game review: Scorn

I tried hard to love this game...and I did! But I can't recommend it, not without some major caveats.

First things first: the look and feel of the game, its environment, lighting, and sound design, are 11/10. Ebb absolutely killed it and I'm happy they took as long as they did to do so. Fans of Giger, Beksinski, and Cronenberg will be drawn to this game for obvious reasons. In Scorn, your feeble, tormented character wanders around a cold, disgusting, biomechanical superstructure, a monumental and unwelcoming presence which wholly envelops you, making you feel like a speck of dust: small, forgotten, hopeless, and insignificant. Sickening machines of unknown purpose stand ominously next to piles of gore. The croaks and gurgles of ungodly creatures echo through the skeletal halls. Everything you see and interact with is hideous and captivating, in the best way. I'm not only impressed, but inspired by the wickedly immersive and thoughtful aesthetic experience of this game. It's something to aim for. Other studios and projects will struggle to carry tone and artistic vision the way Ebb did with Scorn.

The level design is also phenomenal. Orderly, geometric floor plans are broken by tasteful asymmetry, dilapidation, and corrupted organic growth. Each chapter has its own architectural styles and motifs that gave them a unique flavor as you progress, a reward in itself. Verticality is a huge aspect of the layouts, twisting and folding back on themselves, which succeeded multiple times in making me feel like I had wandered far away only for me to notice that I was above or next to an area I recognized. This is also a huge part of the aesthetic experience, as you'll be shouldering around the tight throat of a hallway one moment, then come out to a stunning, decaying vista the next. There were probably a dozen moments in this game where the view in front of me was so stunning, my jaw fell open and I had to just stop in place and take it in. Even backtracking was rewarding in that the paths in reverse had details of their own.

But wait, how much backtracking? A good amount, and that leads into the first downside...

Initially, the gameplay is not unlike a point-and-click adventure, in that you walk around, find items, and use those items somewhere else. Immediately in the first act, though, after wandering around and inspecting all the interactable things on the level, I was confused. Eventually I worked out that I needed to solve the (now infamous) sliding pod puzzle. Not only was it too subtle that this was even a puzzle at all, I found the "cues" for what you had to do to solve it kind of unintuitive, already a concerning sign for a puzzle game, made even more concerning by Scorn's minimalist approach. I play a lot of logic and puzzle games, so I enjoy a tricky or "hardcore" challenge like this, but it gives me pause in broadly recommending Scorn. It demands patience in a way that will turn many people off in its first hour (and I've seen many reviews to this effect). To be fair, the puzzles from that point on felt more intuitive. But considering it's the first major roadblock you face, I think the devs could have better eased the player into it, guiding them a bit better. Be prepared to backtrack and search around while you determine if you missed something earlier. And, unfortunately, be prepared to encounter things while you backtrack and search.

So yes, let's talk about the gunplay, this game's weakest point by far. Scorn is not a shooter. I remember early on when it was announced, there was more of a focus on the gunplay, but Ebb seems to have de-prioritized that element, and I'm glad they did. But I wish they went even further. The combat in Scorn is unnecessary and feels stapled on - for example, most enemies you can and should avoid altogether, or fire one shot at then run past them rather than try to kill them. It's like Ebb either didn't want to let people down by removing it, or throw away the weapon art assets and design decisions they'd already worked on, or both. I feel like the combat could be removed from the game and it wouldn't have had less of an impact on me; in fact, its inclusion is distracting and too tastes too "game-y" compared with all the wonder of its environment. I've seen other reviewers hope for something like the "safe mode" in SOMA, which optionally turns off enemy encounters altogether, and I agree. The best compromise I can imagine is for enemies to still be around, maybe still block your path sometimes in the case of the big "charger" guys in the later acts, just not aggro or attack you. Then they're more like an interactable part of the environment and you can consider the impulse to kill them or not.

Other people seem to have crashes and graphical issues and stuff, but I haven't experienced much of that. Assuming they'll patch that out, I haven't factored that into my recommendation.

Overall I would recommend buying Scorn on sale if you are interested in a challenging aesthetic experience over compelling gameplay, willing to play it with patience, and willing to forgive its shortcomings. The current price point of $40 given its length (appx. 5 to 8 hours) is a bit steep. However I will say that if you're speedrunning this game, you're totally missing the point. Play it slowly. And it does have replay value, but not if you're only motivated by Steam achievements, lol. I will definitely be playing this game again.

Some grab-bag improvements that could be made:

• As many reviews mention, checkpoints should be more frequent, especially right after completing a puzzle. There is no reason to make players repeat these sections if they die.
• Only show controls which display on the pause menu that are currently available and relevant. I was stuck on a part where I thought I couldn't switch weapons, because there's a control simply labeled "Switch", and it didn't do anything. Turns out this "Switch" control is only available during the last 5 minutes of the game - so why is it shown on this screen the entire time? I think it would make more sense to only show that control during the small section where it matters. Similar idea with the weapon and item controls as they're unlocked.
• Would be nice to holster my weapon when I'm just walking around. Better for screenshots and immersion :)

Criticism aside, kudos to Ebb for an incredible art game and I can't wait to see what they do next!