Scorn

Clumsy map design, phoned in combat mechanics and an especially intense set piece late in the game made me wish "Scorn" was a more focused, ...

It kept me immersed in the game’s atmosphere instead of worrying about a trophy I might’ve missed. I was never particularly scared of anything I encountered; like the playable creature, I just wanted out. I emailed Kepler about this and was sent a content warning screen that will be added to “Scorn” before release, containing the usual disclaimers about epileptic seizures, violence, gore and “sensitive and adult themes.” Maybe I’m overanalyzing how brutal this scene could be for some people, but I don’t think this general warning is enough of a heads up for what I played. All I can say is that it involves extreme torture, mutilation and what I would argue is a form of sexual assault. Still, I also wish there were more small titles like “Scorn” that play out like one giant level with a clear, cohesive theme. If you die, you’ll be punished by “Scorn’s” unforgiving checkpoint system and forced to retread a significant amount of gameplay, unable to skip any of the game’s lengthy puzzle animations. The game’s description on Steam and the Microsoft Store make note of all this. Toward the end of the game, there are also lots of risque statues and landmarks clearly influenced by Giger’s more erotic work. Once, the game crashed on me during a cutscene, costing me nearly an hour of progress. Even the dust particles drifting in the smoky, dull light of eye-shaped lamps move in a way that feels unnatural. The puzzles in “Scorn” are hard and many of them had me cursing at my monitor, wishing for walk-throughs that didn’t exist yet. “Scorn,” a first-person horror game from Serbian developer Ebb Software and published by Kepler Interactive, is most definitely not about truckers in space.

Scorn, the first-person survival-horror game on Xbox Game Pass, has grotesque visuals in its H.R. Giger-inspired world, but its gameplay gradually loses ...

But the dread of the strange and the obscure that it so carefully cultivates up to that point begins to fade. In practice, all that happens is the screen going red around the edges while the controller vibrates and you wait for the interruption to pass. To peel back the layers of this bizarre and horrible society is also to strip away the game’s early sense of invention and discovery. When you rotate the segments of a pipe-like contraption, you’ll have to pay attention to the differences in how the little parts shift. Scorn places you as the primary instigator of violence; you, after all, are the one bringing this abandoned machinery whirring back to life for one more demonstration of its cruel purpose: the tearing, squishing, and overall pulverizing of some livestock creature seemingly bred only to die. In crafting its alien terrors, the studio has looked to artists famous for their capacity to unsettle, whether in the desolate surrealism of Zdzisław Beksiński or the biomechanical grotesquerie of H.R.

That's the best way I can describe the overall experience of playing Scorn, a first-person puzzle game about exploring the ruins of a dead civilization. With a ...

On the contrary, it seems like combat was meant to be a pain in the ass to encourage you to avoid it if you can. But there's no real stealth or cover system either, so I generally resorted to cheap but tedious strategies, such as running around a pillar like a cartoon character and getting in a hit whenever I could, or attempting to run past all the enemies and praying I wouldn't take too much damage. It features “classic” Assassin’s Creed gameplay and takes place in an open world, but is a mobile game rather than a console release.](/videos/assassins-creed-codename-jade-reveal-trailer-ubisoft-forward-2022) [Dune: Awakening Reveal TrailerTake your place in the fight for Arrakis in Dune: Awakening, an open world survival MMO set in the sci-fi world of Frank Herbert's Dune.](/videos/cyberpunk-2077-phantom-liberty-teaser-trailer) [Marvel’s Secret Invasion Official TrailerMarvel Studios released the first look at Secret Invasion at Disney’s D23 Expo 2022. Thankfully combat is only a major part of one of five chapters, which is the only reason it didn't entirely ruin the experience for me. There are parts of it that could perhaps be called darkly beautiful, but once you strap in, you're in for a journey that will never let up on trying to shock and unsettle you. Each round that goes into one of your weapons has to be hand-loaded, and getting more from a replenishment station is another animation all its own. And for my part, I do think I was able to piece it together by the end of my brief but dense seven-and-a half hour journey into hell. thing who wakes up in the middle of this mess and sets about solving some moderately challenging puzzles with no stated mission other than to keep moving forward. This nameless homunculus, or whatever he is, presents me with the same question as the expanse around him: Is any of this even worth saving? Soaring, alien spires mimic the shapes of bone and viscera, while foreboding tunnels give you the distinct impression of being swallowed whole. [Scorn](/games/scorn), a first-person puzzle game about exploring the ruins of a dead civilization. You keep pulling out weirder and more confusing stuff, and you really don't want to go back in again – but what you've found so far makes you extremely curious about what other secrets may be hiding in there.

Scorn, the survival horror game from Ebb Software, is out now on Xbox and PC, but how is the game holding up with critics? Reviews are now online alongside ...

"Scorn has one of the most beautiful worlds you'll see in a game (if you can see beauty in the grotesque). Finishing Scorn does not leave players with a sense of satisfaction; it's not scary and it's not fun. [Scorn review](https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/scorn-review-pound-of-flesh/1900-6417976/) scored the game a 4/10, with critic Alessandro Barbosa saying the game is hard to recommend. But I respect Scorn for its technical artistry, design and environmental world-building that successfully encourages player agency, and how strong and cohesive it feels in its overall creative vision, despite its mentally and physically taxing nature." "I certainly don't enjoy Scorn in the way that I do most video games. But the fact that it's such a bite-sized sprint through the grisly and surreal made it memorable and satisfying. I'm hopeful its checkpoint pain can be alleviated with a patch, and it's a type of game I'd only like to see more of." There's simply too much in Scorn that works to push you away from it rather than pull you deeper into it, making even its relatively brief adventure a difficult one to suggest you give your time to." "The restrictive saves and unbalanced combat combine to make much of Scorn's adventure a frustrating slog, betraying the initial promising opening hours that emphasize puzzle-solving and atmosphere above everything else. Ebb Software signed an exclusivity deal with Microsoft for Scorn to help the studio obtain more resources and greater exposure through marketing, the studio Giger and is very disturbing and disgusting. Reviews are now online alongside the game's launch, and opinions are all over the place.

