Scorn (2022)

Scorn is a horror First person walking sim with some obtuse puzzle solving and light FPS elements (There are a few weapons for occasional combat to emulate a survival horror type of feel, and a few boss type encounters which were pretty interesting... I just ran past most enemies though as theres no point in sticking around or coming back usually.)

The game is heavy handed on dark Gigerian art, brooding dark ambient atmosphere/sound/music, gore, body horror and the grotesque in general. Be prepared!

It does these things very well too. Not something you see come up too often... (Hey, it's not really good but it's plenty better and more accessible than Dark Seed) However, the story is non-existent and its up to your own interpretation what he hell any of this nightmarish world is about. In someways, felt like I was kind of playing something like Conarium or Amnesia: Rebirth but that there was overall less 'game' and the puzzles were bad. That's how I'd describe the experience. (Oh it also came with a nightmare that night during sleep, so there's that at no extra charge!)

The First level is somewhat jarring too. Because in it, most alien devices and things don't work in millennia it would seem and are dysfunctionally broken or discarded, which adds another layer of you understanding how anything works or what you even need to do. This is a locked door and more than half aren't meant to be open. So keep that in mind as you play it and find yourself gated that you may not use everything you come across.

I am hit or mix with puzzles in games... But here, I found myself really hating some of these puzzles, as solutions can be pretty dumb. It doesn't help that the fact of everything is so utterly alien, you cant really intuit what items you find might do or be for, (hard tot really apply logic of any kind). To make matters worse. SOME of the puzzles ratchet up a notch and have solutions such as subtle UI prompts that only show up at certain angles and things (There was even a door a that acted like it was 'stuck' that you are expected to just walk right through!) It makes it particularly lost and wade-around pointless-feeling.

Managed to complete it after about 6 hours, with a guide after a lot of said aimless wandering around looking for switches. Visually, It looks much better than Agony, but I found it less fun and kinda icky. (I hope you like penis!) I don't really recommend it as a game, but if you like things like Lovecraftian horror and H.R. Giger's style of art this is a must Let's Play at the least. It's worth consideration if you like Bloober-type game settings or spooky walking sim type fare. For those who haven't played the first title, you might want to refrain if you think this is going to be a cool fringe shooter (Inner Chains and NecroVision this is not, and those games aren't great by any means but they definitely fill that void better)

The art direction is off the chain. It's really fun to look around at stuff and there is a good amount of variety in settings time to time.

After a while I found it to wear thin and the nature of most of these types of puzzles is less than enjoyable to me.

Some things I'd say could make these kinds of games better: -An either actual proper stealth system (dangerous gamble, hard to do in games) or an actual proper FPS element. (The FPS element in this serves as another puzzle-solving device, more than anything) -Less focus on puzzles or better puzzles (Seeing stuff on your person was cool, but a rotating item inventory system that lets you look at things would be nice too to help you maybe have an idea of what they might do/unlock puzzle-wise) -A narrator or at least more scripted cutscenes. The minimal approach to storytelling is interesting but I certainly couldn't follow this one along -Might just be me, but I found myself really wanting a map, on some of these levels. (A lot of corridors are quite windy, and things look the same, so it's easy to get turned around. It's also not always easy to remember where switches were, or which switch did what in that multi-story sphere taxi level)

A ghoulish narrator (like DOOM), a minimap, more shooting and less puzzles? Count me in for the next release. (I picked this over Perish to unwind for the evening but I'm thinking I probably would have liked that more.)

I do think this game was marketed wrong. At least on the store page it is defined as action and horror and this feels like a misstep out the gate. It's more survival horror than anything with a heavy dose of the walking simulator. While it is technically a FPS, the combat is clunky and does feel poorly balanced. In survival horror games combat has, for the most part, been a clunky ordeal that is praised for adding tension. I have mixed feelings about this sentiment, where I would argue the iconic survival horror games were more a product of their time rather than making an artistic statement (tank controls were the convention when those famous games came out). That all said, what makes Resident Evil and Silent Hill stand out is how the game and its combat is balanced around the controls. The balance comes in terms of the enemy AI and level design. In Scorn, I would argue not so much.

