Scorn (2022) - Review
- Sam Bateson
- Jan 24, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 28, 2023
Reviewed on Xbox Series X
(Spoilers ahead...)
Scorn is an atmospheric first-person horror adventure game set in a nightmarish universe of odd forms and somber tapestry. It is designed around the idea of “being thrown into the world”. Isolated and lost inside this dream-like world, you will explore different interconnected regions in a non-linear fashion. The unsettling environment is a character itself.
Scorn is finally with us after appearing to languish in development for over eight years. I first became aware of the game somewhere around 2014 or 2015, and since then I've been looking forward to it like you'd never believe. Hot on the heels of Alien Isolation, I'd been longing for another great atmospheric horror game, and in Scorn, it looked like we were going to get it.
When it finally landed, after setbacks, delays and some fairly, let's say, passive aggressive Kickstarter updates, I thought to myself "oh yeah, Scorn! I'll give this a go". I couldn't wait to get into the world, explore some biomechanics environments and I wasn't disappointed - featuring H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński infused architecture and character design, Scorn looks and sounds like it exists somewhere in an even darker corner of the Alien universe (and the developers have been open about their influences); in fact, I'd say it's exactly the atmosphere and style Prometheus should have incorporated.
Story-wise, there is nothing remarkable here - you control a character who awakens in a horrific, biomechanoid world of strange creatures, devious mechanisms and mechanical architecture. Your character, seemingly born out of the world, can interact with puzzles through the use of an implant you earn early in the game and objects you find almost growing out of the walls. As you traverse the eery environs of this unknown place, you must solve puzzles to open doors, activate gates or move lifts.
There are, I daresay, two halves to the game - the first half is spent in something of an industrial complex, with massive, unusual machines where vicious creatures lurk, just waiting for you to stumble across them so they can do away with you in grisly fashion. The second half (or maybe a bit less) takes place in something more like a temple, with more reverent architecture, fewer enemies and a greater focus on solving the riddle of the world you're in.
I suspect these two distinct halves of the game are as a result of the initial Kickstarter plan, which advertised Scorn as Part I: Dasein (German for 'Being There'), with the untitled Part II being released separately at a later date (the game ended up being released as a whole), as there seem to be a definite ending before your arrival at the 'temple'.
Throughout the game, you must explore interconnected levels and solve puzzles - this may involve destroying biomechanical objects, finding components to build a rotating key or unlocking doors with a tool you find part way through the game. Exploration is encouraged, and is indeed a vital component, as there are no hints, clues or bits of dialogue to point you in the right direction. Finding objects can generally happen in any order, so it can become quite difficult to establish what needs to go where, but a bit of trial and error does the trick quite well.
A couple of chapters into the game (there are seven, with the seventh chapter taking up a good chunk of the end of the game), you start to come across some of the more hostile fauna the world has to offer - the deftly named Chickens, which resemble (you guessed it) chickens, the Workers, ant-like beasts that lumber about or bundle together into huge, fleshy chains, and a moose-like creature that puts in a couple of appearances here and there. To dispatch these, you have a selection of weapons - a bolt-gun like weapon that does minimal damage, a pistol and a shotgun. You unlock these weapons as the game progresses and like everything else, they are biomechanical in nature; each is an attachment that is mounted to a standard grip with fleshy tendrils and you can swap out attachments at will.
If I'm honest, the combat in Scorn is simply terrible. Some enemies will remain docile, so you can simply wait for them to crawl into the environment and carry on without having to face them; but al too often, they become hostile, launch acidic projectiles at you and within a couple of hits, your health is gone and you fall dead. There is no way to hide, crouch or stealth your way along, so your best bet is to face them, but even then, you risk attracting other enemies and you can quickly become overwhelmed. The enemies of Scorn are, at best, shoehorned in - the game functions very well as an atmospheric/puzzle game, and the enemies are frustrating and pointless.
In-game mechanics fare better; the dev team's dedication to throwing you into the world appears most cleverly at stations that are scattered around the world. Into these stations, you can load a crab-like puck; the station then, in gruesome fashion, fills the puck with a blood-like substance which refills the tendrils sprouting from it; these can be drained into the player to restore health. Yes, this is a weird game, but at least the internal logic makes sense.
Not too far into the game, you become infected with a parasite that slowly begins to take over your body - I won't go too far into detail about this, but suffice it to say, the parasite drives the crux of the story. Your attempts to remove it lead you to the temple where all sorts of weird things happen - there are a couple of boss fights with robots controlled by hyper-intelligent beings that resemble foetuses, you must compress other creatures in piston chambers and use their blood to reanimate pregnant figures that resemble the player, and then there is even a section where you get to take control of the minds of two other beings to solve one last puzzle. I thought the game was weird before, but by the time the ending came along, I was truly... well... flabbergasted? Confused? All of the above? Gah, this is a weird game...
All in all, Scorn isn't just your run-of-the-mill puzzler - it's a genre puzzler, something we haven't really seen before - a AAA game without the AAA studio, it defies all logic and understanding; it's a riddle in search of an answer, and a frustrating one at that. Combat is unnecessary, the puzzles are ingenious and the environment and art style genuinely look like they've been crafted in paint. Across the seven-hour play time (though it can be done in five if, unlike me, you don't stop to look at the environment every five minutes), I was at once enthralled, repulsed, confused, delighted and ready to rage-quit. Whilst I wasn't yelling at the screen after I'd been killed for the umpteenth time, I was genuinely in the world, walking up those slimy stairs, breathing in the acrid fog and running my fingers along the tactile walls. It's a stunning game. But unfortunately, it struggles with an identity crisis of wanting to be just too many disparate genres.
Sam's Score: 6
Scorn is available on Windows and Xbox Series S | X
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