''Scorn'' is a
first-person biopunk
Biopunk (a portmanteau of "biotechnology" or "biology" and "punk") is a subgenre of science fiction that focuses on biotechnology. It is derived from cyberpunk, but focuses on the implications of biotechnology rather than mechanical cyberware and ...
survival horror
Survival horror is a subgenre of survival of the players as the game tries to frighten them with either horror graphics or scary ambience. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical ac ...
adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
developed by
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...
n developer Ebb Software for
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
Xbox Series X/S
The Xbox Series X/S are home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. They were both released on November 10, 2020, as the fourth generation Xbox, succeeding the Xbox One. Along with Sony's PlayStation 5, also released in November 2020, t ...
. The game is inspired by the works of visual artists
H. R. Giger
Hans Ruedi Giger ( ; ; 5 February 1940 – 12 May 2014) was a Swiss artist best known for his airbrushed images that blended human physiques with machines, an art style known as " biomechanical". Giger later abandoned airbrush for pastels, mark ...
and
Zdzisław Beksiński
Zdzisław Beksiński (; 24 February 192921 February 2005) was a Polish painter, photographer, and sculptor, specializing in the field of dystopian surrealism.
Beksiński made his paintings and drawings in what he called either a Baroque or a Go ...
. The game was released on 14 October 2022 for
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
Xbox Series X/S
The Xbox Series X/S are home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. They were both released on November 10, 2020, as the fourth generation Xbox, succeeding the Xbox One. Along with Sony's PlayStation 5, also released in November 2020, t ...
.
Synopsis
The story takes place on an alien planet following a seemingly devastating war. The silent humanoid protagonist first awakens and attempts to cross a wasteland called The Field heading towards the looming citadel called The Crater seen in the distance before falling down a massive crevasse into a
factory
A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...
called the Assembly, a recycling plant that repurposes living things. While traversing the facility, the protagonist gradually acquires a
captive bolt pistol
A captive bolt (also variously known as a cattle gun, stunbolt gun, bolt gun, or stunner) is a device used for stunning animals prior to slaughter.
The goal of captive bolt stunning is to inflict a forceful strike on the forehead with the b ...
as well as various weapons and machinery which allows it to manipulate the facility's technology. Once it reaches the heart of the facility, the protagonist causes the heart's arteries to burst which knocks it unconscious and covers it with fluid. At this point, the protagonist seemingly faints while a similar being as the protagonist awakens and emerges from an egg-like shell structure elsewhere. The new protagonist makes its way to The Crater that has seemingly been infested with hostile entities.
During this time, the protagonist is attacked and seemingly infested by a
parasite
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has ...
, which allows the protagonist to use several
weapons
A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...
and machines, but regularly wounds it and apparently grows tendril-like roots that gradually cover its body. The infested protagonist reaches a central elevator that has been enveloped by a massive creature with a vaguely humanoid head called "The Crater Queen". Reactivating the elevator apparently kills the Queen but allows the protagonist access to a
monorail
A monorail (from "mono", meaning "one", and "rail") is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or a beam.
Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurately, ...
to reach a temple called Polis.
While the protagonist is exploring the temple, the parasite nearly fully envelops it, forcing it to use a machine to remove the parasite. During this process, it is heavily implied that the parasite is actually the first protagonist who mutated when the Assembly heart burst. Just before it is removed, the parasite disembowels the protagonist, who staggers to another medical device that connects it to an apparent
hive mind within the temple. Controlling two androids called Shells, the second protagonist attempts to carry its own body towards a swirling energy field, but gets attacked and infested by the parasite before it can reach the field. With the parasite now merged with the protagonist, the two form a mass of seemingly immovable flesh.
Gameplay
The player controls a humanoid lost in a nightmarish world filled with grotesque creatures and techno-organic, living structures composed of machines, flesh, and bone. Over the course of the game, the player must explore different interconnected regions, fighting for survival, and gaining vague insights into the nature of the game's world.
Gameplay is primarily split between exploration, puzzle-solving, and combat. Puzzles are primarily based in experimentation and learning the nature of the many machines in the environment, such as repairing a complex transit system. For combat, the game presents various biomechanical weapons that all attach to a modular base: to utilize a specific weapon, the player character must remove the current weapon from the base and replace it with another. The game features four weapons: A melee weapon similar to a
captive bolt pistol
A captive bolt (also variously known as a cattle gun, stunbolt gun, bolt gun, or stunner) is a device used for stunning animals prior to slaughter.
The goal of captive bolt stunning is to inflict a forceful strike on the forehead with the b ...
, which can also be used to power machinery at specific points; a pistol-like weapon, which can be used for accurate low-powered shots; a shotgun-like weapon, which has high damage at close range, but a low ammo capacity; and an implosive grenade launcher, mostly used for environmental destruction in the context of puzzles. Ammunition and health is deposited from limited-use storage stations. Health does not replenish on death, and can be drained via the environment or scripted events.