In Resident Evil you are armed with a gun out the gate. The first chunk of enemies you face are slow and lumbering zombies. You move and aim slow, but you have a lot of reaction time. While most areas in Resident Evil (the first one) are narrow and claustrophobic corridors, the zombies are slow and have to melee you, so you can avoid them if need be. It just means they will be there next time you need to move through the hallway. Fighting a zombie depletes either your ammo and/or health so you always have to be cognizant of the risk vs reward. Kind of similar for Silent Hill, albeit the game showers you with ammo and healing items, so the survival horror honestly goes out the window after the first 3-4 hours. Scorn, in contrast, has a large lumbering and tanky enemy that has a projectile attack and then a weird scrotum chicken that is fast and has an even better projectile! These are the first two enemies and you're armed with a melee pile-driver (HR Giger would approve of the phallic imagery here) that has a long reload time. The bigger enemies that spits acid takes like 6 hits and the small chickens take 2. If you miss a hit, there's like a 5 second delay before you can attack again. The game is almost entirely narrow corridors and while it's possible to sneak by some of the enemies and wait out their patrol patterns, you almost always will take damage early on in the game. It's possible to avoid damage but it's really hard due to the narrow corridors and janky controls. In principle this is fine, but I think they are a bit too stingy with healing items throughout the game given the amount of unavoidable damage. This does improve later in the game as you get more weapons, but in general it does make combat very un-enjoyable. Which to be fair is the point, but the balancing does still feel off to me.

I only died a few times, but it still felt off balance wise and if you found yourself dying a lot and getting frustrated I think that's reasonable. What makes this frustrating is that the game feels close to having the right balance. But still off the mark. Having the big lumbering acid spitting enemies being melee instead would have gone a long way to help the balance out. And maybe make them a bit less tanky? But I digress.

I do think this game still has merit, but only from an artistic standpoint. The atmosphere, sound design and art direction are immaculate. The rest of the game not so much. There were plenty of times where I just stopped and gawked at the art in a given area of the game.

It's interesting how elaborate the first puzzle in the game is and how it presents moral quandaries as well. Where the "key" is a living creature and there are ways to spare it or not. Though this is not explained to you so on a first playthrough you are more than likely to kill the poor wretch. But even this is debatably merciful. After this, puzzles are often more labyrinthine navigation than anything. There are things to interact with, but often times these puzzles boil down to "when" you interact with them rather than "how", where it's about the order of events which is technically a puzzle?

Still this is a very unique game that has a clear vision even if that vision is definitely not for everyone. I did finish this, taking about 5 hours (with probably 30 minutes of me gawking at various art throughout the playthrough). It has an oppressive atmosphere and while it's designed clearly to not be fun, other games have done this much better. The puzzles feel inconsistent throughout, but the complexity of them peaks pretty early in the game. I think with better balance in the combat and resources the game would have been significantly improved. I don't think it needed combat to be honest. If they had instead focused on avoiding enemies (like Amnesia) and puzzles I think this game would have been more universally praised. Still worth checking out. Nothing else quite like it. But understandable if you bounced off this quickly. It's a slow and atmospheric burn with a focus on environmental storytelling and making you feel small and insignificant. Much like the art that inspired it.

This game was no where close to what I was expecting based on the trailer. The trailer presented a lot of enemies and the various interesting weapons that you would eventually acquire and use. I basically thought this would be an eldritch artsy, Doom adjacent, horror shooter.

Welp, I should have read the categories: atmospheric, survival, and puzzle. The key category here being puzzle. This game is very puzzle heavy, I think I was an hour and a half in to the game before I saw a weapon or an enemy. I do like puzzle games, but when you are not expecting a puzzle game it's a bit jarring. I was ready to shoot everything, not spend forever solving a puzzle to open a door.

However, once I realized and accepted that Scorn was a puzzle game and not a shooter I was able to shift focus and enjoy the game. Body horror doesn't really bother me that much in video games so I feel that some of the creepy value may have been lost on me.

Overall I thought this game was pretty good. It's a quick play, I was able to beat this game in 5hrs. If you want a quick creepy play this is your game!

Scorn been out for a while, and the negative opinions managed to sneak into my ears and eyes, so i decided to not touch it... until now, 'there's no way this is bad' i told myself, i saw this game like 7 years ago and it looked like the best thing my virgin eyes have seen, finally i can walk in H.R Giger's world and step into Beksiński's paintings, GIVE THIS TO ME NOW!

