Hi there everyone! I’m here to help you stay alive during your time playing The Persistence. In case you missed our previous blog post, The Persistence is a brutal VR sci-fi stealth-horror roguelike, and it’s coming exclusively to PS VR tomorrow.
You are Chief Security Officer Zimri Eder, one of the last surviving members of the crew. Your job is to save The Persistence, and yourself in the process. Saving your ship from being torn apart by a black hole is no small task. You are likely to die — a lot — so here’s some insider information to help you out.
Upgrade Your Stuff
You can upgrade a lot of things in The Persistence and, as the name suggests, all your upgrades and currency stay with you, you know. Persistently… okay, I’ll stop now.
Your first priority should always be upgrading your health, so grab as many Stem Cells as you can and visit the DNA Sequencer. You’ll find it in Recovery each time you print a new clone (i.e. respawn).
Once you’ve upgraded your health once or twice, you should start looking at upgrading Dark Matter, which is the stat that allows you to teleport and use Supersense. If you play like I do, these will be used regularly through both combat and stealth to give you an edge over some of the harder enemies.
If you’re feeling brave, locate a Supply Crate in a challenge room, as they contain some of the best loot in the game and can help propel you much more quickly to the higher levels.
Lock and Load
As soon as you are on deck, head to a Firearms Fabricator, and unlock The Needle. On the earlier Decks The Needle is a great weapon to get used to the head-controlled aiming. All firearms give double damage for headshots, so try to stay cool under pressure when taking your shots.
Then you should move on to unlocking all the other weapons, and experiment with them to find your favorites. You’ll also get yourself a trophy once you’ve got them all!
At later levels, you will find that some of the early game firearms just won’t cut it anymore, and you’ll have to transition into more powerful experimental and melee weapons. One of my favorite strategies is upgrading my melee damage stats, unlocking Joe Wilson (a clone with melee damage bonuses), and wading through enemies with a fully upgraded riot baton, which is basically the love child of a club and a taser!
Fight on Your Terms
The Persistence is tough and, in your roughly eight-hour playthrough, you will come up against some serious challenges. The trick is to take regular stock of your equipment and allow that to determine how you handle encounters.
If you have limited resources, then start an area slowly with a stealthy approach. If you’re well equipped, you may want to focus on making your way to Supply Crates, or just head straight to your objective. This is particularly important when it comes to utilizing Armory Fabricators which need to recharge after use, so choose your weapons wisely.
The important thing is to remain adaptable, spread the risk and try to unlock multiple weapons so that you can fight multiple threats in one fight.
Friends Can Be ‘Helpful’
If you’re struggling (or lonely) you can enlist friends to give you a hand using the companion Solex app for your smartphone. But you’ll need to find someone who can resist the temptation of making your game harder!
Good verbal communication with your Solex app partner is key, as they can help you find health packs when you are near death and drop weapons when you’re starting to run dry.
One of the best places to enlist your friend’s help is in the stealth phases of the game: your friend can tag enemies so that you can see them through the walls, or drop distractors so that enemies turn their backs to you, leaving them exposed for Stem Cell harvesting.
If you do ever suspect your friend of foul play, make your way to a Solex screen on the ship and upload a virus to freeze the app!
Optimize Your Playthroughs
Like I said before, you will die. A lot. But this is your opportunity to come back stronger, and optimize your future runs. Getting a Loot Suit, and combining it with specialist clones such as Serena, will give you huge boosts to each loot drop, especially on lower decks.
A few optimized runs will give you enough resources for high-level upgrades or to unlock epic-level schematics. If you have one, I recommend fabricating an epic forcefield, which will keep you alive when battling high level Weepers and Berserkers.
My final tip is that you can optimize your runs by finding Deck Modules. These will allow you to teleport straight from Recovery to the lower decks. They are tough to get, as they’re only found in Supply Crates. You will see Supply Crates marked on the map, but each has a challenge you must complete before you can get them open!
If you follow this insider information, you’ll stand a great chance of surviving The Persistence, which is available July 25 in stores, and to download from PlayStation Store tomorrow.
