The Persistence

Genre: First-Person Stealth / Roguelike

Players: 1

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Review:

The Persistence is a First-Person Stealth game with some Roguelike and minor Horror elements released on multiple platforms including Nintendo Switch in 2020. This game places players into the role of a cloned crewmember of a derelict spacecraft guided by an AI to try to help return the ship back under control after it has become overrun with deformed clone… uh… can we call them zombies? Well, they’re pretty much zombies.

In terms of presentation, The Persistence all-around looks very good. I feel like, if this game were released during the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 era, it would have been seen as a top-notch game visually, with nicely detailed environments, some nice reflection effects, and overall solid visuals. By today’s standards, it is perhaps a bit less impressive, but still more than sufficient for this sort of game. This is paired with some decent atmospheric sounds and voiced conversation between your character and the AI.

As for the gameplay here, the bright side is that this game does some interesting things that are fairly unique for the genre, not the least of which is its Roguelike elements. Every time you die, the locations and enemies get shifted around, meaning you can’t just complete a level through memorization, you need to do so through skill and observation.

In addition, some of the skills and elements here are interesting and fit the theme brilliantly. Stealth kills on enemies can be done using a stem cell extractor to retrieve their DNA to strengthen your own supply for use in creating future clones. In addition, you have some sci-fi themed abilities like the ability to teleport over short distances. Furthermore, because credits and other collectibles are digital, it makes sense that you’d keep them after your physical body is dead and growing cold.

On the downside, movement in this game is so painfully slow that it really drags down the pace of the game to a frustrating extent. What’s more, this game fails at one of the core elements of Stealth games – what happens when you get caught. In an ideal Stealth game, running and hiding after getting caught is every bit as engaging as sneaking and stealthfully killing enemies when hidden. Unfortunately, in part due to your character’s slow movement speed, if you get caught, the odds are good that you’re in for some painfully mediocre combat. As a result, this is a fun stealth game up until you get caught, and then it immediately becomes something far less engaging.

In the end, the good qualities of The Persistence still make it worth giving it a look, especially for fans of Stealth games, but the downsides make it one that’s hard to love. There’s good stuff here, but most will find that the game’s flaws keep it from being nearly as great as it could have been.

tl;dr – The Persistence is a First-Person Stealth game with some Roguelike and minor Horror elements that has you controlling a series of clones trying to retake a spaceship from deformed clone zombies. The Roguelike elements are a nice touch, and some of the mechanics here are fairly unique within the Stealth genre, but the slow movement and sub-par combat drag this game down and keep it from meeting its full potential. Still worth a look for fans of the genre, but most will probably be better off skipping this one.

Grade: C+

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