So it's 2024 and i've decided to pick up the controller and BAM! 3 hours later, the game is over... i get it now. I was enjoying the 1st act quite a bit, soaking the tone and absolutely loving the environment, the dumb crane puzzle was the first warning sign but it's okey, it's just a puzzle (weird way to start your game Ebb Software, but whatever), then being positively surprised there are moral choice(s), I WAS IN! See, i really didn't mind this game being a walking sim with some puzzles and choices reminiscent of SOMA, as long as it was treating me with this beautiful environmental narrative, i was ready to be taken on a journey without answers. Act 2 was a bit tedious, get the key, bring it here, rinse repeat, whatever it's still pretty cool, then Act 3 introduced enemies and all the flaws started to appear like mosquitoes in summer, the combat is awful and clunky, almost like it was thrown in last second, it's literally the parasite of this game's design, and for fuck's sake you can't throw projectile enemies at the player without having a dodge or block button, that's a video game sin, i almost gave up after some bug vomitted and one hit killed me 3 times in a row and i had to redo almost 10 minutes of gameplay because there was no checkpoint, frustration out of nowhere, i was enjoying the sights 15 minutes ago, why is this happening. After running around, solving more silly maze puzzles and swatting off same 3 enemy types i arrived in the final act, where i finally had the chance to breathe and take in the environment again, remembering why i'm playing this game in the first place, after defeating possibly the most pathetic boss fight i've seen in a while, the game rushes to it's conclusion, an open ending (as expected), leaving me empty and starved.

'What could've been' is nothing but a mere fetishization of it's influences, a bad game held alive by it's aesthetics, what a shame

Graphically, Scorn is up there with the best of them. Sadly, graphics don't make the game. Scorn hamstrings itself from the offset and does little to make your life easier as the game progresses.

Firstly the combat, though I use the word "combat" loosely. The first gun you get is like a steam powered pneumatic drill. It's also terrible. You have two shots before it needs to reload. However some enemies move quickly, and trying to defend yourself with this awful weapon, leads to many frustrating deaths. This does not improve with the next weapon you get nor the ammo required for it. Finding the ammo is far too infrequent and just results in you blindingly running from enemies because you have no ammo to fight back. The healing process is also awkward and just makes combat even more annoying than it already is. You have some weird sort of spider that you plug into a machine. This in turn then drains the machine of blood and fills up small sacs on the spider. You then pinch one into your arm to heal one bar. But you have to hold the button and when you're hit, it resets the action. Just a pain.

Then come the puzzles. The first one is so obtuse and unnecessarily difficult, that it would come as no surprise if you decide to abandon the game right there. It is a puzzle that is too clever for its own good. But the worst culprit is the checkpoint system. It is an absolute joke. You can be set back nearly an hour because of a clumsy death and the lack of constant checkpoints. It's frustrating because Scorn has the elements in place to make a fantastic game, it just doesn't have the know-how to utilise them.

I really loved this game. The art and environment are top-notch. Really giving me all the H.R. Giger vibes. It emulates the feeling I get when I look at his art, which is morbid curiosity. You look at his art and you wonder, how did this creature come to be? What is its purpose? It's the same feeling I got when I watched Alien for the first time and now when I was watching this game.

The whole time, I was creating my own theory on how this civilization developed, what its goal was, why did it fall and what caused its destruction. I was admiring the designs like it was another Giger painting. The best part is that there are so many theories you can craft and every single one can be correct because the beauty of the game is that it doesn't tell you the story. It's up to your interpretation. Which is what art is, subjective.

I understand that some people are disappointed because the early concept seemed like there would be more shooter action going on but I really liked the direction they took in the end. Sometimes, it's good to acknowledge that some games just aren't for you. It's not a bad game just because it's not a survival horror game. I understand why they added some combat elements though because it adds to the motive of escaping to the afterlife (as I have interpreted that portal at the end).

The baby-powered grenade launching fight was really dull but I understand why it was put there. In my opinion, the first machine that we put the baby in is an incubator and then the next one is modified to be a battle machine. It activates and wants to kill us because we have the parasite on us. Its goal is to fight the parasite that kickstarted the downfall of this civilization. Combat elements show that there are weapons to fight against these creatures that want to "absorb" everyone and people certainly tried to fight but in the end, the parasite won and the planet is destroyed. This civilization either escaped to the afterlife or was completely wiped out.

That's basically my interpretation of what actually happened on this planet. It can also be that these people always lived with this parasite and their ultimate goal was to connect everyone's consciousness to one hive mind so they could open a portal to the afterlife and escape this miserable planet.

