Finally, an Apocalyptic Wasteland Where People Aren’t Assholes to Each Other

From Mad Max to The Walking Dead , we inhabit in a reality teeming with apocalyptic fabrication . Typically , they ’re stories which posit that humans will turn to their darkest impulse and jockey over anyone and everyone for their own survival , or even out of consummate selfishness . A new video plot called Pyre is about the precise antonym of that .

The fantasy playact game from Supergiant Games — which made the grotesque Bastion and the thrilling cyber-terrorist love narrative Transistor — give with the player reference abandoned and alone , on the brink of death . You ’ve been exiled from your home ( a city - state address the Commonwealth ) for the crime of recitation , and find yourself in a infernal wasteland called the Downside , a barren part where the Commonwealth plunge its crook to fight and die among themselves . Just as you ’re about to expire , a caravan stops nearby , and three dissemble pattern — the character you see in the header image above — come out and take a feel at you .

The conversation quickly turns to your survivability , and the masked characters ’ approximation are gruesome . At first , you ’re lead to assume they ’ve decide to put you out of your miserableness , as two of the trio return to the caravan and leave behind the masked man to do the deed … except the masked man does n’t draw a weapon system . He offers you solid food and H2O , removes his masquerade party , and introduce himself , offering you a place on the caravan with clear arms .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

There ’s an initial ulterior motive to the block out radical receive you in . They realise that as one of the rare mass who knows how to take , you could help them on their seeking to liberate themselves from the Downside by consulting a mysterious book that details a spiritual , astrological tryout your group can participate in call the Rites ( the chief gameplay facial expression of Pyre that is is basically , putting it in the most reductive personal manner possible,3 - on-3 thaumaturge basketball ) .

But despite that motivation , it ’s very quickly established that they helped you out of forgivingness more than because of your usefulness to the group , and it ’s not the first time Pyre twists your outlook of a desolate world populate by exiles , some more unsavory than others . In fact , it ’s almost alarming just how welcoming and positive everyone you follow across is , despite the disaster of their transportation and the hellishness of their current surroundings .

As your caravan continues its journey across the Downside , you pick up more people to tot up to your motley retinue of wiz basketball players . They ’re all from a variety of backgrounds — a strange orphan girl who hears spokesperson , a wing tube-nosed fruit bat who ’s a phallus of the hated army the Commonwealth has been at war against for years , a ocean - worm Knight who ’s lose his honor , and more — and yet , at no stage , is anyone judged for their value to the grouping . No one complains about more mouths to feed . Even role who might be expected to antagonise each other , like former soldier who fought against each other outside of the Downside , welcome each other as ally in the Rites .

William Duplessie

Everyone ’s primary objective is to participate in the Rites and gain their exemption from the Downside — not just their own freedom , but that of the whole group . These are people who are connect by their hurt , rather than broken aside because of it . The melancholy that pervades Pyre ’s unjust world chip in way to the Bob Hope that bursts forth from the people who find themselves force to survive in it at every opportunity .

Even the rival teams you confront in the Rites are startlingly chummy with your group , although your victory in a mates means setting back their own chances for freedom . No one is bitter about losing to you , they just peck themselves up and continue to prove again . The closest someone can get to outright ill will among your whizz - sports rivals — which include something as bizarre as a group of exiles using the Rites in an attempt to cite a long - dormant death god — is a group asking you to fuddle a friction match , so that they might promote in your place and become a step closer to exemption . If you refuse , they value the conclusion and determine that they should seek and pass on on their own merits . Considering you ’re essentially battling for the right hand to escape terrible agony , it ’s a surprisingly cordial occasion .

A little piece into Pyre , you and your party learn two life-sustaining piece of selective information . First , that your chemical group has been gather by a mysterious helper to disembarrass each other , one at a time through the Rites , to incite a passive revolution in the Commonwealth that would end the exiling of people to the Downside . Then , after you ’ve freed a few of your people , you ascertain that the cycles/second of Rites — which culminate with the opportunities to liberate one of your group — is coming to an closing quicker than anyone realized , and inescapably not everyone in your party will get a opportunity at freedom . You as a player are leave with the guilt - wracking choice of getting to decide who sustain to be disembarrass in each special “ dismission Rite”—trying to balance the pragmatism of who would be well suited to help lead the brewing gyration , and the emotional aspect of freeing who you consider deserves it the most .

Starship Test 9

And yet , as your mathematical group tardily dwindles as one after the other is send to their exemption , and the luck to liberate more of them startle to campaign out , your party whole take over their perverted fate . There ’s no jostling among them for who should get freed next , or at all . No one abandons your group to test and go it alone as opportunities for freedom begin track down out . In fact , it ’s almost sadder that they simply take some of them will have to sacrifice their opportunity at exemption so that the with child causa of your gyration has a opportunity to succeed . They ’ll still be dumbfound in the Downside even if it ’s successful — the Rites are the only way back , and you ’re tell a new cycles/second of them will not begin in any of their lifespan after this current one concludes — but they all agree that they ’ll be happy that you as their loss leader have made the right-hand decisions about who get to be gratis and who does n’t , confident that the bonds you ’ve all forged together along the means mean much more to them than separation through firing .

So much post - apocalyptic fable , the sorting of material we all love to turn to in unsure times , takes a cynical sentiment to how we would deal with a severe , civilisation - ending issue . That cynical fable often comes to the conclusion that other mass are n’t to be confide , that even the strong group can be split aside by one cruel , selfish turn by a single person — that when our back are against the paries , it ’s every man or womanhood for themselves , no matter what the toll to others .

Pyre casts that notion aside to instead narrate the story of a group of people who do n’t give into that nervous impulse , and more imposingly , never seem to even take something other than the greater good . It ’s a game that , as sombre as it can be , is at last about the lastingness promise can give to people , a refreshing lesson to be learned from the sea of darker post - apocalyptical stories we currently find ourselves in .

Lilo And Stitch 2025