Released in 2017, Pyre was the third title in Supergiant Games history. Quickly becoming known for a strong, linear narrative filled with a colorful cast of characters and gameplay mechanics that borrowed or twisted common archetypes, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to expect the third foray into games to be something even greater. Building upon Bastion and Transistor, Supergiant had released a game at a steady clip every three years, and Pyre was no different. While Transistor kept the isometric perspective of Bastion, it focused more on unique skills to enhance the protagonist's weapon, and allowed the player to explore the world while deciphering the mystery at hand. Pyre flipped the script in more ways than one, tossing the singular protagonist for a large party, and structuring their narrative in a way that, success or failure, it moves on regardless. Finally, no longer were you chopping or shooting at blue blobs or digital slimes, but instead playing a frenetic 3-on-3 game of ball. Anecdotally, it feels like Pyre fell to the wayside. A shunned middle child in a family of successes. It's conjecture, but at the same time you can point to the Early Access nature of Hades - a departure from the "released when its ready" style that they took on for their first three entries, as well as the return to the combat-focused isometric form of their previous two titles. Whether or not Pyre was as well loved or successful as their other entries, one thing was clear: I needed to see it to its end before passing judgment.

Disclaimer: There will likely be spoilers for later parts of this game.

The Downside

When I first played through Pyre at its initial release in 2017, I had only gotten through about 4 Rites before dropping it. Something about the game never clicked, either the gameplay or the start-stop nature of its visual novel style narrative created an environment where I felt it was difficult to play for hours at a time, something that Bastion or Transistor never had. Nothing about the game's presentation: visually, musically or narratively; Supergiant's greatest strengths, was bad or off-putting. The striking visual style and the character portraits that we see reflected in Hades was present and served to fill in large gaps in the world's mythos while saying very little. The music and themes of each triumvirate gave rise to unique feelings that were conjured every time you meet them. The story had multiple mysteries, each character had their own story to tell and reason for why they were outcast; but there was still something missing that tied everything together and felt like it was a cohesive product.

The structure of the game was quite strange to get used to - there were certain functions that you had to do that felt simply performative and didn't feel like they belonged. The flow and pacing felt like it struggled between giving you the freedom to choose what to do next (which typically meant to just button through the next prompt) or to guide you to the next area. The result was a mishmash of UI decisions that left me wondering where exactly things fell apart. Playing on a gamepad, you instantly feel strange from the main menu as you guide a cursor around the screen. Everywhere you go you have a moving cursor, giving the feeling that you were meant to be playing this on a mouse and keyboard instead. In between talks with your party members, you are sometimes given prompts to go to the next area, or looking at the stars for the next destination. Sometimes both of these choices allow multiple choices, making it clear that there is some type of decision to be considered and made. Often times though, there is simply one destination, and you wonder why you're being made to ploddingly move a cursor over to the next area instead of simply moving there. It felt like there was an internal struggle between having the player see the bespoke art, and just getting on with the game.

The gameplay itself suffers from similar issues, almost to the point where you start to question whether the priority was on the narrative and story or the game itself. Starting on Normal, I was curious to see how exactly the winning and losing affects the narrative - I'm not sure it's possible to tell without multiple playthroughs. Having gone through about 10+ Rites at this point, the game has finally started to open up and insert new systems, making the journey to the first Liberation Rite and sending Hedwyn off packing. The enemies after that point start gaining talismans of their own as well as levelling up with perks. While they have begun to fight back a little more, I still remain undefeated and typically don't let in more than one 'goal'. The characters are unique, and all feel like they have their own strengths and weaknesses, although the Legendary Talisman with Pamitha seems extraordinarily strong. Perhaps I have missed a prompt somewhere or haven't explored the Blackwagon thoroughly, but I have found it strange that there is no way to check your roster normally. The only ways I've found are during the Rites selection phase and while talking with Ron, which seems weird since he doesn't show up every time. To read newly unlocked roster bios or to tweak talisman selections, you have to simply spend time just before a Rite, or remember while shopping with Ron.

