The Persistence review

The Persistence is a sci-fi space rogue-like set on a space station of the same name. Like a lot of these games, players awake with a very limited set of skills and equipment and are expected to adapt to the often harsh environments in order to succeed at a particular quest. After waking and getting to grips with the basic looking and moving about you’re shown exactly how much danger you and the crew are in as you sit on the event horizon of a very threatening black hole. This black hole seems to be messing not only with the ships systems meaning the layout is unstable and ever changing, but it’s had a pretty horrible effect on your shipmates as well. So off you go to try and restart the systems and hopefully get things back under control.

The Persistence was a PSVR title release in 2018 that had enough success to see the developers decide it warranted a non-VR version. When I said you awake at the start of the game, this isn’t strictly true – you are in fact printed. I thought this was a pretty neat idea to explain how you can be revived after every death to have another crack at it. And you’ll probably die a lot. In fact whilst I got to grips wit things, I found it a little frustrating. Combat you see, is not really encouraged. It’s fine to take on one, maybe even two enemies at a time but any more than that and you’ll likely get wrecked even when you get more powerful. Sneaking is definitely the way to go.

Like every other rogue-like out there you use this upgrade currency to acquire various upgrades. Here you’ll find the standard melee weapons and firearms, as well as experimental weaponry such as swarm grenades, invisibility cloaks and much more. These need to be unlocked at the printer points that litter the station using tokens which can also be found scattered about the place. These can also be upgraded to give you a better chance of survival in what is a pretty inhospitable environment. Character upgrades are also available.

The combat is alright, but it’s hardly stellar. Melee relies on a parry system and the shooting lacks a bit of punch. It’s serviceable at best. Much like Resident Evil, you’ll be managing ammo capacity for much of the game.

The atmosphere is great though, it’s creepy as hell! The game makes great use of lighting, the classic crawl space and blind corners to hide all manner of horrors. The sound design also leaves you feeling tense. The scream of a rushing enemy as well as the creaks, groans and bangs of the ship really help unsettle you.

The only real issue is the setting combined with the procedural generation system. There are specific rooms that don’t change but you won’t be able to get the lay of the land. The corridors and rooms you traverse all have similar layouts and there doesn’t appear to be a great diversity in the building blocks. The choice of setting certainly limited the teams ability to get creative.

Whilst it has transitioned very well to a non-VR body, there are still some hangovers in the way the game controls. Movement can be quite slow and running and jumping has been replaced with a short hop teleportation system that takes some getting used to. Operating doors and machinery, as well as collecting items, sees you hovering the reticule over your intended target and waiting for it to do its thing. It’s pretty straightforward but it does initially feel weird and it does slow things down a little.

It took a while to settle into the rhythms of The Persistence but it was worth persevering. Combat may be a bit wishy washy and the setting may be a little bland at times, but the atmosphere is great. It’s not the greatest game in the genre but it’s definitely worth a look.