Scorn's frustrating combat, unbalanced puzzles, and unforgiving checkpoints make it an infuriating slog through an otherwise intriguing setting.

Although some enemies are placed in spaces that allow you to cleverly find alternative routes around them, many of them appear in narrow hallways that don't allow you to get on either side of them easily. Exploration and puzzles are at the core of Scorn's gameplay loop. You'll explore a handful of different constrained biomes during each of the game's five acts, all of which are large, multi-step puzzles made up of small ones that must be solved in a specific order. It's not that any of them is frustrating or annoying to interact with, it's more that they're just completely unsurprising. The walls of its labyrinthine halls are constructed with twisting contortions of flesh, and its mechanically complex contraptions are drenched in the blood of discarded carcasses that lay decaying without care. Scorn's violence isn't memorable; instead it's a disappointing departure from the well-crafted horror of its inspirations, wasting the potential of its alluring aesthetic.

The game design gets in the way of the art design in this gruesome adventure…

In fact, playing it on the Deck with the lights out and headphones on was our preferred option (until we got stuck again and had to remind ourselves not to launch it against the wall). It's just a shame that world is also home to a frustrating puzzle-heavy adventure filled with aimless wandering. Sometimes it’ll lead to a puzzle (which is also typically lacking in any real signposting), other times it’ll just mean you have to move on to finding the next thing to activate. Instead, most of Scorn is spent stumbling around, looking for parts of the scenery that might be interactive. We fully appreciate that some players will be more tolerant of Scorn’s complete lack of signposting or even any subtle nods as to what to do. This specific issue aside, the whole thing is so deeply disappointing, because in any other situation Scorn’s world should be held up in the highest of regards. And on paper, other games like this have succeeded, going all the way back to the likes of Myst. This would be annoying enough were it not for the fact that these beautiful environments aren’t really designed too well when it comes to determining which parts can be navigated. Or, to return to our tenuous analogy, give us the zoo without forcing us to keep returning to the function room. It’s a deeply atmospheric, artistically accomplished environment, then, and we’d be more than happy just being given free rein to explore it in detail. We can’t even describe what we’re seeing most of the time – all we know is it’s both disgusting and dazzling at once. Lots of slots, holes and wound-like notches for you to jam your fingers, your hand, even someone else’s dismembered arm into, with the magnificent sound design accompanying this with a satisfyingly sickening squelch.

The game has gone through two Kickstarter campaigns, private funding, and a partnership with Microsoft, but now Ebb Software's love letter to everything H.R. ...

To ensure that everyone was on the same page about the game’s expected completion time, the team later posted that predicted playthrough length on their [Twitter account](https://twitter.com/scorn_game/status/1574429065615900672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1574429065615900672%7Ctwgr%5E825402cd206304f18003e300c91f2f9b6da7fb4f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pcgamesn.com%2Fscorn%2Fhow-long). [ACG](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_ogpRIEaI4), attest that it’s more akin to a walking simulator with guns and puzzles. In 2018, Ebb Software secured even more funding from Kowloon Nights, though that deal required them to combine Dasein and Scorn’s [unnamed second act](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1777595379/scorn-part-1-of-2-dasein/posts/2206856) into one big game. The protagonist plods through the game’s biomechanical halls and is slow to aim and reload his weapons. You’re probably looking at something closer to the median (about 5-6 hours), but that really depends on a few factors. Most early estimates suggest you can expect to spend about 3 to 15 hours with the new horror game.

The first-person horror adventure nails a mood and tone I have great appreciation for, but falls short in key ways.

Also, the game is suffering from a kind of stutter I’m starting to notice more and more of in Unreal Engine games. The fingerprints of Giger-esque biomechanical sexuality are there in the design of its various tunnels and rising phallic objects, but lack the clear details of actual human anatomy. I think Scorn could’ve stood to learn more from the eroticism of Giger’s work in its gameplay as well. But for me, its key failing is the art design’s almost shocking (given the source material’s) lack of engagement with human sexuality. The way it tends to play out is you come across strange rooms and devices whose purposes are unclear. You’ll find the call quality is enhanced as the four built-in microphones are used to suppress any ambient noise and amplify your voice those on your call only hear what you intend for them to hear. As a trans woman who’s spent most of her life closeted, I’ve found HR Giger’s work viscerally communicates an ambience of doomed sex, sexuality, and physical forms, a general sense of unease and confusion that resonates with how I’ve seen the world for most of my life. His images provide meditative spaces that are much more cerebral and in tune with my feelings of the world than the more simplistic, gore-for-gore’s-sake utility Hollywood has often reduced it to. Scorn, in the five hours I’ve spent with it, appeals to me because it imparts so much friction on the player. I’ll let you, the reader, deal with the philosophical angle, as that’s not my specialty and I have no desire to comment on Martin Heidegger’s work or how it applies to this game. It bills itself as “an atmospheric first-person horror adventure game set in a nightmarish universe of odd forms and somber tapestry” and also And in that, Scorn might be a successful game.