Development
Ebb Software is a
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...
n game development studio founded in 2013. The developers claim to have designed the game around the idea of
"being thrown into the world", and as such, very little context is given about the game's setting. They also explained that they want the unsettling environment to be a character itself. The game director wanted to study the "Space Jockey" from the film ''
Alien
Alien primarily refers to:
* Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country
** Enemy alien, the above in times of war
* Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth
** Specifically, intelligent extrater ...
'', the pilot of the crashed
spaceship on planet LV-426.
The technology and the living tissue all look as if it is part of one being; everything within the game abides by this idea of solid materials impregnated with organic growths. Scorn's world aesthetic was also inspired by the work of
Zdzisław Beksiński
Zdzisław Beksiński (; 24 February 192921 February 2005) was a Polish painter, photographer, and sculptor, specializing in the field of dystopian surrealism.
Beksiński made his paintings and drawings in what he called either a Baroque or a Go ...
.
On the in-universe alien planet, the engineers, ''Homunculi'', waged war against the two own split factions; one faction built
cyborgs
A cyborg ()—a portmanteau of ''cybernetic'' and ''organism''—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline. from bodies, while the other made militarized
robotic
Robotics is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist human ...
exosuits.
The game was announced on 12 November 2014, with a trailer showing pre-alpha footage, followed by a
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
campaign in December 2014, which ended unsuccessfully; despite this, the game remained in development with a planned two-part release. In January 2015, ''Scorn'' received private funding from an investor and full production started in February 2015. The game was planned to be released in two parts, with only the first part being announced as ''Dasein'' ( , a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
word that means "being there" in vernacular German (German: ''
da'' "there"; ''
sein'' "being"), and "being-in-the-world" in
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
's philosophy). In August 2018, the production team announced that they would launch the game as a whole, instead of in parts, although no concrete release date was announced.
In 2017, Ebb Software launched a second Kickstarter, which reached its goal of €150,000 in September of that year.
On 7 May 2020, it was announced that the game would be published on PC and have timed console exclusivity on
Xbox Series X/S
The Xbox Series X/S are home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. They were both released on November 10, 2020, as the fourth generation Xbox, succeeding the Xbox One. Along with Sony's PlayStation 5, also released in November 2020, t ...
, running in
4K and 60fps, and would not be released on the previous generation of consoles as the developer team did not want to spend development time on what would be a sub-par version of the game. ''Scorn'' was also released on
Steam
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...
,
Windows Store
Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform apps ...
, and
GOG.
On 9 November 2021, CEO and creative director Ljubomir Peklar posted a Kickstarter update to address the game's delays and lack of communication, suggesting that unsatisfied backers request a refund; the post was criticized by backers for its "hostile tone", for which Peklar later apologized.
Reception
''Scorn'' received "mixed or average" reviews, according to the review aggregator
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
.
Though praised for its puzzles and art direction, ''Scorn'' faced frequent criticisms for its combat, which many reviewers felt was tedious and unnecessary.
''PC Gamer'' US described the game as a surreal horror adventure, which with "the striking visual feast of the alien capital, accompanied by mournful audio, practically moved me to tears. It was so strange and wonderful, and seemed to hint at some greater mystery at the heart of ''Scorn''". Conversely, they criticized sometimes unclear gameplay and the checkpoint system.
Alessandro Barbosa of ''
GameSpot
''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...
'' praised ''Scorn'' for its interesting setting and aesthetic, but heavily critiqued it for its "frustrating combat, unbalanced puzzles, and unforgiving checkpoints", feeling they made the game "an infuriating slog".
Writing for ''
IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...
'', Leana Hafer described the game as "a relentlessly unsettling delve into Hell with dreadful combat", adding "combat itself is dreadful, and I don't mean that in a good way", though applauding its "macabre art direction" and puzzles. Hafer concluded ''Scorn'' would have been a better experience had most if not all of the combat been removed, feeling it "
orkedagainst the exploration and puzzle-solving aspects".
''
Electronic Gaming Monthly
''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (often abbreviated to ''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews.
History
The m ...
''s Michael Goroff echoed the combat complaints, believing it "
elt
ELT may refer to:
Education
* English language teaching
* Expanded learning time, an American education strategy
* Kolb's experiential learning theory
Mathematics and science
* Ending lamination theorem
* Extremely large telescope, a type ...
more annoying than tense", but kept the game from "feeling like a
walking simulator
An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based m ...
". Goroff commended the exploration and puzzle aspects working together with the overall horror tone of the game, saying "everything in ''Scorn'' seems built around the simple desire of making players feel like they’re somewhere new" and considered it to have captured the "horrified and disturbed, exhilarated and intrigued" experience of a nightmare.
References
External links
*{{Official website, https://scorn-game.com/
2022 video games
Biopunk
First-person adventure games
Indie video games
Kickstarter-funded video games
Single-player video games
Survival horror video games
Unreal Engine games
Video games developed in Serbia
Windows games
Xbox Series X and Series S games
Science fiction horror video games