Begin your journey, Pariah, and end the cycle of your eternal suffering. PERISH is a new FPS game that has its players running and gunning through the realm of Purgatory. With ample weaponry available, easy mechanics and a straightforward plot, PERISH is a good gaming choice if one wishes to add a bit of spice to their catalog.
The fast-paced movement of PERISH, combined with the extensive amount of weapons the player can utilize and the slowly building meter of intensity that goes higher and higher with every wave of enemies, could give off the same feeling one achieves when playing a souls-like game, only without the player being thrown headfirst into combat with little time to prepare. Beyond that, everything else in PERISH follows the tried-and-true formula most soul-like games follow. The players, after they succeed on their first obstacle, are then forced to learn all of the mechanics of the game as they proceed, adapt to certain playstyles and overcome obstacles throughout gameplay, before being met with new challenges that make players step out of their comfort zones to repeat the process all over again.
The plot of the game, while not as complex or detailed as others, is thoroughly explicit straight from the beginning and leaves no room for interpretation. The player’s character is a mercenary-turned-Amyetri, corporeal spirits condemned to live their eternal afterlives in the shadowy realm of Purgatory as punishment for their sins. However, the in-game gods give the player a chance to leave Purgatory and end their godly punishment by initiating the “Rites of Orpheus,” a series of trials where the player must fight and slaughter through wave after wave of hell’s denizens to gain admission into Elysium, the game’s version of Heaven.
ITEM42 truly has hit the ground running with this one. ITEM42 is a new gaming company based in Brighton, England, that has only created one game as of late, PERISH. Not much about the company is known, beyond the fact that the company is run by two brothers, Regan Ware, the company’s programmer, and Bret Ware, the tech artist, sculptor and game designer.
The game’s mechanics are fairly easy to understand. During the player’s run, they have to kill waves upon waves of enemies, all of which drop “danake,” gold coins that can be used as currency to buy upgrades, new weapons and tools from Pantheon, the player’s home base and shop. Additionally, there’s the death mechanic where, if the player’s character dies three times, they’ll return to Pantheon back at their starting equipment.
In conclusion, PERISH is a game that would be a great candidate for Game of The Year, like many other games before it, but makes itself unique in its own way instead of trying to fit itself into an already-molded template. The game came out on April 15 for the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Amazon Luna and the Xbox Series X and Series S for the price of $17.99 to $19.99.