Nightwings

I'm not sure how long the game is, and whether or not there will be more twists along the way as we complete more Liberation Rites, but I'll say that my second time through, it is less of a slog than before. While I still have issues with the pacing, I am quite invested in seeing through the end of the journey for all the companions. I have attempted to keep all of them at a steady level of enlightenment, just so losing one isn't a huge sacrifice, but at the same time I am ready for the first loss should it come. I have already retried the Beyonder trials multiple times so I at least know how brutal the AI can be.

I just played Pyre for the first time this year and had a good time! I agree that the game's priorities can feel muddy (and boy that opening can feel slow), but I also loves its experimental feel--interesting highs and dull lows, but all around a cool game.

Hades is definitely a more "normal" game and has seen more success because of it, but I'm confident Supergiant isn't the kind of dev to sellout their creativity.

Pyre only gets better the farther you get in, and I think you've made it past the sloggiest of it. And as a warning: the pacing gets faster the farther you get in, so yeah, game might not be as long as you think. Good luck!

If I was pressed to make a decision, there's a chance that Pyre might still edge out Hades as my favourite of Supergiant's games.

I somewhat agree with your title in the sense that Hades definitely continues with some ideas about narrative that Supergiant tried out in Pyre. The most obvious of these is the exploration of how to incorporate 'failure' in gameplay into the narrative, a very important element in both games. I would hesitate to continue with the idea of Pyre being the 'experimental' trial however, since Hades is much more akin to a lateral step down a different path than a refinement of what is present in Pyre.

In Hades, the game actively recognises your success or failure and deftly incorporates it in the narrative through the sheer volume of writing present in the game. Though you can continue to fail many times without success and still unravel more about the characters, ultimately Hades still requires you to eventually succeed to push Zagreus' story forward.

In Pyre, the narrative similarly recognises your success or failure but crucially, neither is actually required to continue to drive the narrative forward. It is entirely possible to fail every gameplay sequence in Pyre and still reach the end of that particular story. By decoupling gameplay success and narrative progression, Pyre turns success and failure into a choice rather than a goal.

They're both fantastic ways of intertwining gameplay with storytelling but they're different enough in their goals that I'd say they run parallel rather than one being an evolution of the other. Hades constantly provided me with more to see even when I failed; Pyre is the only game I can think of in which I actively decided to fail a gameplay section because I thought that was what was best for my party.

@theflamingo352: 'Interesting highs and dull lows' is a great way to describe the game. There have definitely moments where I've been intrigued to press further, but am quickly discouraged or have to button through a couple expositional beats. I did look up how long the game was before trying it a second time because I wanted a relatively quick game to speed through before jumping into the meatier games on my plate.

I played a few more (and actually right after I posted this I dropped my first loss to the Chastity of all fucking Triumvirates) and quickly hit my second liberation rite after 3 rites, so I can see how it speeds up, especially since you have fewer and fewer members.

I think Supergiant does a good job of trying new things while incorporating old lessons learned in their previous titles. Greg and Amir (from the interviews I've seen) seem self-reflective enough to not rest on their laurels and it's also interesting that they seem to never dip back to their old titles whether it be a new story or DLC adventure, which is refreshing.

@imhungry: Perhaps experimental wasn't the best term to use, and I will try and elaborate further once I've finished the game. I simply meant that aspects of the game were further developed upon in Hades, like the ones you've touched on. It was more an observation on my part due to the fact that I'd overlooked Pyre previously so it was interesting to see ways in which Hades "existed" within Pyre before its conception.

I am curious about the full scope of the failure and success mechanics within Pyre, you say it's possible to reach an end through failure, are there then multiple endings? What happens if you fail every liberation rite (or every rite), does the game end after a certain point? I was saving NoClip's documentary on Pyre until after I'd finished it, but I would be interested on a dev talk or something that breaks down how exactly failing in Pyre works, if such a thing exists.

Thanks for the comments!

