Eden Gaming
Darci Carlton
The company was formed as a development group within Infogrames' European subsidiary Infogrames Multimedia, which had developed the first V-Rally for the PlayStation. The studio would later rebrand into its own separate studio, known as Eden Studios, with Infogrames holding a 19.2% minority share.
In April 2002, Infogrames fully acquired Eden Studios.[1] During this period, the company would continue develop racing games such as Test Drive Unlimited and its sequel, Test Drive Unlimited 2, while also venturing into other game genres with games like Kya: Dark Lineage.
Atari announced that throughout April 2011, they had laid off over 51 of the 80 employees working at the studio, leading to a majority of the employees going on strike.[2] In April 2012, Eden began negotiations as an attempt to separate from Atari.[3] On 29 January 2013 the studio filed for judicial liquidation.[4]
On 31 October 2013, under the impulsion of former employees and with the financing of ID Invest and Monster Capital, Eden Games reopened as an independent game development studio without any involvement of Atari. The company then released its first game, GT Spirit, on Apple TV in December 2015. The game was later followed up with Gear.Club and two Nintendo Switch versions - Gear.Club Unlimited and Gear.Club Unlimited 2.
In April 2022, Eden Games were acquired by the Hong Kong-based blockchain gaming company, Animoca Brands.[5] According to Animoca, the Eden team will be integrated into their business and work on blockchain-based racing games and contribute to Animoca's existing titles build around its REVV crypto token.[5]
The story opens in 1695, with our main characters, Red mac Raith and Antea Duarte, on a ship bound for the New World (Colonial America) at the behest of an old friend. Red and Antea are lovers and partners, members of a sect known as the Banishers, working together to protect the living from the dead. Their job is to deal with ghosts, spectres, and other post-life nasties who, instead of crossing over to the afterlife, have hung around to make things hard on those they left behind.
I've been gaming since my Dad handed me an Atari 2600 controller in the early 80's. I've been a PC Gamer since CGA graphics were a thing (ask your parents), and a PlayStation lifer since 1997. Currently addicted to No Man's Sky on PS5, Dead Cells on PC, and working my way through Xbox classics on PC Game Pass!
I started playing games at a really young age. Games for me were an outlet on multiple levels. Online games were just becoming a bigger thing when I was in middle school, and I was extremely competitive (sometimes in unhealthy ways) and it was an outlet for me to burn some of that competitive energy.
In that sense, it's always been the multiplayer and social parts of gaming that have been most interesting to me. Gaming was always about competing and connecting with other people, and because those things were so important to me it was really hard for me to play other types of games, as amazing as they were.
I started playing video games and programming at a very young age but both had negative effects on my studies. I ended up somehow getting into school at Emory University where I studied business because I thought it would be the easiest major which would allow me to play more video games. Through being a business major though, I started to get pretty interested in stocks and programmatic trading. I spent the first couple years post school in investment banking, and then pursued my dream of becoming an entrepreneur and starting my own hedge fund. After a couple years of doing this, I became increasingly jaded in the finance industry and not knowing what I was really doing and ended up leaving and going to work at a church for a year. During that year, I started picking up software programming again, investing in startups, and getting increasingly more involved in the tech ecosystem. I ended up starting a software development company called Fishermen Labs, which ended up becoming the largest producer of AR and VR content.
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"Is anyone in these damned woods innocent?", protagonist Red mac Raith laments in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. During a main story quest, I'm tasked with deciding the fate of two individuals who are both accused of wrongdoing. In Red's defense, I've asked myself the same question. After completing several haunting cases that ultimately conclude with you meting out judgments against either the dead or the living, Banishers continually asks you to make murky choices and decide what justice really means to you. Is anyone ever really innocent? Do you even have the right to determine who is if you're doing so for your own gain? And can you ever really know right from wrong when no one is above suspicion?
While its world feels a little overstuffed and the combat can feel a little repetitive, it's Red and Antea's relationship and the overarching question Banishers explores that hold my attention the most.
At its core, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a love story that explores how far you'll go to save your partner, Antea. After her life is cut short early on, she returns to Red's side as a spirit, and you follow the pair as they set out to uncover the cause of a curse plaguing the lands of New Eden. As expert ghost hunters known as Banishers, Red and Antea are able to connect with the spirit world and dispel specters and ghosts with unfinished business. With a host of haunting cases to find throughout the world, you'll investigate why a ghost still lingers and why they're haunting certain members of the community they have ties with. It's during these cases that you'll be faced with a string of choices that all tie back to one major decision you make right at the start of the adventure.
Are you willing to sacrifice lives to try and bring Antea back to the land of the living, or will you aid in her ascent by banishing or helping the ghosts move on? The very first haunting case sets an ongoing precedent for the kinds of dark scenarios you can expect to encounter. After investigating the nearby area and performing a ritual to see an echo of past events, it's revealed that a young man is being haunted by his best friend - a man he himself killed after being driven to desperation by hunger. Worse still, the corpse has been his main source of food ever since. After trying to make him confront his actions, you're presented with a choice: Do you blame the man who killed his friend and take his life for Antea, or do you ascend or banish the ghost of the man he killed to help Antea move on?
It's easy to lay blame at the young man's feet, but doing so would take his life, and is that really justice? I linger on the decision for quite some time, as I do with every choice in each haunting case to come - and not just because of their morally shady nature. Early on, you have to decide on an oath Red and Antea promise to one another - either you commit to helping her ascend, or try to save her by blaming as many people as possible. From that point on, you can choose to try to fulfill it or go against your chosen oath as you solve and complete each case.
After deciding to help Antea ascend, I'm determined to avoid taking any lives since it just feels outwardly wrong to do so. While your oath doesn't lock you into what choice you make, I'm set on this path. The trouble is, of course, that there's almost always an argument for and against every decision you're faced with. And the more I play, the more it becomes clear that New Eden is full of people - both living and dead - who are doing or have done terrible things for a myriad of questionable reasons.
I always find the most compelling choices are those that are shades of gray, meaning right and wrong aren't so easily discerned. While some feel obviously more wrong than others in Banishers, the way the choices weave into your own wider motivations relative to Antea can make everything murkier. And after the first case throws you right into a pretty bleak situation, it doesn't get any lighter throughout Ghosts of New Eden.
I can't yet speak to how impactful my choices will be for Red and Antea, but I have seen how some decisions have affected areas - be that with those I didn't sacrifice popping up later, or in one case, factoring into the leadership of a town. From what I've seen so far, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden reminds me of Don't Nod's 2017 action RPG, Vampyr. As another choice-heavy experience, Vampyr follows a fanged doctor who can use his position to fight against his desire for blood, or give into it. It was an interesting idea that didn't always land, but I liked the way certain decisions tied to pillars of the community that affected whole areas of London. While my choices so far haven't yet led to any drastic outcomes, I'm more interested to see how they will shape Red and Antea as a couple.
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