“You don’t belong here, pariah. This world exists in the liminal space between life and death.”

- Pythia, Priestess of the Pantheon

PERISH is a stylish 1-4 player FPS with a cross to bear. Slay hordes of creatures on the scorched sands of Purgatory and sell their gold-stained corpses to craven priests. Kill magnificent bosses and use the proceeds to gain entrance to Elysium, a place of cosmic revelations.

You are amyetes, a corporeal spirit condemned to live a shadow life in the halfway realm of Purgatory. Bring an end to your suffering by initiating the Rites of Orpheus and defeat the chthonic deities that dominate your fractious path to Elysium.

PERISH FAQ - learn more about our game!

Q: Is PERISH single-player or co-operative?
A: Both! You can play alone or with up to 3 additional players. There are private lobby room codes for friends-only co-op campaigns and public rooms to play co-operatively with anyone on the internet.

Via the Epic Online Services framework, 1 person will act as the host of the multiplayer session while up to 3 others may join as clients.

Q: Is PERISH a roguelike with randomly generated levels, or is it a linear story campaign?
A: Our game is a subtle blend of both elements. PERISH is about surviving the wastelands of Purgatory to reach Elysium, so each level is linear and handcrafted to tell a story about the Dread Realms that stand between you and eternal oblivion.

However, each time you die, the roster of objectives in each level will cycle to a new objective, so each attempt at reaching Elysium means you will be performing new tasks to reach Elysium, and sometimes taking entirely new routes to get there.

Q: Is PERISH coming to consoles such as PlayStation or Xbox?
A: We will keep you posted.

Q: Where can I play PERISH?
A: You can currently play PERISH via Steam, Good Old Games and Epic Games Store.

Q: Is there crossplay between these different PC platforms?
A: Yes! We are using Epic Online Services backend to get Steam, GOG and EGS versions to talk to each other. You will join your friends via a roomcode.

Q: What game engine is PERISH made in?
A: PERISH was created using Unreal Engine 4, using NVIDIA’s NvRTX engine branch.

Q: Who made PERISH?
A: PERISH is made by ITEM42, a small studio based in Brighton, UK. It is curently formed of just two members, brothers Bret and Regan Ware, artist and programmer respectively. Our aim with PERISH was to see how far two people could push an FPS in both gameplay and story.

We also received excellent dev assistance from Alex Downham of Default Interactive, a long time friend and collaborator, and we urge you to check out his work.

We also received some wonderful voicework and consultation on lines from Penny Gkritzapi, who helped bring a central part of the game’s story to life.

Since 2020, HandyGames, a subsidiary of THQ Nordic, are publishing our game. PERISH would genuinely not have been possible to complete to the extent that we originally envisioned without their generous help and investment in the project, particularly with their wonderful producers and dedicated QA team who have been assiduously testing PERISH for all manner of bugs and quirks for months and months. We thank them from the bottom of our heart.

Q: Who made the original soundtrack?
A: Joe Campbell-Murray of British modern mathcore outfit ZILF created a blistering and extensive 26-song soundtrack that you can purchase directly on Steam. Two OST tracks were authored by Bret Ware, secondary guitarist of ZILF.

Every level in the game has at least one song, sometimes two or three unique songs! The primary genre is a kind of raw, djent-like metal interspersed with beautiful Anatolian interludes and wistful choir sequences.

Q: Is the game inspired by ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian or Christian mythology?
A: The answer is a heady and fervent mix of all four! We took our favourite elements of various classical mythologies and further fictionalised them to create our own wasteland world of punishment and redemption.

It is therefore worth mentioning that although PERISH was created with research into and love towards these mythologies, it does not authentically represent any of them. The lore of PERISH is, as it were, a chimera of ancient stories viewed through the lens of modernity.

Q: Will there be post-release updates?
A: We will be ardently fixing any gameplay and multiplayer bugs as a top priority in the weeks and months to come. We can’t say too much about post-release content but we will keep you updated in all the relevant places!

Q: I heard that there is both a good ending and a bad ending in PERISH, how do I get them?
A: It’s a closely guarded secret… but make sure you speak to Hipparchia and listen to what she says.

Q: What languages does PERISH support?
A: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish (ES), Spanish (Latin America), Czech, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (BR), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai and Turkish.

Q: How on earth do I pronounce ‘ΡΣRΙΖΗ’ as written in the game’s logo?
A: You can say ‘perish’ in any way you want, we wholeheartedly acknowledge that our stylisms are very silly.

Technical FAQ - issues and problems here!

Q: PERISH is hard and I keep dying! Can I save my progress?
A: Our game loop is about dying and starting the journey anew until you make it to Elysium. That being said, there is a way to skip levels you’ve already completed.

Once you kill the final boss of each Dread Realm, you will unlock an “Obol Crown” for each (there are 3 Obol Crowns). Purchase and equip these Crowns at the Pantheon Altar (the shop in the hubworld).

With an Obol Crown equipped, next time you activate the stone priestess in the first level, you will skip all the previous levels and enter the new levels.

Q: I am experiencing stutters, what can I do?
A: Some players may experience some brief stutters when encountering initialising shaders in-game for the first time. It is now a well-known issue in the gaming community and for good reason.

There is no easy fix for this issue because asynchronous loading is problematic itself but we are looking into generating a different PSO cache and other solutions as a top priority in the days post-release.

Q: Where can I go to report bugs and issues while playing PERISH?
A: We have an official Discord channel, if you head to our Linktree page (https://linktr.ee/item42) you will find an invitation to join to our Discord.

In our Discord channel we have a thread dedicated to bug reports and we really appreciate anything big or small that you find. Thanks to all those so far who found bugs and submitted their reports, it really helps to stabilise and balance our little indie shooter and make it robust for the future.

If you own the game on Steam, you can post bug reports on our bug thread there. We really appreciate it.

Q: Who can I talk to if I have suggestions to make the game better?
A: We’re always up for making changes based on player feedback; we will be quite busy in the coming weeks bringing hotfixes to any multiplayer issues that arise once PERISH is in the wild, so if we don’t see your suggestion, we hope you don’t take it personally because we endeavour to read as many as possible.

The best places to offer suggestions are in the Feedback thread on Steam and our “feedback” thread in our Discord channel. We are very active in these two places.

Finally, I would like to say thank you for reading up about our indie co-op shooter!