A few hours into Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, you’ll encounter Jacob Lynde, a young chap taking refuge in a makeshift shelter in the woods. Talk with him and he’ll seem a little confused, explaining how his friend Ben has gone to hunt for game, and that he’d only slow the pair down if Jacob accompanied him. This is the first of many Haunting Cases you’ll need to solve as Banishers and because it’s the first, the decision you must make at the end on whether to blame Jacob, banish Ben, or ascend Ben, doesn’t have its consequences fully explained. Here’s what you need to know.
Banishers The Flesh Is Weak decision explained
At the end of every single Haunting Case, you must either blame a living settler, banish a ghost, or let a ghost ascend by using a release ritual. This essentially boils down to who you think is at fault for the situation, as there’s always a reason the ghost is haunting the living settler(s) in question.
In this instance, after Red and Antea investigate where Ben was last seen and find his skeleton, you learn that Jacob actually killed Ben by pushing him off the edge of a cliff in a delirious state, as Ben wouldn’t let him give up. Afterward, you also find out the rotting meat Jacob is eating is actually human meat, as Jacob has been carving Ben up with a knife to help him survive.
It seems like a pretty simple case, right? Well, not quite. You must take into account the fact that Jacob was “driven to disarray by weeks of nightmare-riven sleep” and Ben was the hunter-gatherer of the two, so once Jacob was alone, he wasn’t equipped to source food from anywhere else, especially since there was a lack of animals thanks to the curse from The Nightmare.
When you speak to the ghost of Ben, he also explains how he forgives Jacob as he is a “kind and godly man, pure and true always” and that he could never hate him. He also says he was considering killing Jacob before the opposite happened, as a last resort measure to survive. Ghost Ben did try to speak with Jacob too, but in his delirious state, he thought Ben was alive and offered him some of his food. Ben puts it succinctly when confronting Jacob at the end of the quest: “We both faced a choice, simple and awful: to kill, or to die.”
Which brings us to the decision: blame Jacob Lynde, ascend Benedict Stoughton, or banish Benedict Stoughton? Blaming Jacob is the same as murdering him, but as explained in our guide on whether you should resurrect or ascend Antea – an oath you must pledge shortly after you make a decision on Ben and Jacob – you must blame Jacob if you want to resurrect Antea. However, if you want to ascend Antea, you can choose to either banish or ascend Ben.
This Haunting Case is a fairly straightforward one, because, despite his delirium, the common consensus is that Jacob is in the wrong for committing murder. However, you will face plenty more decisions like this where what is right and wrong is much less obvious, and as a result, you may need to pick an outcome that won’t sit right with you depending on the oath you pledge. Either way, The Flesh Is Weak is a warm-up Haunting Case for what comes next.
Make sure you also check out our guides on how to break destructible walls and how to clear creeping ivy so you know how to fully explore New Eden, and we also have a guide on the best Banishers skills when you unlock new skill points.
