Pyre

With titles like Bastion and Transistor, Supergiant Games has established an identity and reputation for originality and innovation. The studio’s calling card isn’t an ongoing franchise or genre, but rather a visual, audio, and narrative style that is instantly recognizable, characterized by bright colors, mythical overtones, and timeless settings that meld past and future aesthetics. Pyre aims to further cement the team’s trademark presentation, this time by melding character-driven fantasy RPGs with clear inspirations drawn from old-school arcade sports games.

That’s a seemingly incongruous meeting point, but a clever narrative setup makes it feel natural. The game opens as you wake in the mysterious world of the Downside, a purgatory for criminals and undesirables in which exiles desperately seek a way to return to the idyllic Commonwealth which expelled them. Rescued by three of these exiles, your ability to “read” esoteric books and signs in the stars makes you the missing link of their team, and gives them the chance they need to compete in the highly structured rites that offer a path to freedom.

Eschewing a traditional combat system, the rites are 3v3 competitions in which a celestial orb is captured, passed, and slammed basketball-style into the opposing team’s pyre. While a system of character auras and other mystical terminology governs the rules of the competition, the gameplay is unmistakably based in the tradition of older arcade-sports titles like NES Ice Hockey and NBA Jam.

Your three playable heroes have distinct traits, like your slow and heavy bruiser and your speedy forward. The orb is passed between heroes, even as the opposing A.I. team maneuvers to block your path. Characters who get hit by opposing players or score (as they self-immolate in the fire) are temporarily absent, leading to a new challenge as you hold off the enemy team while down a hero. The potential for strategic complexity is high.

Between rites, Pyre has more in common with games like Mass Effect, Banner Saga, and Oregon Trail. Your three party members have personalities and quirks, and regular conversations during your journey help to flesh them out. As they ask you questions, your responses provide temporary buffs and change your relationships.

The party makes its way across the Downside in a rickety wagon (pushed by specially bred drive imps), and you choose which locales to visit to scavenge for supplies, track down fuel for the wagon, and more. At each stop, you also choose a single activity to spend time on. Foraging leads to valuable discoveries. Studying provides new information about the rites and other info in the world. Mentoring helps to level up and enlighten your heroes, providing new capabilities like more frequent rushing options, or a wider attack arc when targeting opponents.

Pyre is awash in subtle narrative touches that deepen the experience, from the gorgeous backdrops your wagon rolls across, to the ability to hover over text and images with the onscreen cursor to learn more about the setting. In my early hands-on time, I was repeatedly struck by the novelty of both its gameplay and world-building.

After just a few matches, I’m eager to see whether Supergiant Games can continually make the rites a compelling gameplay loop. If the story and sport-inspired throwdowns lead to the complexity hinted at through the game’s intro, Pyre may shape up into an unusual and surprising twist on genre-blending design.