The Persistence

PSVR

VR games are hot work at the best of times, but you’ll really get a sweat on with Firesprite’s survival-horror Roguelike. Though that’s not because of the stomach-lurching effect firstperson VR can have. No one should get queasy on the step-turn Novice setting here. And the halfway-house between that and full FPS controls is comfortable to such an extent that even shooter vets might stick with it, its combination of quick turning and vignetting meaning long sessions pass without even the slightest gutflutter. Rather, it’s the ship’s mutated inhabitants and the welcome they offer as they lunge out of the darkness that’ll give you cause to mop your brow. Perhaps it should have been called The Perspiration instead.

The nervous tension of those early runs is amplified by the ship itself, which, thanks to an anomaly in the deck computer’s code, reshuffles its layout every time. In a linear horror game, you know where the scares are coming from your second time around, and can prepare yourself accordingly. Here, you have no choice but to inch forward carefully, because your surroundings aren’t the same – and nor are the threats you’ll face. Even so, you’ll steadily gain confidence in dealing with the various enemy archetypes, from the twitchy Listeners to the steroidal Berserkers. But developer Firesprite always seems one step ahead, subtly transforming a lean fear machine into a full-on action-horror, the mutant count escalating as you accrue more perks and weapons to handle the lower-level threats. Eventually, you’ll find yourself pursued by a Bloodhound – a combination of The Terminator’s relentlessness and the resilience of Resident Evil 3’ s Nemesis – while a teleporting Weeper fires off powerful beams to freeze you in your tracks, and skittering Lurkers lie in wait till you relax your guard.

But at first, you’re armed with nothing more than a handheld DNA harvester, which does its job in delightfully grisly fashion, launching snaking probes that penetrate through to a victim’s spine to suck out the stem cells. The corpses of The Persistence’s crew give you fresh bodies to print off for next time, their individual perks related to their previous role: a medical officer can harvest quicker, while the security officer you begin with gives you a discount at the various weapon fabricators you’ll find scattered across each deck. Otherwise, the cells can be spent on augmenting the clones you use on subsequent runs, offering boosts to health, melee damage, stealth and your reserves of dark matter. The latter two are far more expensive, which speaks to their usefulness. At first, it might seem sensible to build clones that don’t die within a couple of hits, but then reducing your noise output makes it far more likely you won’t be spotted in the first place. Meanwhile the matter that powers your short-range teleporter and your super-sense ability – which lets you briefly see enemy heat signatures through walls – is invaluable given the dim lighting, and the dismal range of your flashlight’s beam. With more reserves to draw from in a pinch, it’s easier to make your escape.

Creeping around everywhere only pays off up to a point, and Firesprite is far too keen on its weapons to encourage the slow-and-sneaky approach for the entire game. The game’s arsenal includes variants on the magnum, pistol and SMG, while the grenades are perfect for clearing larger rooms with several hostiles. Just let the electronic door slide open, toss one in and watch the carnage unfold. Better still are the experimental options. The Grav Hook allows you to draw in mutants and blast them away, or even break their bones by jerking your head this way and that as they ragdoll into scenery. One type of serum can be injected into a single enemy to have it follow you like a lovelorn puppy, albeit one that’s aggressively keen to protect its master; another temporarily renders you indestructible while letting you punch enemies into mush. Find enough tokens and you can upgrade them permanently; though you’ll need more fabricator chips to pay for replacements, the extra perks for fully specced options are worth the time you’ll spend scouring cleared rooms for loot. And with a bit of outside assistance, you won’t have to look too hard: a free companion app gives a second player a wireframe overview of the current deck, letting them incapacitate threats, open doors and identify nearby pickups. Then again, they might prefer to make things harder, shutting off the lights and aggroing mutants, especially with the incentive of new abilities unlocked by points awarded for good and bad deeds.

There’s a strong sense of forward momentum, even after setbacks: if nothing else, you’re sure to return from a failed attempt with more of every type of currency. And once you’ve completed any of the handful of set objectives you’re given to effectively reboot the ship, you won’t have to repeat the process, ensuring you’re never really back to square one. These goals lie behind some well-orchestrated scripted sequences, with one negating your dark-matter abilities while forcing you down claustrophobic crawlspaces, and another inviting you to use mutants as an energy source.

If the story isn’t really up to much (neither’s the voice acting, for that matter) it serves its purpose as a rudimentary framework, its straightforward missions giving you something to aim for while letting you focus on the essentials of moment-to-moment survival. You may not care about your character so much as what you stand to lose by dying, but in the heat of the moment there’s no real difference anyway: your natural instinct to fight for your life will kick in all the same. So yes, it can be sticky work, but it says much for this bracingly exciting game that you’ll be itching to put your headset back on just as soon as you’ve cooled off.

You have no choice but to inch forward carefully, because your surroundings aren’t the same