Scorn is an unsettling outing into a dystopian alien society where the player is tasked with navigating various puzzles. Although no clear goal is spelled-out for the player, your task seemingly demands you escape the ancient structures from which you awaken.
Make no mistake, the chief appeal and greatest accomplishments of this title are found in its unique art direction. Scorn's grotesque presentation serves as an explicit ode to the works of H.R. Giger and surrealist artist Zdzisław Beksiński. The humanoid alien society in which Scorn takes place clearly draws from both their works. The parasitic plant depicted in Beksiński's 1978 "AA78" is personified by the eerie overgrowth the player must navigate as they physically descend Scorn's world. Further still, desolate landscapes and gothic cathedral-like edifices serve to evoke his many apocalyptic oil paintings. Society in Scorn appears revolved around the cyclical production and conclusion of life. Players will note the architecture they manipulate to progress will symbolically nod to the mechanical way by which society reproduced in the world of Scorn. Its biophysical and highly sexual undertones assuredly pull from H.R. Giger's various works. I imagine most players will at least have some familiarity with the original "Alien" films, and their influence on Scorn is readily observable. The macabre environmental design in Scorn serves it well in depicting its staggering, intriguingly vague story. Scorn has many touchstones: the cycle of life, maternalism, the burdens an individual bears for their society or the means by which a civilization might fight its own extinction.
While art direction is certainly the star here, justifying Scorn's existence in its own right, the rest of the experience garners more mixed feelings for me. The audio design was good and helped to promote a foreboding atmosphere. Of-course there are moments of gore with some particularly uncomfortable sounds and images for those who are even remotely squeamish. Puzzle design is overall pretty fine, with most individual puzzles demand some thought without being particularly obtuse. Homogenous, albeit engrossing, environmental design will be disorienting for most players when solving puzzles that demand them to cover some distance. This is made worse in Acts III-IV, where players must first engage with Scorn's combat in a meaningful way.
Initially, combat in Scorn is pretty dreadful. The limited types of enemies all encourage some "gamey" or "cheesy" actions of the player if they wish to avoid an exceedingly punishing death. In the earlier goings most enemies in Scorn are felled primarily by utilizing corners or structures as 'cover' while zig-zagging towards them to deploy an underpowered melee attack. Eventually, the player earns two more weapons that are more efficacious, but with severely limited ammunition. These weapons, as well as one endgame weapon, actually boast pretty rad designs (I'll also add that reloading is slow... but cool to look at). I actually found it somewhat rewarding and tense to manage the ammo for these weapons. You have an additional puzzle of making strategical decisions to skip combat encounters or engage, as one might do in a survival-horror game. However, this is ultimately a slight on the game, not a strength. The uncertainty governing combat management is made tedious by an unforgiving checkpoint system (and nonexistent save system). I only died twice in my Scorn play-through (once in Act III, once in Act V), but this was through excessively cautious, lucky play and not because of any particular 'skill.' I have heard of others losing an hour+ of progress, but in my experience the checkpoints I reached (although not manually loadable) generally only set me back 30s-5min prior to my deaths. I respect Scorn's unapologetic commitment to itself as a first-person, disturbing puzzle game in 3/5ths of its "Acts." However, I do think the game loses its identity a bit in acts III-IV, where the game becomes burdened with poorly implemented combat.
It is worth noting that Scorn was initially reported to have quite a few bugs, however I experienced none during my play-through on the Xbox Series X (~6 hours of gametime). Sometimes enemies clipped through the environment, but I did not encounter any progress-halting bugs nor other glitches. I am unsure if the day one console patch (~3gb) resolved many of the issues media outlets experienced, or if I just got lucky. Although I did not experience any bugs or crashes, this does not undermine the experiences others had. The topic of these bugs/glitches is just one I cannot comment on further, based off my personal time with the game.
Overall, I am inclined to recommend Scorn to those who understand just what this game is and accept the caveat that the compelling journey it takes you on is not one that will intermix much in the way of traditional action-focused gameplay. It could do with a few QoL adjustments, particularly in melee damage and a save feature. Scorn is not a survival-horror game, nor is it a pure walking simulator or no-combat puzzle game. Its agglomerative nature is probably to its detriment, but within its flaws exists a wholly unique experience. Scorn's artists/designers made good use of Unreal Engine 5, it would seem, as the visual impact this game has is profound. It is easy to recommend this game on those grounds alone. This is Ebb Software's debut title, and I am excited to see what they will produce in the future! Not many developers can produce such a fascinating, unique and well-realized world in their first outing. This team operates out of Serbia, and represent part of the explosion of GameDev talent we are seeing in Eastern Europe at the time of my writing... Teams like Ebb Software, SadCat, 4A Games (who have relocated to Malta, but originated in Kiev), GSC Game World, and Mundfish are all worth keeping an eye on in the years to come.
