Review — The Persistence Enhanced

Do you have what it takes to survive The Persistence?

The Persistence was originally released in 2018 for the PlayStation VR. The game turned quite a few heads back then with its roguelite horror gameplay where you had to survive on a doomed space ship. The initial success allowed developer Firesprite to port the game to PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, while also offering a non-VR version for PlayStation 4. Now, the game makes its debut on and PlayStation 5 with a new enhanced version, which is also available for PC and will soon make its way towards Xbox X|S.

Rogue Space

In The Persistence you play as Zimri Eder, a security officer aboard “The Persistence”, a deep space colony starship in the year 2521. Due to an anomaly, the ship is stranded, malfunctioning an slowly being pulled towards a black hole. As Zimri, you’re tasked with restarting the ship’s systems and plan its course back to Earth. There’s one problem though, one of the clone printers has become defective and is printing horrific and murderous aberrations that are now roaming the ship.

There’s another catch though: you are also a clone, imprinted with the conscience of Zimri. And here’s is where the roguelite nature of the game comes in effect. As every time you die, which will happen a lot, a new you gets printed and you get a new chance to complete your mission. Each run, you’ll have to reacquire weapons and gadgets that might help you along the way. There are some permanent upgrades you can also acquire by collecting Stem Cells, credits and schematics that allow you to create improvements of the basic gear you start with. And since we’re playing a rogue-lite game, the lay-out of the ship of course changes every time you wake up from the printing machine.

I must admit that I enjoyed the way the rogue-lite nature of the game is incorporated into the story, like Housemarque did with Returnal. Certainly the opening hours of the game are brimming with potential, as you want to learn what happened to the ship, and make the setting and nerve-wreaking horror atmosphere shine. Only for it to go downhill from here after a while.

Meandering Task

In itself, The Persistence isn’t an overly long adventure as it basically asks you to make your way through four floors of the ship. Each floor has a specific task you must complete in order to be able to safely return home. To reach each objective, you’ll have to navigate yourself through a few rooms and hallways. The game puts up several roadblocks along the way however, that make this adventure more difficult that it needs to be. You will frequently die, either because you aren’t strong enough or because you are unfamiliar with the challenges ahead. This whole process of dying and learning the challenges ahead is inherent to the genre. But here, I feel the game relies a bit too much on grinding to become stronger so that you can overcome the roadblock ahead instead of natural progression and thus artificially prolonging the game’s play time.

Another issue I had with these encounters, is how out of place they sometimes felt. When you first start the game, a lot of emphasis is put on the slow-burn horror nature and stealth, as you slowly creep through the ship, dispatching or evading enemies. But later one, some of these enemy types feel like they’re merely there because they’re “obligatory” in a videogame, like the brute, but without having an actual place in the game world. Encounters like the one during the completion of the third objective, where you’re being swarmed by waves of enemies, feel completely antithetical to the philosophy of game. It’s weird, but it feels like some things are too gamified, and the game would have been much better in my eyes if things were a bit more grounded.

Next-gen horror

The transition to non-VR was already implemented in the previous version and not much has changed here. The PlayStation 5 version benefits from the haptic feedback thanks to the DualSense controller, but the implementation isn’t as impressive as with titles such as Returnal or Astro’s Playroom. Other than that, the game still clearly shows its roots as a VR title with its slow movement, teleportation system and the way you interact with objects. But overal, the controls are pretty decent which is logical given the fact that the game was designed to be played with a controller. Despite this, the combat still feels a bit clunky though and the guns lack a punch when you use them. There was a clear point of improvement here, that wasn’t taken advantage of.

Where the game does shine, are the graphical improvements this enhanced version offers. Not only are there various improvements to the lighting and the user interface, but most importantly, the game runs in 4K now and comes with either Raytracing or 60 FPS, depending on wha setting you prefer. For me, the smooth 60 FPS made the gameplay much more enjoyable. But I can’t deny that the game looks rather impressive thanks to the Raytracing and the improved lighting. Walking trough the space ship is incredibly atmospheric, even if it is a bit too dark at times. While VR offers an undeniable advantage in terms of immersion, the increased resolution and improved sfx really elevate this game visually.

And good news for those who own the regular version of the game: The Persistence Enhanced is available as a free upgrade. Sadly this isn’t true the other way around, as you won’t get access to the VR-version if you buy The Persistence Enhanced. So you’ll need to be considerate to which version you want to play when you pick up the game. Whether you should pick up the game, depends on your affinity with the roguelite genre and being able to live with the issues mentioned above.

3/5

Reviewed on PlayStation 5.
Download code provided by the publisher.