#THE PERSISTENCE SWITCH REVIEW UPGRADE#

The best rogue-likes operate in a middle space between punishing and rewarding, and The Persistence manages to ride that line.

#THE PERSISTENCE SWITCH REVIEW UPGRADE#

With enough stem cells, Erebus Tokens, and FAB chips, players can create unique suits with found schematics, upgrade supersense, and unlock powerful firearmsВ - but, as with most rogue-likes, an unlucky random generation could kill you despite your new toys and erase some hard-won progress.Д®ven as death comes early and often, it's easy to become a glutton for punishment. Stealth is a life-saver in the game's early hours, as is 'supersense,' a special view mode activated by the triangle button that outlines dangers in bright red. These persistent upgrades are essential, as enemies hit hard and death comes easily.

By collecting stem cells, Erebus Tokens, and FAB chips, players can upgrade their core stats at the DNA sequencer, create new suits and upgraded items at the gear fabricator, and unlock and eventually upgrade 17 weapons at weapon fabricators scattered across the derelict ship. All of this recurs according to a rogue-like loop, where death is permanent but certain upgrades remain after death. You'll move through dozens of rooms and several decks of the ship, completing missions, and trying your best not to fall victim to increasingly dangerous mutants. When the ship's levels shift via procedural generation, it was made so by the reality distortions of the black hole.ДЄt its heart, The Persistence is a first-person survival-horror/stealth-action game. When Zimri dies, she is simply remade in a cloning stall. Where the narrative works especially well is how it justifies and explains away the game's rogue-like mechanics. The story and setting in The Persistence are interesting enough, if a bit derivativeВ - there are pieces of Alien, Event Horizon, Pandorum, and many other sci-fi horror tales embedded throughout. As Security Officer Zimri EderВ - well, a cloned copy of Zimri, to be preciseВ - you must sneak past or confront these mutants, get the ship's engines back on line, and somehow return The Persistence to Earth. It ends up next to a black hole, damaging the ship and corrupting its Clone Printer, which now pumps out mutated copies of the dead crew.

The game is set aboard The Persistence, a colony ship that suffers a 'spark gap event' during a hyperspace jump. While it doesn't break the mold for VR horror games, and its rogue-like randomness results in some infrequent difficulty spikes, the game is nevertheless scary, habit-forming, and substantial - and one of the better games exclusive to Sony's PSVR add-on. The developers at Firesprite, some formerly of SCE Studio Liverpool (and before it Psygnosis), have turned in a solid, replayable stealth horror game with a host of virtual reality options for experts and neophytes alike. The Persistence is Dead Space, wrapped in the mechanics of a rogue-like - permadeath and procedurally-generated levelsВ - and made alarmingly real via first-person virtual reality. By Evan Norris, posted on 25 July 2018 / 5,188 Views

The persistence switch review