Pyre

Hades's predecessor

Supergiant Games has made quite the name for itself as an indie developer, its debut Bastion was among the first indie games to gain attention, and then its fourth title Hades would also become a massive success with a sequel currently in development. But its lesser known games are just as excellent, which is why I’m dedicating a post to Pyre after beating it just last week, because it had me hooked.

The best visual novel sports Oregon Trail like of all time

The player takes the role of a person exiled for the crime of literacy to the Downside, a realm from which there is supposedly no return. They are taken in by a group of fellow exiles known as the Nightwings who say there is a way to escape the Downside, and that it requires the player to become their Reader and read from the Book of Rites.

The Rites in question turn out to be a ballgame, a sacred one that can only be played when the stars align over certain landmarks. As the Reader you must use your power to direct a triumvirate of your fellow exiles to victory in this sport, where the prize at stake is escape from the desolate Downside and a return home.

What makes Pyre stand out is that even if you lose, the game continues. There are no mandatory victories, you can restart matches from the pause menu if you want to avoid a loss, but failure does not end the game. Even when you consistently win, knowing failure wouldn’t have ended at the game over screen makes it feel more impactful.

It’s a blend of genres, both a visual novel and sports games with elements of Oregon Trail. As your wagon travels the Downside you get to know your fellow exiles and why they seek their freedom, and decide whose suggestion for which route to take will be followed.

Once you reach the site of a Rite, the sports element comes to play. Your goal is to douse the other team’s Pyre by grabbing a Celestial Orb and either running into their Pyre while holding the orb, or tossing it in, while stopping your opponent from doing the same. Opposing competitors can be temporarily banished from the field through use of a magical aura.

In the same vein of Supergiant’s other games, these Rites feature a mysterious and sarcastic voice to serve as the commentator. He doesn’t like you and he’s an asshole, so his displeasure at your victories makes them all the more sweeter.

After each Rite, win or lose, your characters gain Enlightenment that will eventually allow them to unlock new abilities, called masteries. But the Rites only happen when the stars align, and your practice option awards no Enlightenment. Instead of level grinding you need to balance strengthening your weaker members with making use of your stronger ones without wearing them out.

Characters can also be equipped with items called talismans that have special effects, acquired either along the journey or by purchasing from the store. There are limited opportunities to earn money or search for items, providing much of the tension for choices in where to travel. Do you go along a path that gives you a bonus for the next Rite, or do you take a path that might give you the money needed for new items?

Going with a character’s suggestion will usually allow for another conversation with them in the wagon, throwing another wrench into things. If you want to learn more about someone you might need to take their suggestions even if you’d rather get more money than a temporary stat bonus.

More on the Rites

The Rites are easily the most intricate part of the game, since it’s where the story branches and ultimately all other parts of the game revolve around it. So I want to go into more detail on it specifically, because there’s quite a bit of depth.

Characters who are not holding the Celestial Orb are surrounded by a protective aura that banishes any opponent who walks into it, while whoever holds the orb is completely vulnerable. Aura sizes vary by character based on their ‘presence’ stat. One common strategy is for whoever is holding the orb to throw it to an opponent, negating their aura, then immediately banish them.

Auras can also be cast as a projectile attack that requires stamina, which is also used for running and jumping. These attacks can be jumped over. Speaking of jumps, if two characters collide in mid air and one is holding the orb, they’ll drop it, so jumping is not a get out of jail free card.

Only one member of a team can be controlled and move at a time. Other members of your team will be stationary when not controlled, requiring thoughtful positioning and timing of switches/passes against more difficult opponents. And once you have the orb, switching to another character means passing the orb to them as well.

Scoring meanwhile is further complicated by the fact that jumping into a Pyre leaves that character unable to be used until the next dousing, so you can’t just rely on one character. Throwing the orb bypasses this, but you need to fully charge your throw for the point value to be equal to running into it.

Each character in the Rites has four stats. Quickness is their speed, Glory is the amount of damage they can do to an enemy pyre, Presence is the size of their aura, and Hope determines how long their banishment lasts. Doing certain side quests can permanently increase a character’s stats, as can certain items (which can also give temporary boosts).

