The Persistence

Review based on VR version - using original HTC Vive. Having played The Persistence quite a bit on PSVR a year or two back, it was an instant purchase for me on Steam, in the hope of getting a perfect version of the game at last. As with most PSVR titles, while still a top notch game and visually impressive - the graphics could feel a little blurry on the PS4 and wasn't quite reaching its potential. I haven't had a chance to play much tonight but I've played the original enough to confidently review this already and can already see some of its shortcomings. The Good: The Persistence is a fantastic stealth horror action game with some light rogue-like elements in regards to character upgrades over multiple plays/deaths - and some randomisation to the specific decks/levels you visit. While there are lots of comparisons to be made to System Shock, Alien Isolation and Dead Space, its definitely its own unique title. While definitely firmly in the stealth horror camp, it feels more a...

REVIEW OF THE NONVR VERSION Great System Shock Clone! Although the controls take some getting used to, and there are some QoL things missing, the core gameplay loop of system shock is there. Sprinkle the tiniest bit of roguelike (And I do mean the tiniest as, apart from weapons, you keep everything after you died), some randomly generated Decks, and you got a ton of replayability. This is really a great step for immersive sims as a genre and hope it gets the appreciation it deserves! If you come across this game and you like system shock, then just do yourself a favour and grab it!

FYI. Though it lists this on the sidebar...THIS GAME DOES NOT SUPPORT VR CONTROLLERS, which to me defeats the purpose of it being a VR title.

|Oculus Quest 2| Their idea of VR is using your VR headset instead of your monitor. It does not support the controls so you still just sit there using your mouse and keyboard which completely defeats the purpose.

Review for the non-VR mode: The Persistence is a first person roguelike with some survival horror elements mixed in, originally the game was released as a PSVR title and the VR game design shows throughout the game - some of the things translate pretty well outside of VR but unfortunately some of the control/interaction mechanics feel a little out of place and more importantly the horror atmosphere doesn't adapt that well to non-VR mode. My run though the campaign took roughly 5.5 hours (with 21 deaths) and I got what seems to be the best ending, although the game has some replay value with different modes, unlocks/leveling and the campaign maps being generated from a tileset every time you die - I have absolutely no desire to play the game again. Campaign has the player tackle a few objectives that are split between 4 decks of the ship you're on board of, along with a small area for the grand finale. During the first portion of the game, my impressions were reasonably positive - de...

Look at you hacker,a pathetic creature of meat and bone,panting and sweating as you run through my corridors.How can you challenge a perfect immortal machine ? Still waiting for the system shock release and you can´t wait? Try this!

The Enhanced version simply has the best lighting and shadows of any VR game, not even Alyx comes close. My Index hmd is at Valve due to RMA, so used my Rift CV1 ss 2.0. Then again, this is a very dark game, and it looks awesome using an oled hmd. Using Rift CV1 ss 2.0 (17 mill pixels per image) might be somewhat bold, and enabling all ray-tracing effects, ray-traced reflections and DLSS Quality, I no longer got 90 fps with the Asus Strix OC RTX 3090. But the ray-traced reflections did not look right, caused some strange shimmering, and image quality with deactivated ray-traced reflections looked much better, at least in VR with the CV1. Enabling all ray-traced effects and DLSS Quality I got close to solid 90 fps - only a few places couldn't keep up with the 90 fps. Maybe with the RTX 3090 DLSS Balanced with all ray-tracing effects enabled would be optimal (and ray-traced reflections disabled) - at least when using Rift CV1 ss 2.0. Gamepad is bad, but I forgot about it after a few m...

Really creepy sci-fi vibes reminded me of films like Event Horizon or Pandorum where everything has gone wrong and the story unfolds. Good movement options to suite all a player types in VR as well.

Huge fan of immersion sims, really want to like this game but unfortunatley it lacks even most basic VR controls! I'm NOT talking about motion support - thats understandable, hard to implement, no financial gain from doing so. But couple of relatively simple tweaks: 1: Option to orient controller movement towards HMD. As in, when I turn around via HMD (playing standing VR) and then move the thumbstick on my controller up - I should move TOWARDS where I'M LOOKING, not my imaginary "FORWARD" position (major) 2: Stick the UI to the HMD view as well (major) 3: Some options to customize\fade UI (minor) 4: Allow users to make 3D reticle invisible or have dedicated button to fade it in if some interactions require it (minor) 5: Physical crouch.. In an intro cutscene I was able to crouch, but in-game it fades my view to black (minor) 6: Language selection (minor) And voila, you have support for Standing VR! Until then - can't play it unfortunatley, the movement scheme is very confusing an...

It feels like an early access title. It's clear that the game was designed around VR, and made to work without it. Very little graphic options, doesn't look the best. I initially thought the game had defaulted to 1080 as it looked bad but nope, had defaulted to native res (1440). Combat is pretty meh, block with your shield then hit. Was very slow and clunky. No FOV slider so you're stuck with what seems to be 70 degrees, this is a deal breaker for me unfortunately. I did post a discussion and a dev responded saying he has opened a bug reporting/request thread, again, feels like an early access game. Go play System Shock 2 instead.