Let’s be clear, the Grand is definitely not haunted, but that doesn’t go for other parts of the British seaside town. There Are No Ghosts at the Grand is a truly quirky mix of ideas, a real hodge-podge that blends hotel renovations, slice-of-life storytelling, horror mysteries and even reggae-infused musical numbers into something that’s quite unique.
The Gamescom 2025 demo – playable at the Xbox booth this week – follows on from the game’s appearance during Microsoft’s summer showcase, and gives a great serving of each of the game’s elements to explore.
It starts with a bit of light renovation, as you look to refurnish and spruce up part of the lobby of the hotel that Chris David has just inherited. It’s in a bit of a state, but thankfully the multi-purpose DIY gun and the thoroughly helpful Robert C McBrushy is on hand to guide you through it. He’s a funny little AI DIY mascot, imbued with bags of personality thanks to the decidedly human writing that goes into his being. He’s sure to be a great source of humour and quirky oddities deep into the game.
The gun has multiple modes, right off the bat. A sandblaster can be used to basically shoot old wallpaper off and get back to the plaster underneath, ready for a very forgiving painting mode to spray and shoot globs of patterned paint at the wall – both of these modes autocompleting after you’ve dealt with around 80–90% of a section, and will neatly target through obstacles. A vacuum mode will scoop up plenty of large debris, and a furniture mode can pick up reorient the tumbled furniture and even hang paintings on the wall. Each mode has its own ping function to highlight what’s left to do. It’s all very slick and easy to get to grips with, and honestly, if this weren’t a physics-defying impossibility, I reckon Friday Sundae would make a killing on Dragons Den.
But there’s so much more to this game than just decorating. Miss Green, the town’s mayor hassles you until you answer the ancient Nokia-like brick phone, asking you to come out and help with a little something else around town? It turns out that there’s a mysterious black slime that’s been appearing on the beaches, and she thinks that it could be tracked, quite logically, to an old WW2 installation on the nearby Crammond Island.
So — much to McBrushy’s dismay — you drop what you were doing, hop onto her moped with her and her cat, Mr. Bones, and pootle along to the jetty, driving through some lovely autumnal scenery as you go, and even offroading down the path to get down to the sea shore.
The boat’s an absolute state, though, and needs a bit of help to get it into working order, with McBrushy more than willing to help. It gets even worse when you crash it into Crammond Island after a sudden fog rolls in. You can use the furniture grabber to pick up items like the front crane, railings and buoys to reattach them to the boat, while the vacuum gains a new feature to repurpose certain types of debris to fix up broken sections of hull or even create new furniture.
But getting to the island is an area where There Are No Ghosts at the Grand showcases its most distinctive element. Miss Green has a real chip on her shoulder about you taking over the hotel, stating that it really should be given over to the town to become a tourist attraction instead of being in your hands to mess around with and modernise — she expects the worst of Chris, since he is an American.
Her grousing bursts into song as you take to the water and pilot the boat through checkpoints, which I let wash over me while watching the demo be played by writer and game director Anil Glendinning — I rarely listen closely to song lyrics, and instead just appreciate a good tune, with her music having a bit of a folk reggae fusion to it. Each character in the game has their own theme tune and songs to unlock as you progress through the story, but it’s really all a part of the game’s dialogue system and relationships.
Where many video game dramas will give you dialogue options, here you’re given song options, the ability to respond with a verse of Chris’s own, bouncing the lyrics down a different path as the character then responds in kind. Each character has a relationship meter for you to build up, both through dialogue and completing tasks and missions, and this does feed into the game’s overarching narrative and some of the endings that will become available to you.
The team are aiming for a game that’s around 8–10 hours to complete, but there will be plenty of side content, people and jobs to take on. You’ll be redecorating so much more than the Grand in this… including a WW2 bunker, it turns out.
Stranded on the island and forced to wait for the low tide when a land bridge will appear, Chris has to make the best of the situation and spruce up a corner of the bunker to be a little bedroom. Anil went for more of a pink and flowery princess bedroom style here, with dressers, ornate lights, bright and colourful wallpaper, but you can obviously take it in some very different directions.
But suddenly there’s a sound. Miss Green said The Grand’s not haunted, but what about this island? Exploring the bunker reveals a shimmering ball of gold that expands as you get near, with humanoid forms within. It’s a memory, a portal back to historical events and people that you need to engage with in a number of ways to fix the scene and nudge the story along. McBrushy comes in all handy yet again, letting you move items back into place, to blast out-of-place boxes, and the other usual things. It gives a peek back into what the bunker’s true purpose was, though really you’re only left with more questions as you delve deeper and deeper into the bunker…. ably helped by McBrushy adding a little…. atmosphere.
Oh, and then Mr. Bones starts talking to you. What’s that? A talking cat? While he loves a good scratch and tickle round the ears during the day, eagerly hopping into moped basket and boat window to appreciate the journey, at night he speaks with an Aussie accent and encourages you as the more bizarre and surreal Lovecraftian horrors take hold.
Emerging from the bunker’s tunnels in another part of the island, you come across a bunch of red plush chairs set about the place. How charmingly odd, you might think, but you won’t for long. Mr. Bones hurries you along, cautioning you not to get too close — either way, they suddenly sprout extra legs and eyes and start chasing you, while McBrushy transforms into an actual gun to let you get blasting.
It’s a pretty wild turn, but just hints at the many more barmy twists and supernatural goings on that you’ll encounter through There Are No Ghosts at the Grand. After the music-filled announcement and the otherworldly twists that tail-ended that trailer, seeing the game in action, with the oh-so-easy to use redecorating tools, the characters and the ways that they’re brought together in inventive ways is a true delight. There Are No Ghosts at the Grand deserves its place on your wishlist for 2026.