I did not expect to love this game as much as I do. If you have some more theories on what the story of this game is, please leave them in the replies. I would love to hear more interpretations!!

So, does Scorn deserve to be defended? Yes. And honestly as much as I consider myself a harsh critic, you don't know what you are talking about if you give this a truly low score, like please, you haven't played a real bad game if this is a 2/10 game for you. Go play Sonic 06 10 times as punishment before you come back to just a flawed game. At best it is a 6/10 you will fondly think of as "Huh..."

Sometimes Mediocre games are good, you know in your heart this to be true. They do not necessarily need to be perfect and sometimes being bad is part of the experience, some things need to be monotonous to fit the theme. In the 90s there were a lot of mediocre cult classic point and click adventure games and I think scorn will be the modern equivalent of it, to which let me tell you, it is better than those of love it or hate it games of the 90s. Anyways Scorn has been added to the "mediocre art game that I will die defending" list, I guess up there with Kane and Lynch 2 which had some interesting ideas!

There is an obvious negative reaction to this, and I am not entirely sure where it was commercialized as whatever someone envisioned it to be, did some people seriously consider a doom clone of sorts to go with the feeling of dread in this world of flesh and machine? No really did you think that the playable character's scrotum would have a mini map, made out of it's wrinkles and your cock is a health bar? No this is a slow burn game that is meant to fit the feel of the art styles it is giving tribute of, this deep nihilism of a hopeless world which all is just disgusting nature vs the sterile clean design, a world that cares nothing for you and your pilgrimage, a horrifying world. AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR BECAUSE I THOUGHT FOR ANYONE WHO LOOKS AT THE PAINTINGS THIS GAME GOES OUT TO EMULATE THAT WAS A PRETTY EASY TONE INDICATION?! The art literacy of these gamers!

Honestly I never try to have expectations on anything until I've played it but it was kind of vague what even scorn is, and even if I were to defend scorn (it is a very cool game conceptually and it deserves to exist) it would have been heralded as a classic had it just been a survivor horror game. No seriously, I don't know why they couldn't have hired someone to tell them that but it had to be said, if the map design had a hub world, keys, interesting evil flesh lair design, ANYTHING than just a light walking simulator with weird corridor battles and slow basic puzzles, then this would of been a perfect game, I legit think that had they implemented more design choices they wouldn't sacrifice the dread of the game and make it pleasurable enough in a sadomasochist way, in this world of pain for the sake of pain, survival at no matter the cost, nature in it's purest form. See it in your mind, you know it to be true.

The clunky combat could have even stayed for the sake of the genre, Survivor Horror has been free of that criticism for like 30 years because you know! You are meant to feel tense! However here's the thing, enemies in this game can corner you into a corridor, and all you have is corridors, if it was like a very detailed Resident Evil Mansion where you get to juke them better and you actually feel a sense of conserving ammo, you see where I'm going with this? Map design would have made everything better.

The puzzles are bad, they just are. They're just... Eh. And I get the idea of wanting to add puzzles cuz it is an ALIEN WORLD! So the idea comes naturally but honestly they could have just gone full Survivor Horror and done a puzzle every hour or so, if this game had that many hours to offer I guess? It's a short interactive art piece experience, and you cannot deny that this game is doing the aesthetic department right, it is a beauty, it is magnifique in ways that would make H.R. Geiger blush.

With that said, it shouldn't have stayed just a walking simulator, fuck that, if you think this would of benefited for being just a walking simulator, fuck you, you know nothing of game design, that sense of monotonous dread? That is possibly intentional, that has been present in Survival Horror as a genre, you cannot have survivor horror if you have no means of STRUGGLE, no means of a pilgrimage, you actually need to feel that pain, which this game is obviously about pain, to the point your body is in constant pain and you see pain being inflicted just to keep the body active and alive. I respect it more for trying to be an actual game though like there are cool ideas in it, I respect it for actually trying to be engaging in it's central theme of pain, of being SCORNED.

I respect art games that actually try to incorporate game feel in their experience rather than no game feel at all. When a Japanese dev does it, people LOVE it, now of course this is no Silent Hill, Metal Gear or Dark Souls, all of which have a deeper better game design to them rather than just the feeling of being scorned, I will say that Scorn at least does what it goes out to do better than Death Stranding did, but you know what, maybe it is intentional, maybe it is just monotonous and "boring" enough in the way that it should be after all, the idea is to be scorned. Fuck you.

