moving a little too much or too little. It was too unpredictable for my taste, at least compared to the amount of precision you needed to clear some of the obstacles. Part of that may well have been down to me being an incompetent driver at best in video games, so take my opinion here with a grain of salt.
Ultimately, I had a lot more trouble getting through the driving segment than I had overcoming enemies on foot. While the feeling of payoff remained the same at the end, the traditional part of the game was a bit more fun to me, since I felt like I had more control – in combat, you can try different things and succeed, while in the motorbike chase there was only one correct way to progress.
Ghostrunner 2's motorbike levels feel on-brand, but the controls were a little imprecise.
One More Level / 505 Games
Clearing both levels took me about 25 minutes as a complete beginner. The best time, the developer next to me says as I get to the score screen, was 13 minutes. Not too bad for a rookie and a testament to the strides in approachability the team has made, which was one of its big focuses compared to the first game. If you loved the original, then there is more of that gameplay here for you, and if you’re newly into the idea of becoming a cyber ninja, then this is going to be the perfect entry point.
Ghostrunner 2, developed by One More Level and published by 505 Games, will be released on October 26, 2023, on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
