Review: ‘Scorn’ is an atmospheric and unsettling ode to H.R. Giger

Although he passed away in 2014, H.R. Giger remains one of the most influential artists in popular culture. His visionary design laid the groundwork for the unsettling and nightmarish landscape of the “Alien” franchise, and his “biomechanical” aesthetic rippled out, influencing anime, comics and other media, including video games.

One of those is “Scorn,” a game by Serbian studio Ebb Software. It’s a first-person survival-horror game that practically oozes Giger’s designs. It’s an immersive and sometimes frustrating experience, as players take on the role of a nameless protagonist who wakes up in a dilapidated biomechanical factory.

A DEMANDING IMMERSION
It’s a creepy start as players find their bearings and delve into this labyrinthine structure. Pipes that look like veins or intestines run across the ground. Cranes have fiendishly dangerous claws. The cogs and gears of the facility are clogged with the decaying remains of infested creatures. 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.

The ultimate goal is a little fuzzy. The issue with “Scorn” is that it lacks dialogue. Players are thrown into this mysterious world and the developers leave them to suss everything out. There’s no explanation and that makes the learning curve fairly high. It also means that the campaign will leave players frustrated as well as frightened.

All of this is in service to the immersion. 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. For all of its demands, it’s a move that works.

MAKING YOUR SKIN CRAWL
“Scorn” sucks you into its horror-filled world so fully that if it were any more atmospheric, you’d be dead, or at least in a hospital bed, suffering from a nervous breakdown. It’s a game with moments that will make your skin crawl as the protagonist does anything to reach the next part of the structure and survives wounds that would kill a normal being 10 times over.

Revulsion isn’t the only emotion players will feel. They’ll also have a heavy dose of frustration. The big hurdle in “Scorn” is deciphering all the puzzles, which aren’t explained. Figuring them out involves the deduction of the rules and goals. Some of them are easy to guess while others are obtuse. Whatever the case, “Scorn” demands players pay attention to every detail.

Often I was stuck because I overlooked a contraption along the hallway or I missed moving a part to one tiny space in a puzzle. A lot of the obstacles involve trial and error as players uncover the shape of the problem before they find its solution.

THE SURVIVAL/HORROR ELEMENT
Puzzles are the introduction to “Scorn,” but as they advance, players will find weapons that start with an “Alien”-esque melee weapon and build up to a grenade launcher of sorts.

Players also have to handle disgusting creatures that stalk the structure’s halls. The big problem players face is that the biomechanical weapons take forever to reload, and, even worse, ammo is scarce.

When facing slow-moving crawlers and their more agile two-legged cousins, players have to aim for creatures’ heads and dispatch them quickly to avoid damage and save bullets. Better yet, stealth is an option and it’s more beneficial to be patient and wait for enemies to pass rather than confront them.

Weapons should be tools of last resort. It’s better to save ammo for when players are cornered while wandering a hallway.

A DIFFERENT TYPE OF HORROR
“Scorn’s” pacing is slightly disappointing because it hits its stride right toward the end. After a frustrating boss fight, players don’t get to use the grenade launcher they acquired in combat. 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.

The ending, like the rest of the campaign, is distressing which I suppose it’s a perfect conclusion to a game that is disturbing from start to end.

‘Scorn’

2½ stars out of 4
Platform: PC, Xbox Series X and Series S
Rating: Not rated, but most likely for Mature audiences