The magic of the first game arose mostly from the process of discovery. It had only the barest threads of a story for the first several hours, and the player's time was spent primarily building, surviving, and learning about the planet itself while occasionally being directed to crash sites and the ruins of former outposts. It's clear that the planet had a history, but nothing appeared to be truly fishy (heuheu) for quite some time, and even once that threshold was crossed, the manner in which it took place made it obvious that the forces you had to deal with were far more immense than you were able to fully comprehend. So instead, you really just continued to focus on exploration of the planet, and your environment came to reflect the spoils of that exploration, which in turn helped you progress through what story there was. Gameplay dealing with traversing immensity, themes reflected in story. Good. Tight.

Well, BZ focuses on delving further into the aforementioned forces, which quickly lose their sense of scale by way of exposition. Tangential narratives are also given more attention, such as the relationships between Alterra scientists. Maybe people like that stuff? I dunno, I was bored. Exploration is still there and narrative progression is still technically gated by discovery, but the gates feel more arbitrary. Endgame rewards are weak compared to the first game.

If I was going to make a larger cultural critique, I'd probably say that this type of narrative accretion in a series/franchise - where more stories are told in the interest of enlarging a "universe" rather than supporting a primary set of rhetorical themes - is symptomatic of the utterly dominant Ubisoft/Marvel/Disney model of Producing Content™, but I won't die on that hill.

The gameplay loop is basically identical to the first game which is that kept me going through to the credits. I appreciated the addition of glass roofs. The fish designs are still mostly good, although the austerity of an arctic environment was occasionally underwhelming compared to the lush shallows of game 1. Snow-based exploration I tried to avoid for the most part.

Worth getting on sale.

Probably best thought of as "part 2" rather than a sequel. Doesn't really introduce any new themes or perspectives, but does preserve the charm of the first game. However, the landscapes, while mostly empty, feel unfinished rather than desolate. Desolation requires points of reference (buildings, plants, etc.) so that we understand how empty a place is via comparison. This has some, but not enough. The first few minutes were good– the arctic sequence was terrible. Can be finished in just a few hours, so worth your time if you liked the world of the first game.

I wish I could like this game more. The character and level design, the music, the sound, the setting, and the concept are all some of the best I've ever seen in a video game. I'd even say that the writing is some of the best in any Supergiant game.

But... something went wrong. I'll echo other reviewers by saying that I just stopped caring about the whole thing after about 3-5 hours. I'm not positive as to why, but I have some theories:

1) The cyclical nature of the gameplay makes logical sense in the game setting and for mechanics. Obviously Supergiant can pull off a repetitive game (see: Hades), but there may not have been quite enough variation between levels in Pyre to keep it exciting. I hit on a few general strategies with each character and stuck with them and that was it. The talismans and lineup changes didn't do much to alter my strategies.

2) I mentioned that the writing was the best for a Supergiant game, but the bar is pretty low in that regard. Every sentence sounds like it's occurring in the middle of a paragraph, or that you're missing context to understand it.

3) Character development proceeds along lines that you can see as soon as you meet each character. They change, sure, but this is a caravan of tropes and never get subverted, commented on, flipped, or anything other than what you'd come to expect.

It's a shame because Pyre is truly stunning and I still listen to the soundtrack while writing. It just felt like a chore to play for three quarters of my time with it.