Jaco van Hemert

The worldbuilding in Pyre is extensive and impressive (to the surprise of no one), and there is a lot I could cover, but I’ll focus here on some of the history and geography, and a sliver of the residents of the Downside.

What I liked most about the Downside is the history and character attached to each different region. The places that Triumvirates go to for the Rites are landmarks that each hold the corpse of a fallen Titan, killed by the Scribes. The environments of the regions are sculpted by these Titans and what happened to them. There’s this striking (and wonderfully drawn) illustration of this when you enter the Sea of Solis, of one of the Titans, run through by the sharpened prow of a ship, arms still clawing up at the sky. Another example is the Spring of Jomuer, where the massive corpse of a fallen Titan lies hulking over the environment, and where the ichor that pooled from it had been transformed into this spring that characterises the region.

This sort of history-influenced geography is present all throughout the game, and is arguably quite an important part of how the worldbuilding is presented.

The other thing I want to touch on is the denizens themselves. There are a few creatures that live in the Downside natively, but many more that came to be there after being exiled from the Commonwealth. There are many, most of which I find quite interesting, but a few stood out:

The first are the imps. My immediate connotation is with this concept of working rats that I can’t remember the source of (maybe from Sunless Sea?). I.e. semi-intelligent creatures that do mechanical work. The imps in Pyre are essentially this; the denizens of Downside have trained them to do some tasks, including the sort of driving and maintaining of the wagons. I can’t really explain what I find so fascinating about this concept, but I really like how it’s done here.

Next are the bog-crones. They seem to be some kind of magically inclined creatures, akin to a witch, but with a physiology closer to a gorgon (ala Medusa). I really like the sort of flavour of them, as being these kind of recluse hermit-like creatures that live in this swamp no one really likes going to. And there’s this implication that they come from the Commonwealth, but don’t actually mind staying in the Downside at all. The crone that joins the player’s group essentially has no real desire to leave, and is instead acting only out of loyalty to one of the other characters. And the opposing crones you come into conflict with are fighting you only because they’re serving the darker goals of Yslach. So there’s this sense of people having found a home that they didn’t necessarily have before; i.e. they like this new place more than the previous one.

Last are the demons. The idea is that humans eventually become demons (basically just makes the person become larger and stronger, and grow horns, claws, etc.) if they stay in the Downside for long enough. The reasons for this isn’t really explained, and neither is the reason for this phenomenon only affecting humans. This was quite a weird choice in worldbuilding for me; my assumption is that it was for the purposes of showing how long some of the characters have been in the Downside, but it feels like this could have been done in other ways, or at least the concept could have been explored in more depth.

Overall, I think Pyre’s worldbuilding is fascinating and incredibly well executed. It’s something I’ve come to expect from Supergiant Games, but still great to see.

My rating for the worldbuilding in Pyre is:

A celestial orb and a song from the minstrel