@wunder_: Without spoiling too much, there are a finite amount of liberation rites and their outcomes have an impact on the ending. The story continues to advance whether you win or lose, even if you lose all of them. The broad strokes remain somewhat the same in keeping with the theme of the game but the details of events as well as the fate of the characters, both within your party and without, can be greatly affected by your choices.

Welp I wrapped up the game yesterday and then watched the NoClip documentary about it. For those interested I liberated Hedwyn, Jodariel, Sir Gilman, Shae, Rukey, Volfred Sandalwood and Pamitha. I lost two normal rites, one to the Chastity and another to the Fate, mostly due to playing with the Titan Stars.

I am ultimately still left curious to see how the story plays out through multiple decisions, and overall a bit disappointed with how my personal story ended. I'm not sure if I expected more revelations down the road but after Oralech there wasn't too much that happened after that was surprising, especially with how dominant some of the rites went. The final choice was nice, and I'm generally happy with all the choices I made, since the others that were left behind still have a home and sense of belonging in the Downside.

I also never felt the supreme urge to fail a rite purposely, as narratively it felt like every Nightwing had a purpose and I would be robbing them of their freedom rather than freely giving it to another Triumvirate. Mechanically I felt a disconnect as I never super connected with the mechanics, mostly doing the same strategy over and over again until it worked. The Titan Stars, while somewhat interesting, didn't inspire me to use them past the first time just to unlock their chapters. If I failed while using them, I didn't get the XP, and if I succeeded, I would simply get more XP making my exiles stronger for next time.

This might also be different for others, but I felt the 'speedier' exiles to be much, much easier to handle and typically prioritized those when dousing. My quick-fire rankings stand as is:

• Pamitha (Her legendary token sometimes worked, but regardless her flight and cast were top notch. I rarely dropped the ball with her if at all)
• Ti'Zo/Rukey (Ti'Zo probably edges this out, but Rukey was my early game anchor. Again, the speed and rapid hops of Ti'Zo make these two extremely easy to skate or fly past enemies for a quick dunk. Ti'Zo's Inner Glory also make it so he is one of the more damaging characters while retaining his speed)
• Stowaway (Her jump is bonkers and definitely secures her in the top half)
• Jodariel/Hedwyn (I rarely used either for dousing and mostly as a rear guard. Both have some strengths but are typically outweighed by a glaring weakness or outperformed by a character above)
• Bertrude (While one of the slower and clunkier characters, I did like how they moved and their cast was pretty strong paired with their legendary Talisman)
• Sir Gilman/Volfred (I did not ever really get to grips with either of these, with Sir Gilman edging out Volfred slightly thanks to the increased AOE of his Slash. Volfred was mostly used as a defensive tool to quickly plant a sapling at the ball, but I never really understood how you could play them as effectively as the others)

Over time the gameplay fell to the wayside for me, with the rites spiking in difficulty sometimes, but never enough to warrant trouble. The Beyonder trials were some of the harder things to overcome in the game, but even then it felt like it was struggling against itself as sometimes the AI would grab the ball and rush over to dunk it in 0.5 seconds. Other times it would grasp the ball and just hover over my Pyre until I respawned, or stare at the ball on the other side of the map before I walked over to pick it up.

It's one of the main reasons (other than moving on to different games) that I won't be pursuing a True Nightwing playthrough. Even if the game was 'harder', the difficulty presented wasn't super interesting to me, so I think I'd just get more frustrated or go for a full failure run instead. The other problem is knowing what dialogue I've already read and what is new. Something the virtual novel series the Nonary Games do is give an option to skip through text that you know you've already read. Perhaps they give you that option right away, but if they don't, I'd find the entire playthrough to be tedious having to re-read blocks of text just to grab a morsel of new information.

I'm glad I went back to revisit Pyre since that was always a hole in my Supergiant knowledge. It was certainly enjoyable and I really enjoyed my whole party and many of the Triumvirates. I just wish there was a bit more polish around the edges and the gameplay itself provided more variety outside of what was initially presented.