This ghost story musical is full of personality and a mystery full of fear

Shanda has no ghosts It is a first-person, narrative-driven mysterious game developed by Sundae on Friday. This is the studio's first game, and this week people at Gamescom can use hands-on demos. I watched the demo before the preview event was released, and the game is an attractive combination of some extensive story, some music and some refurbished games. At the heart of the game, though, is ghost stories, and developers are committed to making this weird beachside story OK for everyone.

There are no ghosts in the Great Ghost, you play Chris David, a character in a shabby hotel along the British coast. Chris initially only took on the task of restoring the hotel, but he was eventually drawn to a deeper mystery surrounding the town and the people living there.

The first part of the demo shows the game's unique hotel renovation mechanism, which uses a quirky set of call power tools built into a handheld device. Robert C. McBrewsh (Robert C. This sounds like it will come in handy when balancing the tension elements of the game, as there are no ghosts of the big ghost at night.

During the day, the game focuses on renovation work, with handheld devices equipped with a range of tools including sand blue devices, power sprayers, turbo vacuum cleaners and furniture. Friday Sundae Creative Director and Co-founder Anil Glendinning also confirmed that each power tool type has three different modes that unlock as you progress. We saw debris sucked by the equipment's turbine vacuum, and the demonstration also showed the intuition of the sprayer mechanic when painting the walls. Glendinning said the game’s purpose is to allow players to entertain without the need for precision. The game simply slides the sprayer and knows to only draw the wall surface while ignoring the surrounding furniture and paintings that are still decorating the area.

At night, the town is a little weird and weird. A good example is when Chris worked hard to help the mayor strand him on an island. It seemed like the first moment he learned about the town’s weird and dangerous game as he walked out in the nightly part of the demo and found a bunch of red chairs scattered around him. The chair quickly evolved into some kind of spider chair. This panic peaks in chase scenes and first-person shooter moments, where the renovated multi-tool becomes a weapon that causes Chris to fire at the creepy chair monster.

“We describe the game as weird. But there is no bloody or horror in the game,” Glendinging said. “It doesn't need it to tell the story we want to tell. This story is about people and families, and it's about how some of these things are manifested in life.”

There are no musicals of all kinds of grand ghosts, either. Our preview introduces us to the mayor of the town, who share her feelings about Chris and his hotel renovation plan through the music number. In these scenes, you can choose how you want to respond to the character, and Chris will sing his reply. These musical moments will also happen with other characters you encounter in the story.

Glendinning said the game wasn't always planned to be a musical, but the element was added early on.

“From the beginning, we wanted to create a ghost story,” he said, explaining how the story was inspired by some of the shabby seaside towns and boarding shops found in the UK. “When we created this ghost story, we heard this internal soundtrack in our mind, and when we wrote the conversation and set it to music, the (musical) dialogue evolved from it.”

These musical interactions are just some opportunities for branch narratives in the game. You can also learn how much about towns and neighbors based on non-musical interactions with town people and by exploring and revealing clues, and you can also encounter multiple endings.

The grand ghost extends beyond the hotel itself as you can explore the various areas of the seaside village. We see part of a mission that starts with a bike ride through town, and eventually, Chris's mission is to repair the ships on the ship and head to the ghost island of the World War II bunker.

We didn't introduce many characters, but we did meet Mr. Bones, a cat lurking around the hotel and following Chris on some adventures. Mr. Bones seems to be just a normal cat during the day, but at night he has the ability to talk to Chris and to an Australian accent. His story may become part of the mystery you need to uncover. No worries anyway: Preview confirms that you can pamper cats.

Glendinning can also skip various parts of the game.

“We believers allow players to complete this story,” he said. “If the puzzle is too difficult, you can definitely skip it.”

This also affects the replayability of the game as you can skip scenes and puzzles you've encountered to make progress faster with additional playback.

Overall, the early previews piqued my interest because of someone who loves musicals and a good mystery. The town looks cozy and mysterious, with characters like Mr. Bones and Robert C. MacBrushy having a personality to the game, making me eager to play and reveal the secret that Grand has no ghosts.

Players can do renovations and work next year, as Grand has no ghosts to enter the Xbox series X|S and PC in 2026 and will be available on the first day of the Xbox Game Pass.