Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed Ecto Edition - Switch Review

Leigh Wynne -

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed Ecto Edition is an asymmetrical multiplayer game that sees four real players playing as ghostbusters going up against another player who plays as the ghost protagonist. The four ghostbusters must search across many locations using iconic ghostbuster equipment to locate and bust the ghost. The ghost, however, must survive using unique ghostly abilities and the environment to hide, possess and haunt the location, scaring civilians, hiding rifts and hindering ghostbusters in any way possible until the location is haunted!

The Good

Starting up Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed Ecto Edition, you enter the iconic headquarters of the Ghostbusters: The Firehouse, which also takes centre stage as your base of operations and for a brief moment, you’ll learn the ins and outs on how to be a real ghostbuster. At which point, you can freely walk around The Firehouse, Ray’s occult bookstore, which also allows you to enter the ghost realm (once you’ve unlocked it), and the training alley for sorting out your equipment and load-outs. There are other things to see as well, including the job desk, character customisation, side hustles, mushroom collection and all the little factual tip-bits from the Ghostbusters movies scattered about, such as the dancing toaster, for example.

You can also select research missions from Eddy’s lab upstairs, which require you to complete certain actions during jobs to unlock special equipment at the load-out bench. Plus, there are missions and daily challenges for you to complete to unlock extra goodies. 

There are even bounties to complete solo, busting different class ghosts and rewarding you with more experience depending on the difficulty. You’ll be accompanied by three other bots that do an admirable job of helping you out.  You can also set up private matches in the ghost dimension once you’ve unlocked it at rank 4.

One of the coolest things about Spirits Unleashed is the ability to play as either a Ghostbuster using all the latest equipment or as one of many ghost entities, each with their own unique abilities, unlockable variants and colours.

If you’ve ever played Dead by Daylight, then you may have a good understanding of how asymmetrical online games actually play: One team plays as the four Ghostbusters, trying to destroy rifts that act like the ghosts' spawn points and busting the ghost player across 10 locations. This is all while the other player plays as the ghost and has to try and survive, haunting the location to reach 100 percent. Each side feels pretty fun to play but in my opinion, the ghost is the most fun to play as because they have a lot of different abilities and actions that are great fun to use against your enemies.    

There is a story that unlocks at certain ranks, giving you some sort of incentive to keep playing and levelling up. Even though it’s short, these sections are fully voice acted and well scripted. The game also received some free DLC content. And a special mention goes to the developers for all Ghostbusters details, characters, and lore hidden in Tobin's spirit guide around the firehouse. Love it! 

Finally, there is online multiplayer for up to five players: four as ghostbusters and one as the ghost in either mode: Matchmaker or in the Ghost Realm. Online works great and I had no issues finding a match thanks to the crossplay enabled feature.

TL;DR

  • Plenty of jobs and missions to play
  • Play as a ghostbuster or the ghost
  • Story, DLC and lore
  • Online multiplayer, offline with bots

The Bad

I've experienced a few disconnects during play sessions, and this can be frustrating when playing solo or online. Although these disconnects happen infrequently, they can still suck the enjoyment out of the experience.

I also wish there were more locations in the game. While the stages are varied, players spend a huge portion of the game in them, so it would have been nice to see more iconic stages from the movies. Even some outdoor locations would have been nice.

TL;DR

  • Connection issues
  • More locations

Final Score: 8/10

I'm really enjoying the Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed experience, even with its issues. Even though I've completed the story mode, there’s still plenty to unlock. I really love playing as the ghost characters, mainly because of the havoc you can cause other players; it makes matches quite thrilling. 

Even though the online is great fun with real players, I have encountered a few disconnects, which can be frustrating. The story isn't very long, but unlocking everything else will lengthen your time with the game, so there's plenty of potential to add further content in the future. 

Thank you for checking out our Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed Ecto Edition Switch review, thank you to IllFonic (via Stride PR) for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support: