Ghostrunner is a dream come true for fans of high-speed action games, and for fans of the cyberpunk genre. This slasher is incredibly fast and wonderfully stylistic, and while it’s somewhat short it has tons of replay value through secret collectibles and new abilities that can be brought to old levels.
That said, just getting to the end can be quite challenging for players who aren’t used to a game that defeats you so often. If you’re finding you’re having challenges getting through certain levels, or just want to feel like a speedrunning to blast through the game, there are a few ways you can make the game far less challenging.
10 Never Stop Moving
Broadly speaking, Ghostrunner is an incredibly fast game. This shouldn’t be surprising given how the game’s beautiful trailers and opening look, but it can be unusual to play if you aren’t used to games this fast. Simply put, this game isn’t meant for slow caution, as it rewards fast and quick combos.
When you stop moving, you’ll simply become a target for your ranged opponents. This isn’t to say you can’t hide somewhere and plan your moves, but when you begin combat you should always stick to a path that keeps you hitting enemies as smoothly as possible without stopping to reorient yourself.
9 Enjoy Your Bullet Time
If you do need time to think, Ghostrunner’s main mechanics provide you with a great answer. This would be your Sensory Boost, which you can activate while holding the dash button in mid-air. This not only slows bullets enough to decide where you can dodge, but also acts as a recovery system when you might be jumping into danger.
Sensory boost is hardly an easy mode, and you should feel free to use it at all points. Simply jump after any kill and you can enter it, making your kill-paths easier to recognize without needing to plan too much in advance.
8 Equip Visibility Upgrades
Ghostrunner is a beautiful game, and its cyberpunk environments make for some of the most beautiful levels of any sci-fi game released in the past few years. That said, the dark industrial aesthetic has a minor problem in terms of brightness, as enemies will fade into the darkness and be incredibly hard to spot.
There is a solution to this in your upgrades, however, as the puzzle menu allows you to add an enemy visibility module to your skillset. This will make any enemy in your sightlines glow red, giving you a massive edge when determining your pathways and where to hide before initiating combat.
7 Turn Up The Brightness
If your upgrade slots are already occupied, there’s another way you can improve the visuals while not taking up your booster module. This would be in the game’s settings, as you should be able to alter the brightness to make ledges and enemies far more visible than the default appearance.
This might feel like an exploit, but seeing things in a game like this is utterly important when you need to make fast decisions and actions. If all you can see are your opponent’s lasers and bullets, you’ll probably have some trouble in the early levels underneath the city.
6 Slow Time Down While Platforming
Using your sensory boost to slow down time might seem great for enemies, but don’t feel like you can’t use it during platforming segments. Jumping off walls and finding grapple hooks can be extremely difficult on your first run through a new area, so it’s always a good idea to slow things down for a jump.
Sensory boosts also end with a brief dash afterward, which you can use to go a jump’s worth of distance after assessing where you want to leap. You won’t have this function when you go into the digital online space called the Cyberverse, but this ability will often help with confusing platforming puzzles in the middle section of the game.
5 Crouch Dash To Speed Up
While the dash ability gives you a quick boost of speed, Ghostrunner lacks a dedicated sprint button like most action games. Your running speed is inherently locked while you’re moving on the ground, and it can feel sluggish running through narrow halls and alleyways.
If you need to move just a little quicker, using a crouch dash is a great way to give yourself an extra burst. Simply crouch while running and jump one second after, and you’ll do a slide jump that's oddly reminiscent of Crash Bandicoot's signature long jump. It’s not a substantial boost, but can shorten some longer sections of the game if you’re in a hurry.
4 Bosses Are Survival Challenges
Unlike many bosses from action games like Dark Souls, Ghostrunner’s approach to climatic enemies is much more reminiscent of a survival objective. From a deadly computer server to the showdown with Mara, most of your experience in these fights shouldn’t be seen as a one-on-one fight.
Instead, simply focus on staying alive and getting from point to point. You’ll be given checkpoints through most boss fights in case you die lots, but there’s no way to brute force your way through these large and complicated enemies. Simply view it like another level that’s trying to kill you in ways that don’t include standard enemies.
3 Destroy Flying Drones Early
Proceeding through the game will lead you to several minions of Mara, each with new attacks and bodies that you’ll have to deal with. These can be quite difficult to get the hang of, but perhaps the most frustrating foes are the flying drones that appear once you reach the main city.
These drones will fire slowly, but they’re significantly less predictable than most other enemies in the game and can kill you much more suddenly than they might seem. If you spot them, it’s strongly recommended that you immediately jump on them to take them down first. Thankfully, landing on top of them can let you steer it into other enemies to save you even more time.
2 Don’t Slash Too Wildly
This game does reward fast movement, but it’s important to not let that extend to your sword. Repeatedly waving it in front of you is going to be mostly distracting, and doesn’t give a greater chance to deflect bullets since the window to block them is so small to begin with.
If you’re going to slash your sword or use a power, always use it exactly when you need it. You’ll slash the enemy at many points during the animation of your sword flying forward, so it’s unlikely for you to be standing in front of them without hitting them first. If you want to deflect bullets, you’ll also have much better luck by parrying them carefully.
1 Scout Out Your Arena
As mentioned earlier, your ability to see and know where you’re going is extremely important in this game. Ghostrunner is an incredibly unforgiving game, but thankfully the game has frequent checkpoints and no loading screen between each death. That said, dying due to confusion about the environment can feel much worse than dying due to high difficulty.
With no downtime between lives, it’s worthwhile to just sprint around each new combat encounter before killing enemies. If there’s an odd hallway or a single enemy out of the way, you could spend a lot of time trying to find them or get frustrated being killed by them, so feel free to take a quick death to get familiar with where you’re about to slaughter some enemies.