Ghostwire: Tokyo review: Tango’s gorgeous Tokyo is haunted by urban legends and too much filler

Many creators leave fingerprints on their games, but few apply their digits as physically as Shinji Mikami in Ghostwire: Tokyo. One sidequest in Tango’s open world spook-busting adventure sees a neighbourhood disturbed by piano music, eerily plonking away at ungodly hours. Roaming the streets you soon catch the haunting strains of Moonlight Sonata, a piece famously played in Mikami’s Resident Evil to unlock a secret passage. But it’s more than a cute nod. Ghostwire’s credits reveal the player to be Mikami himself - showing off talents usually reserved for fellow Bethesda creators behind closed doors.

While I’m sure he contributed more than tinkling mood music for an optional quest, Ghostwire has been framed as a debutante ball for the next generation of Tango talent. In Archipel’s ace interview series Mikami spoke about fostering new creative leads and taking more of a backseat compared to his work on The Evil Within, which was more clearly made in the Resi mold. The result is, by design, the studio’s least Mikami-ish romp to date: a sprawling tale of a metropolis turned ghost town that is one part love letter to the city and its urban legends, and an opportunity to zap headless school girls and floating puppets with electrifying particle effects.

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