And there are more than stats to distinguish characters, as this is a fantasy world with different fantastical races who each play differently. And you only get one character of each race, so you have to learn how to make do with each of these different playstyles, from the Nomad’s approachable allrounder traits to the treelike Sap’s slow and unconventional defense oriented abilities.

As mentioned earlier, talismans you can equip to a character also add a level of customization, though some are clearly better than others. These talismans can be leveled up themselves through use of stardust items to improve their effects.

Upon leveling up a character, you get to choose a new mastery for them from a small skill tree. You can only get four of these effects, which is the number available on each branch. So you can go all in on one side of tree, or spread out your abilities. Don’t worry, there’s also an item to reset these and let you pick again. After a certain point in the game, enemies will also gain access to these masteries, so you get to see what even the ones you don’t pick look like in action.

If the game feels like it’s getting too easy, then once you get far enough, you can invoke the Titan Stars on yourself to make the game more difficult by giving your enemies unfair advantages. In return for this your characters gain more enlightenment. Fans of Supergiant Game’s other work will recognize this as another of their trademarks.

Branching Paths

Unlike the rest of Supergiant Games catalogue, Pyre ends up as a rather flexible narrative. Their other games are set narratives that simply comment on how you fulfill them, Hades carries forward the idea of things continuing after a loss, but there it doesn’t meaningfully change the story

Meanwhile after a certain point Pyre’s story can change in drastic and different ways, which includes the lasting consequences of losing at a critical juncture. Not every match makes much difference, most don’t in the grand scheme, but the vital ones can change a lot.

Because of this flexibility Pyre doesn’t have the same level of granular commentary as Supergiant’s other work, since there are far more big picture details to account for and reflect now. Of course the game will comment on and reflect some relatively minor details since it’s part of the developer’s style, but don’t expect every talisman to get unique commentary.

What it gains in exchange is that Pyre is a very tempting game to replay, I’ve had to actively resist starting a new playthrough already because I don’t want to burn myself out on it. The allure of seeing what different choices might cause, doing things I missed my chance for, and facing the hardest difficulty where defeat is much harder to avoid, is very strong.

In a way what you fight for in Pyre isn’t the ability to progress, it’s narrative control.

A World Defined In Absence

The world of Pyre is one that sticks out to me because at the same time we see both so much and so little of it.

Key terms, including names, are highlighted and can be moused over at any time, updating to reflect new developments. So while the game won’t give you an outright recap, if you put the game down for a while you can use the tooltips to refresh yourself on what’s what.

This also means that the game doesn’t waste much time on basic exposition, since it trusts that the moment an unfamiliar term comes up you’ll just read the tooltip explanation.

As the game progress you can read more of the Book of Rites, learning more of the mythology of the eight Scribes who created the Rites and the nation the characters come from. I got very into this constructed mythology, to the point that after I completed the game I was thinking of different ways it influences and parallels the plot of the game.

Conversing with your fellow exiles will eventually touch on the subject of the world above and why they’re trying so hard to return to it. You never see the place everyone is striving to return to, only the way they remember it.

It made the world feel vast to me. There’s not many concrete details given on nations like the Commonwealth, but it says all it needs to. As a distant goal a lot of room is given to fill in the gaps yourself for what it’s like as you learn more about why your fellow exiles were cast down.

You’re also given dialogue options that let you set your own past, including choosing to leave it vague. When prompted I decided that my character was a crippled scholar, and making that choice suddenly made it all the easier to project onto them.

Verus Mode

Pyre is a narrative focused game, but the developers still included a local versus mode you can play with a friend. Having side modes like that is always appreciated. This one spoils the entire game, letting you play on any arena with a team of any named character from the start.

By default characters in this mode have a preset selection of masteries, which are not chosen equally, some only having one while others get a full set. Talismans are also disabled by default. Both of these settings can be adjusted if you want to take the time to really customize your team.

For further customization you can alter the starting pyre health. Titan Stars can be turned on for player one to invoke against themselves, which has no bonuses here, it’s just a handicap system now.

You can only pick one of each character for your team, but it’s possible to have the same characters as your opponents. Personally I think it could have led to an interesting gameplay dynamic if this wasn’t allowed, especially since it already has the format of both players picking their team one at a time. But for a small game like this it’s not going to come up for most people.

