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.

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 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.

With 'Scorn,' Ebb Software's homage to 'biomechanical' artist H.R. Giger, you are immersed in a world you may have second thoughts about visiting.

It’s mostly a tool for puzzle solving, and some of the nice flow the game has built up ends in the most grisly and shocking way possible. A lot of the obstacles involve trial and error as players uncover the shape of the problem before they find its solution. Players also have to handle disgusting creatures that stalk the structure’s halls. Players start with nothing, and over the course of the campaign, which lasts a little over seven hours, they’ll pick up weapons and other tools to aid them on their quest. Ebb wants players to be absorbed into every pixel of “Scorn,” feeling every gruesome detail and poring over the care the team put into this grotesque but fascinating world. The cogs and gears of the facility are clogged with the decaying remains of infested creatures.

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.