Within the first few hours of Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, you have a very important–and difficult–decision to make. As Red, you must swear an oath to the now-deceased Antea on whether you will help her ascend peacefully into the afterlife, or resurrect her when her body has been retrieved from the meetinghouse. While the game does explain that resurrecting Antea requires sacrificing as many settlers as possible with a blame ritual, it isn’t clear exactly what that means. Here’s a spoiler-free explanation of which oath you should pick.
Banishers Ascend oath explained
If you choose to help Antea ascend, this means that when you eventually make it back to her body in the meetinghouse, Red will allow her to move on peacefully. This is, essentially, the easier option of the two.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden has lots of optional side quests known as Haunting Cases. At the end of each of these, you must decide on the outcome for the people involved – usually one living settler and one ghost. For Antea to ascend, you may either “forcedly banish the ghost to oblivion” if you believe they are at fault and have done wrong, or you can ascend them with a release ritual. Either option contributes to Antea’s ascent, but you cannot blame the living settler.
Banishers Resurrection oath explained
If you choose to resurrect Antea, you are essentially committing to two things. Firstly, you must complete all optional Haunting Cases before finishing the game. Secondly, the outcome for all of these must be that you blame – and subsequently kill – a living settler in every single case, since the maximum number of possible living settlers must be sacrificed for the Lesser Palingenesis ritual to work.
If you decide to finish the story without having sacrificed the most settlers possible, you will find yourself with a bad ending. So this means that you must solve every Haunting Case in the game and finish each one by sacrificing a living settler to resurrect Antea at the end of it all.
So choosing to ascend Antea gives you much more freedom in how you approach the game and all of the side content, but it isn’t the best outcome for Red and Antea themselves, nor do you get the best ending. Pledging to resurrect her requires lots of murder and the pair will often question their decision, and achieving that ending requires the completion of every Haunting Case, adding 10+ hours onto the already fairly lengthy playtime of 30 hours, give or take. But when it comes to the future of the loved-up Banishers, it’s the option that makes the most sense, albeit in a selfish manner.