For an extra that most players likely aren’t going to touch, it does exactly what it needs to do.

Be warned that from here this article will not stray from spoilers, as Pyre is a game that patiently waits to unveil the full scope of its premise. There’s a key component of the game that I’ve held off from discussing until now, stop here if you want to be surprised when you play the game.

What does freedom mean?

Your group of exiles cannot all escape at the same time, victory in the single Liberation Rite at the end of a cycle only allows for the freeing of one exile. And as only those who directly participate can be freed, the player is unable to take advantage of it. Yet they are the one who decides which of their team will be freed if they win.

In other words, victory means having to say goodbye to one of the characters you’ve come to know and rely on. You are only allowed to select from your three most enlightened exiles, in other words the ones you’ve relied on the most. So if you want to free someone, you need to make frequent use of them. Success means that your strategies will have no choice but to change.

And there’s even more at play. A revolution is brewing in the Commonwealth, the nation which threw out all the exiles. The Nightwings are a core part of the plan for this revolution, each one you free increases its chances of success.

Yet at the same time, what of your opponents? They want their freedom as well, and while some are easy to deny, others tug at your sympathies. It is within your power to throw the Liberation Rite and grant their freedom instead. But is that fair to your friends who counted on you to free them? Is that responsible when a revolution that could end the practice of exiling entirely is at stake?

Getting everyone out is impossible, as the Rites turn out to be coming to an end. No matter what you do, there will be Nightwings left in the Downside with no chance of escape. There is no perfect ending where the entire team and every other sympathetic exile is liberated. You simply have to create the best outcome you can, it’s up to you to decide what that is.

Aztec without being Aztec

Amongst everything else, Pyre is secretly the best video game based on Aztec religion I’ve seen. None of the game’s aesthetic is even vaguely Mesoamerican and it doesn’t appear to have been a conscious influence, but Pyre gets the spirit far more faithfully than the kinds of games that slap the names of Aztec deities on random characters who are caricatures of the deities in question at best.

Ballgames were a key religious and political element of Aztec culture, and in Mesoamerica as a whole. You can’t make a game revolving around a sacred ballgame that is both how the ruling class came to power and fundamental to a revolution without coming off as a little Mesoamerican.

Liberation to me also feels like the perfect adaptation of human sacrifice for a modern audience. It’s an exalted fate that removes the character as a direct presence in the narrative. Mechanically it functions the same way. Some characters even have to stop themselves from talking about liberated characters like they died.

And on the subject of sacrifice, the Aztec gods sacrificed to create the current world, for humanity, which is why they are repaid with human sacrifice. In Pyre a commonly repeated phrase is ‘the eight Scribes gave their freedom so that we may yet have ours.’

It is stated that the Scribes themselves prepared the raiments and masks worn by participants in the Rites. You can also acquire powerful items connected to each Scribe, like a bracer they wore or one of their scales. Aztec religion featured sacred bundles with the clothing and in some cases bones of gods.

Tzitzimime in Aztec mythology are, to give a rough summary, star monsters associated with the end the world, though there’s far more to them in both role and nuance. The Titan Stars, representing monsters slain by the Scribes, manifest throughout the game to extinguish the stars and end the cycle of the Rites. And it is said that one will end the world in the distant future.

While the actual ceremony itself doesn’t appear to resemble any events in Pyre, it is worth noting that the completion of a cycle of the Aztec calendar led to the New Fire Ceremony. And a cycle is certainly completed in Pyre.

Not all of these are a solid connection, but the ballgame and liberation ones are unshakable to me. If people can shove everything into a seven deadly sins framework then I can draw excessive parallels to Aztec religion and mythology. Pyre is basically what I want from Aztec inspired media and it wasn’t even trying to be that.

In Conclusion…

Play Pyre. That’s what this entire post is actually just an elaborate way of saying. It’s the kind of game and narrative that has continued to stick with me and keep me thinking. Also the kind that I really want to talk with other people about.

If you’ve played Pyre I’d love to hear who escaped from the Downside in your playthrough and how you went about making the choice. For me it was Jodariel, Rukey, Hedwyn, Sir Gilman, Pamitha, Ti’zo, and the Reader.