Scorn is a first person, single-player survival horror game by Ebb Software, that takes place from the artistic perspective of HR Giger. This game takes place in an unknown realm where you play as a humanoid creature with exposed organs. It takes a very artistic approach to a kind of biopunk world where all the machines are organic with flesh and bones, while not using gears and machine parts.
Scorn was released on Oct. 3, 2022 for PlayStation 5, but was later released on Oct. 18, 2022 for Microsoft Windows and Xbox series X/S. This is a kind of open-world game with locked areas that you need to solve to unlock them. This game focuses on the scenic part, and wants you to pay attention to the design rather than fast and intense gameplay. This game is slower than normal games, and likes to focus and play a lot into the story.
The game starts with a cutscene as you, a lost humanoid entity, stumble into a vast wasteland with dead bodies sprawled all over the place, left to rot. You fall into a crevasse in the ground where you fall into a factory called he Assembly, a recycling plant used to repurpose living things. As you travel deeper into this facility you are met with puzzles you need to solve to try and find a way back to the surface. As you solve puzzles and explore deeper into this place, you come across a small machine that you put your hand inside, fusing a key into your hand, and cutting into it. As you solve puzzles you end up covering yourself in a kind of acid that kills you.
You wake up as a different character sealed in a kind of egg with something that resembles an umbilical cord in you. As you break out, you pull out the cord from you and see other creatures’ corpses left next to you, and you walk through another wasteland until you come across a huge spaceship. Eventually, after solving puzzles to turn the ship on, you are met with a scare from this lizard-type creature that wraps around you, digs both of its hands into your stomach, and “hitches a ride” with your body. While this hurts your character, it isn’t entirely bad, as this creature grants you a new ability to use its tail as a gun that works like a piston.
The more puzzles you solve, the more you get to see the organic machines move and work. As you finally power a pod to take you to the area, you unlock attachments to your “gun” that lets you shoot a shotgun-type blast. Ammunition and health are scarce in this game, so it allows you to use your resources wisely.
As you make it out of the ship, you come across a huge castle filled with statues and sculptures of other humanoid creatures unlike yourself. In order to unlock a specific door, you end up starting a small boss fight to fight for the egg. Once you win, you take the egg back to the machine and squeeze the blood out of it. After you beat the boss, you unlock a weapon that resembles a grenade launcher.
Soon after, your hand fuses to the gun, only allowing you to use the grenade launcher, adding a new challenge to the game. You are forced into another boss fight for enough blood to power the next machine, and as you complete it, both your arms are covered in roots, limiting your abilities. The creature on your back digs into you more, leaving you on the brink of death, but just before you die, you find a machine that rips the creature off of you. With your fatal injuries, you strap yourself into a machine and let a robot operate on you, cutting your head open and seemingly transferring your mind to two humanoid robots that you control, letting you switch between them. As you control these robots, you pick up your former body, carrying it to a pathway with statues on the weather side, leading you into a purple light. But before you can make it, the same lizard-type monster kills you, bringing your story to an abrupt end.
Overall, this game has mostly positive ratings on Steam and I really enjoyed playing this game. This game would be a great choice for anyone who likes puzzles, horror, and one who wants a new view of an eerie world.