I need to preface this by saying I’m an absolute sucker for both atmosphere and H.R. Giger’s art. I have been ever since I watched Alien as a little kid, mesmerised, starting at the screen, not even knowing what art was, let alone that what I was looking at was Giger-inspired art.

Scorn hit me differently than almost every other game I've played. I saw the reviews coming out and I was immediately skeptical ahead of my playthrough since a) I’m not a fan of confusing, obtuse or overly difficult puzzles, b) I tend to struggle whenever a game gives you no guidance or orientation, c) I don't exactly do well with wonky combat, and d) I hate having to do the same things over and over in games, especially when there is a sparse checkpoint system. Despite all review-based criticism, however, I knew I was going to give this game a go based on the art style alone. ‘Everything else that comes with it will be a bonus’, I thought.

That's the thing though. Scorn is its art style. It informs, infects and affects everything that game is and tries to do. There is a unique, gutural revulsion in its atmosphere that doesn't quite translate to words, and that is present in its visuals, sounds, puzzles, interactions, in every single moment of its journey. Everything feels alive in its world, because everything is alive in it, but at the same time, everything is also trapped in a grinder of infused agony and decay, stuck in a never-ending cycle of death and rebirth. From start to finish, you are a part of this organic world, you are mesmerised by it, but you're also trying to escape in any way you can.

Scorn handles environmental storytelling masterfully. After playing though it several times now, I still find it astonishing how it tells so much without using any narrative whatsoever. There is something that makes you pause and think about it at every corner. The journey is seamless: there are no interruptions, no cutscenes, no permanent UI, nothing to impact immersion. The premiss is simple, yet also incredibly enigmatic: you’re trapped somewhere, but you have no idea where or why; you need to escape, but you don't know what you're escaping towards; your instinct is to survive, but you’re not even sure who you are or what you are; you’re repulsed by all the grotesque imagery and all the squishy sounds, but you can't help but feel hypnotised by it all. This is Scorn in a nutshell, a world of contradictions thrown at the player in the most atmospheric of ways, that will likely make you experience quite a few different things, even if those things may not all end up being very positive.

If you like games with even an inkling of originality, you owe it to yourself to try Scorn. Don’t get discouraged by the puzzles. Yes, a couple of them are hard to figure out, but you’ll eventually break them (hell, use a guide if you need it!). Don’t get put off by its combat (it’s not stellar, but it’s actually a lot better than the reviews had led me to believe, and a lot of it can be avoided). Don't even worry about what you might read regarding checkpoints being far apart (I had zero issues with it). Just dive into its world, head first, without thinking too much. If you don’t like it - depending on what type of person you are, there's a strong chance you won’t -, you will have wasted, at worst, 5 hours of your gaming time. But in the off chance you’re someone who would resonate with it, it would be a true shame to miss out on what might end up being one of the most unique experiences of your gaming journey. Try it and see it for yourself. Seriously, what have you got to lose? 9.5/10

Never have I bounced off from a game as quickly as Scorn.

I wandered around for a few minutes. Got a spiky thing for my hand so I could operate some gadgets. Then I rode an elevator up to where I had to do a sliding puzzle.

I hate sliding puzzles.

I eventually slid a block to the upper-left where it wanted me to, then a claw squished the block and it fell -- somewhere? I wandered around some more and couldn't find it.

Then I went back up to the sliding puzzle. I think they wanted me to slide another block with a faintly glowing spot on it to the upper-left? Fuck if I know. I gave up after about 10 minutes.

Scorn is like Dark Souls. Except, instead of punishing difficulty, it beats you around the head and neck with boredom.

Sent to the my Hall of Shame shelf after 1h 1m of playtime...

I pity the fool who pays full price for this game, and doesn't just try it on Game Pass.

I remember the old title back in the Kickstarter days, Das-Sein with 2 parts. It seems like you are born in a strange world, you react to it, challenge it, it challenges you, it scares you and then after a while you get used to it and have an idea of what is going on. Sounds familiar, sounds like life itself and finding its meaning in yourself. Great job for the idea, setting, sound, OST, graphics, boldness. I wish you guys more creative, unique and shocking titles.

P.S. I love the negative reviews saying that it does not have tutorials. What is wrong with you people? How simple does a game have to be?