Pyre (video game)

Pyre is a 2017 action role-playing video game developed and published by Supergiant Games. It was released for Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS and PlayStation 4, released in July 2017. Elements from sports games were incorporated to the title's gameplay. It was the third game developed by Supergiant following Transistor (2014) and the game received generally positive reviews upon release.

Pyre
Developer(s)Supergiant Games
Publisher(s)Supergiant Games
Designer(s)Amir Rao
Greg Kasavin
Programmer(s)Gavin Simon
Andrew Wang
Artist(s)Jen Zee
Writer(s)Greg Kasavin
Composer(s)Darren Korb
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS, PlayStation 4
Release
  • Microsoft Windows, Linux, PlayStation 4
  • July 25, 2017
  • macOS
  • August 3, 2017
Genre(s)Action role-playing, sports
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

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.[1]

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.[2] Rites takes place on a field with two columns of flame, or pyres, at opposite ends and the three exiles facing off against three opponents on 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 only controls one character at a time by passing the orb among the three. 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, such as one that can move quickly about the arena but does little damage to the opponent's pyre, while another is slow and bulky, but can do the greatest damage.[1][3]

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.[4]

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".[5] 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. To connect these battles, the developers came onto the use of a narrative idea to have the player guide their party across an overworld, making decisions on where to go based on available resources and timing. They worked through prototyping to adjust how this part of the game would affect the Rites, adjusting the interaction of these two gameplay systems to get an appropriate balance.[5] Kasavin stated they were worried that as some aspects of the game may be confusing, players that were not invested in the game's narrative would not come to appreciate some of these systems, and that if they were providing enough variation in the game to retain the player's interest over time.[5]

The game was announced in April 2016[6] and first demonstrated in playable form at the 2016 Penny Arcade Expo shortly afterwards.[1] Kasavin and his team used this PAX testing to help evaluate how they had set up some of these gameplay systems.[5] The game was released on July 25, 2017.[7][8]

Reception

Pyre received "generally positive" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[9][10] Eurogamer ranked the game 41st on their list of the "Top 50 Games of 2017",[19] and EGMNow ranked it 17th in their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017,[20] while Polygon ranked it 22nd on their list of the 50 best games of 2017.[21] The game was nominated for "Best PC Game", "Best RPG", "Best Art Direction", "Best Story", and "Most Innovative" in IGN's Best of 2017 Awards;[22][23][24][25][26] it was also nominated for "Best Shopkeeper" (Falcon Ron) and "Best Cast of Characters" in Giant Bomb's 2017 Game of the Year Awards.[27][28] It won the award for "Best Indie" in Game Informer's 2017 RPG of the Year Awards.[29]

Accolades
YearAwardCategoryResultRef
2017 Golden Joystick Awards Best Storytelling Nominated [30]
Best Visual Design Nominated
Best Audio Nominated
Best Indie Game Nominated
The Game Awards 2017 Best Independent Game Nominated [31]
2018 New York Game Awards 2018 Off-Broadway Award for Best Indie Game Nominated [32]
Tin Pan Alley Award for Best Music in a Game Nominated
21st Annual D.I.C.E. Awards D.I.C.E. Sprite Award Nominated [33]
Emotional Games Awards 2018 Best Emotional Game Design Nominated [34]
National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards Art Direction, Fantasy Nominated [35][36]
Game, Original Role Playing Won
Original Light Mix Score, New IP Nominated
Song, Original or Adapted ("Vagrant Song") Nominated
16th Annual Game Audio Network Guild Awards Best Interactive Score Nominated [37]
2018 Webby Awards Best Multiplayer/Competitive Game Nominated [38]

