Pyre (video game)
Pyre is an action role-playing video game developed and published by Supergiant Games. It was released in July 2017 for Microsoft Windows, Linux and PlayStation 4, and in August 2017 for macOS. Elements from sports games were incorporated into the title's gameplay. It was the third game developed by Supergiant following Transistor (2014) and it received generally positive reviews upon release. Story and gameplay The game takes place in a high-fantasy setting. The story is told through on-screen narrative passages that include a hyperlink-type system used by the player character to explore the story further. In addition to guiding the exiles during "Rites" which resemble a sports game, the Reader must determine how to help support or improve the party by performing activities such as scavenging for supplies, learning more of the world's lore, or mentoring the exiles to improve their abilities. Through the land, the party encounters other groups of exiles, which starts the Rites, the game's combat system which was described by Marty Silva of IGN as a mix of Defense of the Ancients, Rocket League, and Supergiant's previous game, Transistor. Rites take place on a field with two columns of flame, or pyres, at opposite ends and the three exiles facing off against three opponents, portrayed from a top-down perspective. Each team attempts to destroy the opposing pyre by launching a single glowing orb at it, which steadily whittles away at its health. The player controls only one character at a time by passing the orb among the three, with the character who has the orb being the one the player controls. A character traveling with the orb is vulnerable to being temporarily banished from the Rites if an enemy's aura touches them, which would drop the orb at their feet. The different characters have various skills that aid them in the Rites, such as dashes or long-range projectiles. Each of the player's characters also have different passive abilities that affect how they play, such as one that can move quickly around the arena but does little damage to the opponent's pyre, while another is slow and bulky, but can do the greatest damage. The game includes a local multiplayer mode which allows two players controlling separate teams to compete. Supergiant was unsure if they would be able to include online multiplayer in time for the game's launch and opted to keep this mode to local as well as player-versus-computer matches for release. Development The concept of Pyre came out from prototyping several game ideas by Supergiant Games, according to creative director Greg Kasavin, eventually coming to the theme of "what happens when you face defeat, and have to come back from it the next day, look your friends in the face, look yourself in the mirror, and deal with the consequences of the decisions you made". In trying to devise gameplay around the nature of failure, they came to see the use of sports as a metaphor for combat, featuring non-violent gameplay but consequences of losing.