Ghostwire: Tokyo may not have set the world on fire with its combination of open world collectathon, first-person spellcaster, and horror game, but it certainly had its fans. Enough of them that the official Twitter account is now boasting, “6 million players have explored #GhostwireTokyo’s spooky streets! That doesn’t make those eerie alleyways any less haunted, of course…”
It certainly helps that Tango Gameworks’ 2022 release is available on Game Pass, though even there a game has to make it above a certain threshold of interest for people to bother installing it. Especially if it’s got an install size over 20GB, as Ghostwire: Tokyo does.
At release we gave Ghostwire: Tokyo a decent score of 72 in our review, which compared it to games like BioShock, saying, “Ghostwire has the spirit of these older action games in bucketfuls and, though it’s by no means perfect, it’s like a glass of Coke after a long walk in the sun. Water might be better for you, but you want to indulge in something sugary and sweet despite the million health warnings.”
Since then, it’s been expanded with a free update called Spider’s Thread. That added the dodge button players clamored for, as well as a roguelite mode, and a significant sidequest set in a haunted high school. Called Fear the Children, it’s an homage to The Ring that traps you inside a school for its duration and focuses on the horror rather than the shooting and collecting. An easy highlight of Ghostwire: Tokyo, it pointed in an interesting direction for the sequel director Kenji Kimura was dropping hints about. Full-on horror does seem to be Tango’s strength as a studio, and taking away Ghostwire: Tokyo’s map full of icons and shooting challenges for an hour or so proved it.