References
  1. Corriea, Alexa Ray (April 23, 2016). "Supergiant's Pyre Focuses on Companionship and a Little Bit of Sports". GameSpot. Retrieved April 23, 2016.
  2. Silva, Marty (April 23, 2016). "PAX East 2016: Supergiant's Pyre Is Beautiful and Impossibly Weird (in a Good Way!)". IGN. Retrieved April 23, 2016.
  3. Totilo, Stephan (April 23, 2016). "Supergiant's Audacious New Game Pyre Is Sort Of A Mystical Sports RPG". Kotaku. Retrieved April 23, 2016.
  4. Hillier, Brenna (December 5, 2016). "Bastion, Transistor developer Supergiant is putting a versus multiplayer mode in its latest RPG, Pyre". VG247. Retrieved December 5, 2016.
  5. Francis, Bryant (April 25, 2016). "How Supergiant Games aggressively prototyped its way into Pyre". Gamasutra. Retrieved April 25, 2016.
  6. Webster, Andrew (April 20, 2016). "Pyre is the beautiful next game from the team behind Transistor". The Verge. Retrieved April 23, 2016.
  7. Kasavin, Greg (May 30, 2017). "Pyre Launches July 25 on PS4, Pre-Orders Live Now". PlayStation Blog. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
  8. Grayson, Nathan (May 30, 2017). "Pyre, the next game from the creators of Bastion and Transistor, is coming to PC and PS4 on July 25". Kotaku. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
  9. "Pyre for PC Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  10. "Pyre for PlayStation 4 Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  11. Cooke, Caitlin (July 24, 2017). "Review: Pyre". Destructoid. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  12. Carsillo, Ray (July 24, 2017). "Pyre review". EGMNow. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  13. Miller, Matt (July 24, 2017). "A Tale Of Fantasy Sports - Pyre - PlayStation 4". Game Informer. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  14. Kozanitis, James (July 27, 2017). "Pyre Review – Rite with the Best of Them". Game Revolution. Retrieved July 27, 2017.
  15. Brown, Peter (July 24, 2017). "Pyre Review". GameSpot. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  16. Hafer, TJ (July 24, 2017). "Pyre Review". IGN. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  17. Fenlon, Wes (July 24, 2017). "Pyre review". PC Gamer. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  18. Kollar, Philip (July 24, 2017). "Pyre review". Polygon. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  19. Eurogamer staff (December 26, 2017). "Eurogamer's Top 50 Games of 2017: 50-41". Eurogamer. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  20. EGM staff (December 28, 2017). "EGM's Best of 2017: Part Two: #20 ~ #16". EGMNow. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved January 14, 2018.
  21. Polygon staff (December 18, 2017). "The 50 best games of 2017". Polygon. Retrieved February 12, 2018.
  22. "Best of 2017 Awards: Best PC Game". IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  23. "Best of 2017 Awards: Best RPG". IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  24. "Best of 2017 Awards: Best Art Direction". IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  25. "Best of 2017 Awards: Best Story". IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  26. "Best of 2017 Awards: Most Innovative". IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  27. Giant Bomb staff (December 25, 2017). "Game of the Year 2017 Day One: Old, Disappointing, Shopkeepers, and Looks". Giant Bomb. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  28. Giant Bomb staff (December 29, 2017). "Game of the Year 2017 Day Five: Best, Worst, Cast, and Capture". Giant Bomb. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  29. Wallace, Kimberley (January 7, 2018). "The 2017 RPG Of The Year Awards (Page 2)". Game Informer. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  30. Gaito, Eri (November 13, 2017). "Golden Joystick Awards 2017 Nominees". Best in Slot. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  31. Makuch, Eddie (December 8, 2017). "The Game Awards 2017 Winners Headlined By Zelda: Breath Of The Wild's Game Of The Year". GameSpot. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  32. Whitney, Kayla (January 25, 2018). "Complete list of winners of the New York Game Awards 2018". AXS. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
  33. Makuch, Eddie (January 14, 2018). "Game Of The Year Nominees Announced For DICE Awards". GameSpot. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
  34. "Emotional Games Awards 2018". Emotional Games Awards. March 12, 2018. Retrieved July 7, 2019.
  35. "Nominee List for 2017". National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers. February 9, 2018. Archived from the original on February 15, 2018. Retrieved February 15, 2018.
  36. "Horizon wins 7; Mario GOTY". National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers. March 13, 2018. Archived from the original on March 14, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  37. "2018 Awards". Game Audio Network Guild. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
  38. "2018 Winners". The Webby Awards. April 24, 2018. Retrieved June 26, 2018.
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