“When we’ve done these games, and we get to work with these people, be it Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ernie Hudson, or Dan Aykroyd… You’re anticipating it for months.”
Classic movie fans care about one main thing when it comes to video game adaptations: authenticity. What sets apart the likes of Terminator: Resistance and Alien: Isolation is how well the game world replicates the atmosphere of the source franchise. Resistance‘s Skyrim-style lockpicking puzzles just don’t hold up, while Isolation‘s green-tinted retro futurism makes you feel like you’re exploring a location you saw on the screens as a child.
That childlike wonder doesn’t go away, even if you’re working on the games themselves. That’s clear as Illfonic head of creative and design Jared Gerritzen shares his experience talking with comedy legend, writer, and original Ghostbuster, Dan Aykroyd. “Dan is the guy that really started this whole thing, and that has been just really, really rad,” Jared explains. “I saw this film when I was a kid in the theatre, and I remember making proton packs with cardboard, and running around the house with a broomstick. This is just one of those super awesome IPs to be working with.”
Illfonic’s newly announced Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed takes a different approach to the usual single-player movie adaptations we see. After the team honed their approach to multiplayer movie tie-ins with Friday the 13th: The Game and Predator: Hunting Grounds, Spirits Unleashed sees a return to asymmetrical 1v4 gameplay, but the twist this time is that the team of four is on the offensive. Instead of hiding with your friends from a big beastie, you’ll be working with them to put one away. You’ll be using Proton Packs, PKE Meters, Traps, Particle Throwers, Ecto Goggles, and more in order to hunt down ghosts and put them away permanently.
“Ghostbusters can equip different gear that ranges from the expected canon items that you would see Dan Ackroyd wearing, to some new stuff that we pulled out of some of the other movies, and then we’ve created some of our own from the necessity of gameplay,” Jared tells GLHF.
Even making a simple gadget for your multiplayer game can be a complex process when working with a huge license, however. “It’s been really cool working with the canon and, essentially, within the walls that Ghost Corps (Ghostbusters’ production company) has built around it and explaining our gadgets with; ‘okay, this technology is X, Y, and Z, here’s how it’s grounded,’ all of that fun stuff.”
Usually when a team of four is working against a single foe, that foe is incredibly powerful, such as the borderline invincible monsters of Friday the 13th: The Game and Dead by Daylight. In Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed the sole spirit is under attack by three trained ghostbusters, and therefore has the odds stacked against them. The ghost’s main objective is to scare civilians out of the building it is haunting, either by directly influencing them, or the world around them. You are able to haunt and possess objects, making them fly about the room, scaring people, and distracting ghostbusters. You need to stealthily haunt the corners of the building without getting caught by eagle-eyed busters.
Ghosts can’t do much to the ghostbusters themselves, but they can at least escape those pesky traps. Traps are the finishers of the Ghostbusters universe. Hold a ghost still with the Particle Thrower, slide a trap underneath, and the mission is complete. That’s how it works in the movies, at least. Here the ghost is given several Rifts. Rifts allow a ghost to escape from a trap entirely, ensuring that your game doesn’t end after getting spotted a single time. This escape route is a bit cheeky and essentially means that ghostbusters will have to whittle down the Rifts before making their final capture.
Original Ghostbusters Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson are involved of course, featuring in the game as characters and keeping in touch with Illfonic throughout development, but they’re not playable. Instead, you will play as your own ghostbuster. “In the before times, I was at one of the anniversary parties that was on the Sony lot,” Jared recollects. “Just walking through and seeing every shape and size of ghostbuster. All of these people that were spending a lot of money and time on their gear, their setup – that’s what we want to do. We want to have players make the character that they are attached to.”
Characters won’t be stuck to playing a role like in Rainbow Six: Siege or Overwatch, instead the gear they choose will determine how they play. “We’re not going to do heroes,” Jared states firmly. “We’re going to keep it aimed towards allowing Ghostbusters fans to make their character themselves. That’s the big thing.”
In other asymmetrical multiplayer games it can be difficult to queue up for a popular role. For example, far more people want to play Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th than one of the survivors. Jared has hopes that the team of four ghostbusters will be a far more attractive proposition this time around, saying: “I feel with Ghostbusters, and with them being so iconic, I’m hoping that more people will want to play that four-player part, but the AI are going to be pretty great to fill when a player might drop out.”
After seeing early gameplay, it’s fair to say there’s good reason for Ghostbusters fans to get excited. Illfonic has more than proven its ability to craft quality multiplayer games, and this one boasts an excellent art style, eschewing the hyper-realistic look for something that can still look crisp and modern for years to come. The vocal talents of Ernie Hudson and Dan Aykroyd lend the entire affair an air of authenticity that fans have complained that recent movies lacked. Busting definitely makes me feel good, but we’ll see if this game does the same for fans.
Written by Dave Aubrey on behalf of GLHF.