Peripetia's following seems to come from a shallow appreciation of its "aesthetics" rather than how it holds up artistically, something that's humorously mirrored by the content of the games soundtrack.

The sprawling dystopian environments that encompass this game's level design fails to really provoke much from me when you realize how empty maps are, and not in a way which enhances the whole "dystopia" thing. Maps are largely a couple of decent segments connected by egregiously long hallways, with the maps never really rewarding exploration, especially because your inventory largely resets between levels. Find a cool thing at the end of the last combat encounter? Too bad, because you're not gonna ever get to use it.

Speaking of combat, it's... less than stellar. In the first ever combat encounter I got into, I was under the impression that I was in a free-for-all with two other enemy factions. I wasn't, and I only thought this because the enemy AI decided that they should shoot at one another rather than me. Safe to say, Peripetia's AI is incredibly lacking. Aim tends to fluctuate randomly between "absolutely perfect" and "shooting the other way" with no real rhyme or reason.

Even ignoring the lacking combat, Peripetia is an odd mixture of wanting to be immersive, while not doing a whole lot to let you immerse yourself in the role of Marie, while also trying to have a cohesive world, while also trying to be level-based, while also trying to have complex inventory management mechanics, while also making your inventory never really matter.

Anyways, have you guys watched Lain yet?

The best thing I can currently say about Peripeteia: It has potential.

Peripeteia feels like a mix of something like Deus Ex, Stalker, and Cruelty Squad. Its gameplay mechanics are good on paper, and it nails the atmosphere: it is sci-fi, it is dystopian, it is soviet, it is absurd.

But what some reviewers here call "jank", I call an absolute broken mess. The game is riddled with bugs that will softlock you. The huge empty environments often look pretty but are a slog to explore - in a game focusing on exploration! - because there is hardly anything discover and you spend an egregious time walking through empty oversized halls and corridors with 0 orientation. This sometimes gets as fun as putting you into an elevator for 2 damn minutes - and back. If an NPC ever gives you directions, it's nonsense like "You find X on the left of the train station", while you're standing IN THE MIDDLE of the train station and have no idea whether they mean West, East, or whatever.

It is also easy to accidentally skip huge portions of the levels, including important NPCs and quests. I finished at least 3 levels completely by coincidence because I was just running around with 0 sense of orientation, not knowing what even my goal was, finishing quests I didn't know existed (indicated by dialogue that clearly assumed that I met people and performed actions I did not know about), and eventually stumbling upon a key item I did not know I needed.

Example 1: I met NPC X and told him "Questgiver Y wants you dead", but I let X go, even without taking money from them - because I've never met Y before and had no idea who X was or why I should kill them. I met Y 10 minutes later, only to get shouted at: "Why did you kill X?!" I met X again later, but they had nothing to say, so I don't know what this story arc was about, if it affected the level progression, or if my decision mattered in any way.

And this wasn't a one-time thing. Things like this happened at least once in each of the 5 levels. I have absolutely no idea what was going on in this game because I feel like I played each level in reverse and was locked out of key dialogue.

Example 2: I'm supposed to reach a different part of town, but the train is down. A soldier recommends I take a ferry instead. When I find the ferry, I'm thinking "Yeah! Progress!" I can even easily afford the ticket because I've been swimming in money since Level 1 and never had to spend it. But then I talk to the captain, and I can name 3 different destinations I have never heard of. Why do I have to choose? Which one is the one I need to go to? Why would I go to the other two, especially since the main destination is already unlocked? How does the main character even know about these places?

As usual, it's all information you get from NPCs (whom I haven't met), and the two extra locations are connected to quests (which I did not know existed). So I went back to explore more, and I even found a whole quest that would reward me by weaving the ferry ticket fee... which is practically free already. Instead, I discovered a button to activate the train, which let me skip the ferry entirely. According to another review, you can actually also just walk for 20 minutes, which is kind of cool, but also tells a lot about how the environments in this game are designed in general.

I think that Peripeteia will be a good game when it's finished. But if this is the state after 5 years of development, there is absolutely no way the devs will get it out of Early Access in early 2026 as planned.

Nevertheless, I recommend you to read the following positive review, which outlines some of the potential charm (but also flaws) that I wasn't able to put into words: https://steamcommunity.com/id/lekret/recommended/1437760/

This game goes well past being a buggy, janky mess. It is unstable to a degree that it is near-constantly breaking.
Trying to use a hacksaw to saw off the barrel of a shotgun causes the shotgun to cease existing and the hacksaw to be unusable when you reload your save. I have yet to see a NPC make it through a door without assistance. Reloading a save often keeps the progress you had prior to that reload. When in stealth, enemies will all pathfind to the same spot, oblivious to the dozens of corpses laying in that spot, and stand there so you can headshot them. The tanks... the tanks are utterly non-functional, with them seemingly unable to attack, their turrets constantly disconnecting from the chassis, and their pathfinding getting them stuck on each other.
This is just a small sample of the glitches I saw.

And even if the game worked flawlessly, it would still have major problems. The level design, while both interesting and atmospheric, is a seemingly-endless stretch of chaotic parkour ledges and pitch-black hallways. The inventory management grinds the game to a halt whenever you have to interact with it. The game is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dark that the night vision augment was on for probably 7 of the 8 hours of my playthrough. Sometimes the game will just earrape you with loud sounds that, from what I can tell, aren't caused by any sort of player action but are just random backround SFX (second level is the main culprit here).

Whoever thought up Belgrade should be shot.

it's not all bad, though. The game's world is genuinely interesting, and the gameplay (when it works) is rather fun. You're given free reign to explore and experiment, and there are tons of ways to complete any given level.

If you are interested, I would strongly recommend you buy it at a steep discount, because 2 hours is far too short for someone to decide whether or not they like this game.