Review: ‘Ghostrunner 2’ is punishing and precise but oh-so-satisfying

It’s night in Dharma Tower… it’s always night in the cyberfuture. As I sprint along a wall I spot a group of enemies below me. I plunge downwards and casually dodge an energy blast, bisecting the gunman with my cyberkatana as I land. There’s no time to savor the moment. A blast of blue fire in the corner of my vision. Activate Sensory Boost. Time slows to a crawl as I bat the barrage away with my blade. As he frantically reloads my acceleration boost module kicks in. I fly towards him and see the fear in his widening eyes. One second he’s a man, the next a fine red mist.

A bipedal security droid remains, spewing horizontal blasts of death. I slide under the first wave, vault the second and toss a cybershuriken into its guts, stunning it. A nanosecond later I spike my projectile with a cyber-grapple and yank myself forward, blade first. In glorious slow-mo I watch the two halves of the droid spiral through the air, electrical sparks slowly blossoming into my own private fireworks display. Time to hop on my sleek cyberbike, burn some rubber on the cyberroad and leap into the CyberVoid.

Sharper than a cyber-razor cut

This is Ghostrunner 2. In 2020 I fell head over heels for the first game, which combined acrobatic first-person movement with blistering one-hit-kill combat, like an unlikely hybrid of Titanfall 2 and Super Meat Boy. It was brutal, unforgiving, and required equal measures of patience and reflexes, but conquering it was supremely satisfying.

Now the sequel is here. First impressions are that this is merely more of the same. You begin the game back in the grimy, neon-soaked Dharma Tower, whose architecture consists of gigantic open spaces with platforms dangling in just the right place for a Ghostrunner to bounce off. The various enemy types all return, as do the shuriken, shadow and tempest abilities. There are some fresh wrinkles, like being able to actively block attacks and a new skill tree with unlockable perks, but none of these are especially game-changing.

More useful are the new “Ultimates,” which gradually charge during combat and, if deployed correctly, can end a combat encounter before it’s even begun. They’re arguably a little overpowered (particularly if you upgrade their duration and charging speed) but in a game that’s otherwise tough as nails I’m happy to slap the occasional “win this fight now” button.

Despite these new additions, the first third of Ghostrunner 2 feels more like a DLC than a sequel, though given how great the core formula is, it’s difficult to get too upset about more of the same. Then, finally, things take a quantum leap forward.

There are few games that wouldn’t be improved by you getting a cranked-up Akira-style motorcycle to zip around on. Once you’ve got this steel horse throbbing between your legs, Ghostrunner 2 finally opens up to new territory, blasting you out of the gloomy Dharma Tower and into the ruins of the old world.

Here, the linear design is largely abandoned in favor of something akin to the jeep section of Uncharted 4. You are placed in a large open map full of winding roads and given three targets to reach, which involves you jetting off over ramps and darting through freeways dotted with rusted-out vehicles to reach them, before some on-foot exploration and combat. Ghostrunner 2 is, for the most part, a tightly choreographed game with little reason to stop and smell the roses, so it’s very nice to be let off the leash and proceed at your own pace.

The bike is so fun – and the rollercoaster levels designed for it so thrilling – that it’s a shame it’s not in more of the game. It even comes with its own unique mechanics, with my favorite the ability to leap off at high speed, fly high into the air and then grapple back onto it without missing a beat. Then again, even on foot, the game is thrilling, particularly in its complex multi-stage boss battles, the Nintendo-esque puzzling in the CyberVoid, and the sweet satisfaction that comes with the gradual mastering of all things Ghostrunner-y.

Ointment, meet flies

At this point, you can probably tell that I had a blast. Even so, there are some wrinkles. Like its predecessor, the plot is completely forgettable, and it’s not helped by crucial story information being delivered as voiceover during gameplay. Let’s just say it’s hard to focus on the particulars of transhumanist philosophy while negotiating a fiendish midair obstacle course. New to the sequel are interstitial visits to a base where you can chat with your support team, though they rarely have much of note to say.

There are also some outright bugs that I hope will be squashed by a launch day patch. The game hard-locked on me twice and I had to restart it through the PlayStation 5 menu. There are also occasional sound and graphics bugs, like certain effects blaring incessantly until the game loads a new area, or a post-boss cutscene playing out suspended over a bottomless void. All pre-rendered video in the game is also highly compressed and looks outright terrible on a modern TV. None of that is game-ruining, but Ghostrunner 2 is otherwise so slick that these flaws stand out.

More fundamentally, the basic nature of the game inevitably means it’s going to be divisive. This is ‘Glass Cannon: The Game,’ and it’s entirely possible to finish a level with your death count in triple digits. Anyone with hand coordination issues is going to be left out in the cold, and unfortunately, this sequel ditches the accessibility options that were eventually patched into the first game. I respect the purity of the combat, but let’s face it, one player’s thrilling challenge is another’s infuriating slog.

All that said, there’s nothing else in gaming quite like Ghostrunner. Even my jaded gaming heart sings when I manage to ninja my way through a brutal combat encounter without suffering a single death, leaving me feeling impossibly cool and deadly. This sequel builds upon the solid foundations of the original, and positively reeks of developer confidence and talent. I want more, and I want it now.

This review is based on the PlayStation 5 version of the game. A copy was provided to us for review by 505 Games.