Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed's 4v1 Gameplay Seems To Favor The Odd-Man-Out

I'm surprised that I almost won my first attempt at playing as the ghost in Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed. I tend not to excel in the solo role when it comes to asymmetric multiplayer games, but I almost managed to defeat Illfonic creative director Jared Gerritzen, CEO Charles Brungardt, and VP of marketing and communications Shannon Gerritzen at their own game. I was 15 seconds away from a clutch victory.

Now, there are several possibilities that could explain away my victory. Maybe they weren't used to playing with their fourth companion being controlled by an AI as opposed to a real player. Perhaps all three of them were simply tired after being on the road showcasing the game to press all week.

Or mayhaps they simply took pity on me and let me almost win.

Regardless of the reason, I had an absolute blast haunting a museum as a mischievous ghoul, annoying my would-be captors by possessing innocuous items and hiding in plain sight, and covering them in slime if they did manage to find me. And all the while, I was living out my dream of being an absolute nuisance to museum patrons and jump-scaring them with horrifying screams. I had fun because I was doing well--way better than I usually do when playing on the side of an asymmetrical game where I'm on my own.

In Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, you play as either the titular team of ghost hunters or their latest prey. A team of four, the Ghostbusters need to work in tandem to pinpoint the ghost's location, stun it long enough to capture it, and destroy its methods of respawning. The ghost operates alone and must utilize its powers of possession, teleportation, and other supernatural abilities to escape capture long enough so that it presence terrorizes all the NPCs in a level to run away in fear. When I played as the ghost, I managed to avoid capture long enough that a final 90-second timer popped up--but as I said, I was ultimately captured with 15 seconds remaining.

Spirits Unleashed is not Illfonic's first foray into asymmetrical games--the studio developed the 7v1 Friday the 13th: The Game and 4v1 Predator: Hunting Grounds. It is, however, the first time the developer has flipped the script on the formula it uses for these games. In both Friday the 13th and Hunting Grounds, the one is hunting down the team. Meanwhile, Spirits Unleashed sees the team having to hunt the solo player.

It's not a huge change, but--at least based on the hour I've now had with Spirits Unleashed--it has made for a more enjoyable experience. Like Friday the 13th and Hunting Grounds, Spirits Unleashed favors the one in terms of individual power. The ghost is stronger than any individual Ghostbuster. Heck, the ghost seems to sometimes be stronger than two or three Ghostbusters working together.

But because the ghost is the prey and not the hunter, its power does not rest in offensive potential. Instead, the ghost is strong for its movement potential--it's faster than the Ghostbusters and possesses abilities geared towards stealth, escape, and survival, not attack.

That automatically makes it so much easier to be the player on their own. Everything at your disposal supports your ability to avoid detection and escape capture. And since the one is not the hunter, they don't have to worry about escaping a bad situation if they're suddenly overwhelmed while also focusing on aggressively pursuing prey. They only have one goal, an advantage the ghost has over the Ghostbusters, who have several goals--finding and capturing the ghost, destroying the ghost's means of respawning, and keeping damage to the environment to a minimum.

With Spirits Unleashed, Illfonic seems to understand that the many can still overpower the few for no other reason than that they have superior numbers--everyone knows that teamwork makes the dream work. So the studio has simplified the amount of work and consideration that the one person has to juggle, and given them more chances with multiple respawns. This tips the scales a bit more in the ghost's favor to counterbalance the opposing side's superior numbers, and it seemingly leads to a more balanced experience overall than Illfonic's previous asymmetric games.

If nothing else, I left the preview with a clear idea of how Illfonic has made strides to improve the experience for the odd-man-out in its asymmetric games. Playing as the ghost doesn't seem to be frustratingly hard or boringly easy, largely because the experience isn't being muddied up with multiple roles to fulfill. Giving the team of one only one goal to pursue focuses the role and makes for a more approachable and thus more enjoyable experience, one I'm eager to jump back into when Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed launches for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC later this year.