I can’t stop thinking about ‘Pyre’
One of 2017’s most interesting games stuck with me (minor spoilers)
A few days before Christmas, I found myself with some time to kill. I decided to use that time to play Pyre, one of 2017’s best-reviewed games from developer Supergiant. I had heard nothing but good things about this game from a bevy of sources I trust, and I had also enjoyed the studio’s earlier games, Bastion and Transistor. All these elements, coupled with the $20 price tag, convinced me to make the purchase on my PS4.
After roughly half an hour with the game, I was hooked. The action sequences are fun and innovative, but the story that underlies every part of the game truly makes it stand out. Add one of the best soundtracks that I’ve heard in years, and this game is a success on all levels. Perhaps most tellingly though, I keep thinking back to it even weeks afterwards. I’ll hear strains of the music in my heard, or remember key story moments, for example. There are many reasons that Pyre is a great game, but this persistence in my thoughts is what elevates it to a truly special status for me.
Supergiant Games is a small studio that has a loyal following, largely based on the success of Bastion and Transistor. These two games feature role-playing elements, some sort of post-apocalyptic storyline, and (most importantly) well-written characters punctuated by superb voice acting. To be clear, there isn’t much voice acting in Supergiant’s games — most of the story is told through text — but the vocal performances that are present are phenomenal.
Pyre follows in the mold of its predecessors in terms of the light role-playing, post apocalyptic story, and characters, but is also a marked stylistic change for the studio. Players explore the game as the “Reader,” an otherwise-nameless individual who finds herself stuck in the Downside. If that sounds vague and weird, it reflects the oddness and weirdness of the game’s opening moments. As players get further in though, the story begins to develop into one of the best I’ve ever seen.
Supergiant’s writers have captured the art of telling a great story with just enough background to make it convincing. Bastion and Transistor took place against the backdrop of cities and civilizations, and the writing team wrote enough lore to make the worlds feel real without becoming burdensome. Pyre is the same way. There is a wealth of information about the different civilizations and races, and the team makes sure to weave much of it into the story, but I never felt like reading the many layers of expository text was a chore.
Pyre’s story begins with the Reader, but branches outward quickly. Players quickly learn that they (and their companions) are living in the Downside, where those who have been convicted of crimes in the Commonwealth (the game’s main civilization) are sent. It is possible to earn one’s place in society back, but only through trials known as “Rites,” and through the Rites Pyre takes interesting new developmental risks.
The Rites are essentially the only gameplay element in Pyre. They consist of teams of three playing a mix of basketball and soccer, and players progress through match after match, eventually reaching more meaningful games where victory means freedom for one team member (on either the Reader’s team or the opposing group). Players will meet many different NPCs and potential team members, and the game does an excellent job of giving each Rite narrative depth. Every game has meaning for either a player’s contestant or someone on the other side, and Supergiant’s writers make that clear with some very well-written segments.
The Rites are a lot of fun on their own, but the way that they mesh with Pyre’s narrative is what makes this game special. Each Rite leads to another one throughout the entire game, the downtime between contests allows the writers to construct detailed conversations with the game’s protagonists. Even though the player has a role in this game as Reader, it’s clear that the main characters are the ones performing the rites.
Near the end of the game, it becomes clear that the Reader will have to make difficult choices about which characters to free. This becomes doubly daunting because sometimes the characters with the best narrative reasons for freedom are the most valuable to the team. I freed my best player on multiple occasions, and it dramatically hurt my performance in future rites. Critically, I’m fairly certain that letting one particular character go free kept me from attaining freedom for other characters in future matches.
It is these difficult decisions and narrative elements that demonstrate Pyre’s magnificence. It’s one thing to write that a game has a great narrative (as I have done here repeatedly), and quite another to experience how real the world and characters feel. The soundtrack plays no small part in this, either. Each character has an instrumental theme, and the occasional vocalized songs are beautiful in both lyrical content and atmospheric quality.
Today, weeks after I finished the game, some of the decisions that I made still stick with me. Other parts of the game, particularly the ending, have the same effect. Bastion and Transistor were both excellent games in their own right, but Pyre is easily Supergiant’s best game to date. It’s easy to tell that this is a skilled studio continuing to hit its stride, and Pyre confirms every ounce of potential that the first two games showed. 2017 was a fantastic year for video games, but it would be a tragedy to let this one slip through the cracks.
