Ghost Master: Resurrection

When most people watch movies about haunted houses, they cower in terror as the things that go bump in the night toy with their victims. But not me. When I watch those movies, I think about how cool it would be to find new and creative ways to scare those annoying humans. And that is why Ghost Master: Resurrection is the perfect game for me. It’s a strategy game that allows you to haunt a wide assortment of houses, hospitals and cruise ships with a team full of supernatural nasties. For anybody who thinks it would be more fun to haunt a house than to be haunted, I give you my review of Ghost Master: Resurrection, out now on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

As the title suggests, you play the ghost master, the one who moves the ghouls and ghosts around a haunted house in order to maximize scares. Think of it like chess, only with the unsuspecting victims not realizing that they are pawns in a horrific game of life and death. Through mostly non-violent means, the goal is to frighten the living so badly that they’ll literally run from the house in terror.

Now, I know what you’re asking: Why can’t you just unleash the same ghost or poltergeist in a few rooms and call it a day? Do we really need a whole roster of supernatural baddies to freak out a bunch of college students? The short answer is, yes, you can never have enough ghosts. And not just because it’s fun to have a large variety of ways to haunt those oblivious humans, but also because each type of creature can be used in different rooms and environments. If you’re going to inflict real, emotional trauma on these people, then you’re going to need a whole army of frighteners.

It takes a little while to get used to, but once you start to learn about the different types of ghosts, the whole thing starts to click. For example, if you want a quick and easy scare, throw a bunch of spiders in a room or have a ghost use telekinesis to float objects around the room. However, if you’re outside, you might need to rely on an elemental spirit, like an earth elemental that will create small earthquakes. There are spirits that can hide in everyday furniture, in electronics, in the shower and basically anywhere else you might need them.

Each of these different ghouls and ghosts has their own unique set of abilities, some which will come out of the gate and others you’ll have to buy using the in-game currency. From filling the room up with blood to creating strange visions to sending people into a psychotic rage, there are quite a few different ways to scare the bejesus out of the humans. But sometimes it’s about more than just getting the biggest scare. Sometimes you’ll need to lead a victim to a certain location in order to solve a puzzle or complete a mission. You can do this any number of ways, including everything from literal possession to having a ghost rattling chains to attract the nearby humans.

The puzzle solving ends up being a lot of what works in Ghost Master. Each stage will come with secondary assignments that will lead to you unlocking new types of spirits. Sometimes there’s a specific move or spell you need to use, while other times it’s a bit more involved. A good example of this is on the cruise ship, a bright and cheery setting that is filled with mafia-related ghosts. One of them is forever bound to the casino room, forced to watch the house win a bunch of rigged games. But good thing you’re there, because you can use a spirit that has the jinx ability to give the croupier bad luck. Once he’s lost enough times, the ghost will be set free and you can use him in other stages.

This changes the way you plan for each stage. Before the haunting can even begin, we’re asked to choose a handful of ghosts for your team. Sometimes it’s just four or five, while other times it can be as many as eight. In a more indoor-focused stage, you might want to opt against the elemental spirits, whereas they may be the right call in one of the outdoor missions. The trick is to have a well-rounded team that not only works for the type of setting you’re haunting, but allows you to solve the puzzles and scare the victims in record time. The faster you spook, the more pumpkins you’ll earn.

What’s fun is that not all of the levels play out the same way. When you’re haunting that cruise ship we talked about, you really only have to make the mafia don believe in ghosts. Oh sure, you’ll earn more points if you freak everybody else out, but the don is your target. Sometimes you’ll need to avoid using the ghosts while the police investigate, leading to a number of important revelations. In another stage, you’ll need to avoid a group of ghostbusters, which have the ability to trap your team members, effectively taking them off of the board. There’s enough variety here to keep the game from becoming too repetitive, especially if you spend the time to free the ghosts trapped in each level.

If all this sounds familiar, then it may be because Ghost Master: Resurrection is an updated version of a 2003 game from publisher Empire Interactive. The game was ported to the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, but for some reason it wasn’t released outside of Europe. The remake came out on PC back in 2024, and it’s just now coming to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, this time in North America and other parts of the world.

It's not hard to see the game’s PC roots, as so much of the gameplay is centered around drop-down menus. The developers have made it as easy as they can on the console player – you can bind a ghost with one button and bench them with another. For the most part, you aren’t asked to micromanage too many things, so the menus will mostly be used to bind a spirit to a room and choose what kind of scares they’ll inflict. There are times when you’ll need to give a spirit specific directions, like only attacking one character or a certain type of human. You can also watch the game through everybody’s eyes, no matter if they are a ghost or an innocent victim.

That said, there’s no question that the gameplay is a little clunky on the console. Switching between the different floors of the house is fine, but it’s often hard to dial in the exact angle you’re looking for. What’s more, I put more than a dozen hours into this game and I still found myself confusing the zoom in and zoom out buttons. And while I eventually got used to the menus and options, I will admit that they are a bit confusing at first. This is one of those games that might not grab you at first, but once you become acquainted with the roster of spirits and you understand what the game is expecting from the player, the whole thing clicks.

There are some quality-of-life-changes I’m surprised were not added to this updated remaster. For one thing, there isn’t a way to speed up or slow down time. The Sims-like characters just do their thing in real time, whether you like it or not. This is normally fine, but there are times when you’ll need a specific character to hurry up and get to a specific point in their routine. That can involve a lot of you just sitting there watching the humans do boring, mundane tasks. I also found it hard to switch between the humans and ghosts in the various levels. This seems like this kind of thing could have been mapped to a button, but instead we have to wade through a bunch of identical characters and drop-down menus. This is only made more challenging in the Ghost Manor, where you can upgrade your collection of things that go bump in the night. Every one of them is spread out over a large mansion, sometimes in weird locations. I spent five to ten minutes just trying to find the ghosts I wanted to upgrade.

There are some problems with the missions themselves, especially when it comes to saving all of the ghosts and completing some of the late-game tasks. Some of the puzzles are a bit obtuse, while others require more steps than they’re worth. You’ll also get into the situation where the team you select the first time you play the level is rarely optimal for the situation. Despite the upgrades and changes, this still feels like a 20-year-old game in a lot of ways. It would have been nice to see the same ideas applied to a brand-new game, not an update.

Unfortunately, that goes for the graphics, too. While I would argue that the fun of the game has little to do with the visual flair, I would be lying if I didn’t say that I was a little disappointed by the horror effects. This looks like a two-decade version of The Sims, something that is only made worse when you zoom in on the action and see the characters interacting with other items (like a telephone or fireplace). There are some great ideas here and it’s a lot of fun spooking the humans, but this needs a modern-day facelift.

Despite feeling outdated in parts, Ghost Master is still a lot of fun. It’s easy to see why the fans would want this game to be resurrected in the first place, as it ends up doing a good job of ghouls and ghosts with strategy and puzzles. Between the downloadable content and three-acts of spine-tingling fun, there’s a lot of content and even more supernatural friends to unlock. Ghost Master: Resurrection is a fun update, but the developers would have been better off making a full sequel.