Ghostrunner

About Ghostrunner

Ghostrunner dropped on October 27, 2020, and it changed how I view fast-paced platformers. Slipgate Ironworks built this cyberpunk nightmare as a single-player shooter where you play as the last Dharma warrior. You live in a massive tower-city called the Tower that holds all of humanity after some global disaster. The Keymaster runs this place with an iron fist and implants decide your social status. You must climb from the bottom to the top while fighting through waves of enemies. It hits PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Series X|S, PC, and Switch. This is not a story about saving the world in a slow way. It is a brutal run up a vertical death trap where you die often but learn quickly.

Gameplay

You move at breakneck speeds with wall runs and double jumps as your main tools. One hit kills you and enemies kill you instantly, so precision matters more than reflexes alone. You slash through opponents with a monofilament sword or shoot energy bolts from your fist. The game forces you to reload after every death without skipping any story beats, which makes the pacing relentless. Combat feels like a choreographed dance where you parry bullets mid-air and dash through crowds. You can switch between physical reality and cyberspace to see hidden paths or avoid certain attacks. Each level is a vertical gauntlet that demands memorization of enemy patterns. You have 45 achievements to chase if you want to master every movement trick available in this dense cybernetic world.

What Players Think

The PlayPile community rates Ghostrunner heavily with an IGDB score of 80.2 out of 100 from 221 ratings. People spend about 6 hours on average to finish the main campaign, though speedrunners push that time down significantly. Completion rates sit around 78 percent among our tracked players who actually beat the final boss. Community moods skew toward "frustrated but satisfied" since the difficulty spikes hard in the later chapters. Review snippets from our users mention the tight controls and the satisfying sound design as key factors. Some users complain about the checkpoint system feeling too harsh after long runs. The average playtime for those who collect all 45 achievements jumps to over 12 hours total. Price drops to $5.99 on IndieGala make this a no-brainer buy for most of us right now.

PlayPile's Take

Buy this if you want a game that respects your time by being brutally short but mechanically deep. The price is rock bottom at $5.99, which makes the 45 achievements worth hunting even after one run. It suits players who enjoy high-stakes action where failure teaches you something immediately. Do not play this if you get angry when you die ten times in a row without progress. The single-player mode offers no co-op fun to soften the blow of those brutal bosses. This title stands out because it never holds your hand during the hardest moments. It forces you to be perfect or get cut down by a sword swing.

Storyline

Enter an intense cyberpunk world and experience fierce, dynamic combat! Conquer your enemies in the physical world and in cyberspace. Hunt for answers in humanity’s last remaining shelter. Ascend humanity’s last remaining shelter, a great tower-city. The tower is torn by violence, poverty, and chaos. Conquer your enemies, discover the secrets of the superstructure and your own origin and obtain the power to challenge The Keymaster. The game takes place in the future, after a global cataclysm where the remains of humanity live in a tower built by The Architect, who died mysteriously years ago. Everyone knows the truth, no one says it aloud. The world ruled by The Keymaster is harsh. A person’s worth depends on the category of implants they have, defining their whole lives. The implants—given to them in childhood—determine which social group a person belongs to. If you weren’t lucky enough to get a good life, there is nothing you can do. It's no surprise that a rebellion starts. You are a cyber-warrior, the only one capable of fighting both in the physical world and in cyberspace. Lost and hunted, thrown into the middle of the conflict, you must use this bond with technology to ascend the tower. As you climb higher, secrets are revealed. The clock starts ticking on a race to uncover the mystery behind the structure that houses humanity’s last hope. Solve the riddle or be killed—there is no other option.