Scorn Review

Have you ever gazed upon something so ugly and gross that it does as much to genuinely repulse you as it does intrigue you? A freshly splattered cane toad, A Serbian Film, and my own reflection in the mirror are all things that come to mind. Games often try but fail in capturing this feeling of morbid curiosity. Scorn doesn’t so much dip its toe into evoking this feeling but makes it an entire game. Heavily inspired by H.R Giger and Zdzislaw Beksińsk, Scorn holds little regard for the squeamish and faint of heart. This survival horror experience forgoes conventional means of being scary, throwing you into a thick biomass of two parts – conceptual storytelling and an expressive, yet harsh atmosphere of survival.

To even begin describing Scorn’s plot with concrete language would be a disservice to its ideals. Sure, you may play as a human or human-like creature going into the depths of a forgotten, derelict sepulchre to remove a festering mass of horrors, but to take it on its face is out of the question. The secret sauce of Scorn’s storytelling lies within the details of you simply existing in its spaces. Descending into the depths of this completely alien civilisation is best taken slowly, to marvel at something so foreign, so off-putting, and giving yourself plenty of time to ask, “Why?” Only games with such rich environments that ooze with atmosphere can pull off what Scorn does effortlessly. The way these elements direct your mind to conceptualise your own answers to the ever-present mysterious nature of the plot is unequivocally the thrusting force, and is commended immensely.

We all yearn to return to the womb

When not being concerned about what lay beyond the next sphincter corridor, I often found myself just trying to comprehend what Scorn was trying to say. There’s so much imagery calling on ideas of birthing and the creation of life, which is then juxtaposed against parasitic forces that take on new life beyond their hosts; when is the relationship symbiotic and when is it parasitic? Your ideas will invariably be different to mine, but ultimately it’s this kind of abstraction that I wish more games had the audacity to strive for. It’s that oh-so-subtle difference between playing a videogame and experiencing an interactive piece. That might sound wanky, but it’s undeniable that Scorn is reaching for something higher than ‘haha, shoot weird looking chicken thing,’ and for the better, achieves it.

Scorn does, however, graciously let you laugh and blast weird looking chicken things, albeit without the laughing. Undoubtedly a horror game, Scorn isn’t scary in a traditional sense. Making you jump at the shadows or at a Mr.X like stalker isn’t how it builds trepidation. The dense atmosphere, harsh colour palette and grotesque environments together create an immense miasma of anguish that escalates further and further, gradually wearing your psyche down. Even when you’re armed to the gills with weapons, the fact Scorn maintains an overwhelming sense of distress throughout its length sets a whole new bar for horror games. While you can shoot the strange husks that seep from the sinew, combat has an awkwardness that only accentuates an oppressive feeling of dread. 

Bullets and healing items are a rare luxury, so knowing which creatures to blast and which to avoid becomes a vital lesson. The scarcity of such items does sometimes create unforgiving encounters where you have to run laps around enemies to safely hit them with your melee weapon. It is tedious, frustrating, and sucks some of the tension away having to constantly reload in these situations, but it ultimately feels punishing because of your own choice rather than the developers being cruel for cruelty’s sake.

What’s cool (not cruel) though is the outstanding puzzle design of Scorn, particularly in the way it scales across the game. For the most part your immediate goal is attempting to revive ancient machinery. This involves solving various smaller puzzles to bring back to life the working parts of larger contraptions which themselves are a part of a grander puzzle spanning entire Acts of the game. This is demonstrated best in Act IV, where you’re basically shown the exit but must manually operate the heavy machines throughout the level at each roadblock to open the path for the platform to be put in its correct place

Could this be a dog

These hindrances are made engaging though smaller conventional puzzles like getting a flesh-made switchboard to light up, but are escalated in such a way that even when you’ve grasped the idea of the puzzle, Scorn finds a way to present the same problem differently. No idea lingers for too long. Once a design is taken to its natural conclusion (in both large and small scale puzzles), a new set of ever-interesting ideas takes its place, remaining ever unpredictable and always surprising.

There’s also this appreciable quality to Scorn in how unobtrusive the UI is. You’ll always know what you can and can’t interact with, and how much ammo and health you have, but It all just looks cohesive, ironically clean, and lived-in, especially the various weapons you acquire which are more or less different barrels for the same firing mechanism. This all feeds back into keeping you well and truly immersed, like your little ammo anemone, that’s always visible by looking down at your feet. 

Scorn never really overstays its welcome either, depending on your bravery. For myself it was about a six-hour, seamless journey and it never felt like a slog, in fact much the opposite. I wish there was more, the best problem a game can have. On the technical side, I encountered no bugs throughout the journey and there’s a loaded day-one patch that should keep things stable.

The big dipper

Final Thoughts

The oddities of Scorn come in no way shape or form from its technical aspects though. While it is a grotesquely beautiful game, the emphasis on environments and their ability to subtly show you a story is really what makes Scorn something to behold. With survival gameplay that bolsters the mesmerising journey through grotesquery, Scorn is a feast for the eyes and a buffet for the mind, but not for those with a weak stomach. Utterly unique, Scorn satisfies the morbid and the curious with its odd forms and sombre tapestries, and as long as that’s what you’re looking for you’re in for a treat. 

Reviewed on PC // Review code supplied by publisher

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