Review: Scorn [PC, Games Pass]

The factory of flesh. Biopunk horror. Revolutionary in its genre. All big promises for a game initially teased back in 2014. From the indie team of Ebb Software, a grotesque and mysterious world would be dangled in front of the populace just out of reach. Shrouded in mystery and intrigue, very little about the world would be known until its unveiling 8 years later.

With visual inspirations from H.R. Giger and Zdzislaw Beksinski, this visceral experience will haunt you far beyond the time you put into play it. Is this a good thing, though? Let’s dive into the decaying dregs of a loathsome and forlorn landscape to peel back the skin and see what writhes underneath.

This is Scorn.

A Sculpture of Flesh

The first thing that hits you in Scorn is its art design. Inspired by prolific artists, the design of the world and levels can best be described as alien and macabre. The level of detail that goes into the world building is astonishing, with rib cages and spines making up gates and walls while anything coated in flesh is twisted and mutilated.

From the corridors, we traverse to the tools we acquire, everything is quite literally like nothing you’ve ever seen before. The world seems to pulse in this weird balance of living and decay. So many things look like they could easily be breathing. Others that should definitely be dead, move and scuttle with life.

Weapons feel as if a blind alien was poorly translated details of what things should look like, but was only given a pile of corpses as building materials. Even the enemies look like some blind attempt to create things like a flesh chicken, a bladder hound, or a muscle head. Anything that looks vaguely human rides the uncanny valley, and you’re not quite able to determine whether or not any of these things were, at one point, human.

The sound design is also top-notch:  atmospheric and ambient with distant wails of wetness and pain. You can never really tell if you are alone or if something is watching you that you just haven’t seen yet. The score in this game is haunting, and should definitely be appreciated.

The Dance Macabre 

Scorn follows the footsteps of our silent avatar. It is a first-person experience, although I would hesitate to call it a shooter as there is very little shooting to be had. Granted, there are some enemies in the game, but you can easily sneak past most of them with little repercussions if you’re careful. Avoiding enemies and confrontation is also heavily encouraged by the extreme lack of ammunition and health to be recovered. These two things alone are enough to make Scorn feel more like an old-school, survival-horror game.

Another aspect of game-play within Scorn is environmental puzzles. Interacting with things might lead you to obtaining a new tool, unlocking a door, or maybe just moving a giant elevator box to the point where you can ride it. The puzzles are fairly self-explanatory and unique to the area you’re in. Challenging but not unfair.

Scorn does not hold your hand at all, and while some might argue that’s the point or that’s a good thing, I felt it was unfair game design. There are no indicators at any point in the game of how to do anything. It lacks dialogue and narration. 

There is no heads up display until you take damage for the first time, as well as any indication of how to heal said damage. I was several hours into my first play-through and still clueless as to how to heal damage. And it wasn’t until I went to the pause menu for the first time that I saw the very minimalistic controls spelled out for me. It’s my opinion that being able to teach the player the mechanics of the game through visual storytelling would have been a great benefit for Scorn.

A Nightmare of Bones

Sadly, this is not the end of the issues that I have with this game. Scorn has an auto-save feature that has no indication where or when it goes off. It also lacks manual save options. So, if you are stuck in a puzzle or particularly challenging room with enemies, depending on where you die can send you back anywhere between 5 minutes and an hour of game-play. It gets frustrating because health and ammo is limited. If the game randomly saves and you have low resources, there is nothing you can do but hope and pray that you can find a health and ammo station somewhere.

Progression feels vague and nebulous. In the most blunt of forms, the game-play loop consists of you rubbing your face against every inch of surface area hoping to see a glow around something you haven’t already interacted with. And also hoping that you interact with this at the correct time, otherwise you are wandering around many similar looking hallways and floors trying to figure out a puzzle that hasn’t made itself known to you yet.

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream 

You may have noticed that I have avoided talking about the story up to this point. It is not so much to prevent spoilers as there is discernible no story. Scorn feels like an art house project: you’re going through the experience and on the other side asking “What does it all mean?”

Keep in mind, Scorn is an extremely immersive game. It will go out of its way to keep game-like elements from popping up on the screen. However, at the end of all of that, it still doesn’t tell you anything about what you’re being immersed in. What is going on? Who are you? How did you end up here? Those questions will remain unanswered, until more content is added or the developers say something that is canon. This can be a hard pill to swallow, especially after the ending of the game which happens so abruptly that I actually said out loud “Wait, is that it?” Ultimately, I was let down with no indication of what I could have done differently to earn a different outcome. 

I truly wish that there had been more of the game in its last half hour. It was the most interesting part. It seemed to be setting up extremely unique mechanics and game-play, and had the most intricate of settings where I felt we would have actually learned something about the world. But instead, it just ends.

Final Thoughts

Video games can be art. But not all art should be video games.

Some people will see Scorn and think it’s the best thing ever. Others will see it, and pass on it due to it being less game and more art piece. You might not have fun playing Scorn, but you may enjoy the experience.

There are enough puzzles and interaction within the game-play that it keeps it from earning the moniker of walking simulator. However, those moments of puzzle are overshadowed by excessive backtracking, inconsequential combat, and frustrating repetitive level design in later areas. The driving force to continue this game to the end for me was primarily curiosity. I wanted and needed to see what happened.

Should you play Scorn? Yes, if only for the visuals and sound design. As stated earlier, it is an experience, one that is highly under-represented in the gaming landscape. The level of unease I felt throughout the game is not something that I have felt with other horror titles.

Scorn is developed by Ebb Software and published by Kepler Interactive. It is available now for the Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC via Steam and Game Pass.