Don’t Nod took its second crack at the action RPG genre with Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden earlier this year, and as those who’ve played it will tell you, it was a far more successful one than the first. Unlike the rough-around-the-edges Vampyr, Banishers turned out to be a sizeable, engaging game with plenty of depth- but in spite of the scope of the project, Don’t Nod says that it wasn’t actually a full-blown AAA production.
Speaking during a recent interview with MP1st, narrative director Stéphane Beauverger described Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden as “a nicely crafted AA game.”
“Banishers is not an AAA game, it’s a nicely crafted AA game – and we are proud of it,” he said. “We have the will and passion to deliver a great experience to the audience, hence the large size of the map, and the huge amount of content.”
Beauverger added that, unlike Don’t Nod’s narrative-driven games like Life is Stange, Banishers also owed itself to have a wider structure and greater breadth of content.
“The game structure also depends on the nature of the game we make,” he said. “Story-driven games like Life is Strange or Tell Me Why are more in need of a linear structure. With Banishers, we felt it was necessary to open the world and let the players investigate the mysteries of New Eden at their own pace, and in the order they were more comfortable with. Hence the more open structure of the game.”
Given the scope of Banishers compared to Don’t Nod’s past projects, it’s no surprise that it was also in development for quite some time, with Beauverger revealing that the game was in the works for a 4-5 year period.
“It is not easy to define the full development time for a game, it really depends how you consider it,” he said. “From scratch? From the very first idea written down with a pencil and a paper during the first conception phase? From the first playable sequence? And even after the release, people are still working on the game, like working on patches. Let’s say that it took between four and five years to create Banishers.”
Recently, Beauverger also said that though there’s no guarantees that Banishers will get a sequel, Don’t Nod views it as “the first step of franchise.”
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Read our review of the game through here.