It is hard for me to put a number score on Scorn, and truth-be-told it personally lands for me somewhere between the ★★★½ " Good" and ★★★★ "Great" marks.
Make no mistake, the chief appeal and greatest accomplishments of this title are found in its unique art direction. Scorn's grotesque presentation serves as an explicit ode to the works of H.R. Giger and surrealist artist Zdzisław Beksiński. The humanoid alien society in which Scorn takes place clearly draws from both their works. The parasitic plant depicted in Beksiński's 1978 "AA78" is personified by the eerie overgrowth the player must navigate as they physically descend Scorn's world. Further still, desolate landscapes and gothic cathedral-like edifices serve to evoke his many apocalyptic oil paintings. Society in Scorn appears revolved around the cyclical production and conclusion of life. Players will note the architecture they manipulate to progress will symbolically nod to the mechanical way by which society reproduced in the world of Scorn. Its biophysical and highly sexual undertones assuredly pull from H.R. Giger's various works. I imagine most players will at least have some familiarity with the original "Alien" films, and their influence on Scorn is readily observable. The macabre environmental design in Scorn serves it well in depicting its staggering, intriguingly vague story. Scorn has many touchstones: the cycle of life, maternalism, the burdens an individual bears for their society or the means by which a civilization might fight its own extinction.
While art direction is certainly the star here, justifying Scorn's existence in its own right, the rest of the experience garners more mixed feelings for me. The audio design was good and helped to promote a foreboding atmosphere. Of-course there are moments of gore with some particularly uncomfortable sounds and images for those who are even remotely squeamish. Puzzle design is overall pretty fine, with most individual puzzles demand some thought without being particularly obtuse. Homogenous, albeit engrossing, environmental design will be disorienting for most players when solving puzzles that demand them to cover some distance. This is made worse in Acts III-IV, where players must first engage with Scorn's combat in a meaningful way.
Initially, combat in Scorn is pretty dreadful. The limited types of enemies all encourage some "gamey" or "cheesy" actions of the player if they wish to avoid an exceedingly punishing death. In the earlier goings most enemies in Scorn are felled primarily by utilizing corners or structures as 'cover' while zig-zagging towards them to deploy an underpowered melee attack. Eventually, the player earns two more weapons that are more efficacious, but with severely limited ammunition. These weapons, as well as one endgame weapon, actually boast pretty rad designs (I'll also add that reloading is slow... but cool to look at). I actually found it somewhat rewarding and tense to manage the ammo for these weapons. You have an additional puzzle of making strategical decisions to skip combat encounters or engage, as one might do in a survival-horror game. However, this is ultimately a slight on the game, not a strength. The uncertainty governing combat management is made tedious by an unforgiving checkpoint system (and nonexistent save system). I only died twice in my Scorn play-through (once in Act III, once in Act V), but this was through excessively cautious, lucky play and not because of any particular 'skill.' I have heard of others losing an hour+ of progress, but in my experience the checkpoints I reached (although not manually loadable) generally only set me back 30s-5min prior to my deaths. I respect Scorn's unapologetic commitment to itself as a first-person, disturbing puzzle game in 3/5ths of its "Acts." However, I do think the game loses its identity a bit in acts III-IV, where the game becomes burdened with poorly implemented combat.
It is worth noting that Scorn was initially reported to have quite a few bugs, however I experienced none during my play-through on the Xbox Series X (~6 hours of gametime). Sometimes enemies clipped through the environment, but I did not encounter any progress-halting bugs nor other glitches. I am unsure if the day one console patch (~3gb) resolved many of the issues media outlets experienced, or if I just got lucky. Although I did not experience any bugs or crashes, this does not undermine the experiences others had. The topic of these bugs/glitches is just one I cannot comment on further, based off my personal time with the game.
Overall, I am inclined to recommend Scorn to those who understand just what this game is and accept the caveat that the compelling journey it takes you on is not one that will intermix much in the way of traditional action-focused gameplay. It could do with a few QoL adjustments, particularly in melee damage and a save feature. Scorn is not a survival-horror game, nor is it a pure walking simulator or no-combat puzzle game. Its agglomerative nature is probably to its detriment, but within its flaws exists a wholly unique experience. Scorn's artists/designers made good use of Unreal Engine 5, it would seem, as the visual impact this game has is profound. It is easy to recommend this game on those grounds alone. This is Ebb Software's debut title, and I am excited to see what they will produce in the future! Not many developers can produce such a fascinating, unique and well-realized world in their first outing. This team operates out of Serbia, and represent part of the explosion of GameDev talent we are seeing in Eastern Europe at the time of my writing... Teams like Ebb Software, SadCat, 4A Games (who have relocated to Malta, but originated in Kiev), GSC Game World, and Mundfish are all worth keeping an eye on in the years to come.
It is hard for me to put a number score on Scorn, and truth-be-told it personally lands for me somewhere between the ★★★½ " Good" and ★★★★ "Great" marks.