Located on a murky planet, it’s set in a fortress designed by H.R. Giger, the guy behind Alien. Corridors look like ribcages, and doorways ooze. Plus, we get nothing but. In Alien: Isolation, the same slithering look was blocked off by the white and menace-free hallways of a space station. In Scorn, the dankness is unadulterated until menace comes rattling through the vents. It keeps the Giger counter ticking through every square foot. You might need a hot shower after playing for a long time.
It’s first person, but you’re not a person. A gray and crumbling personoid, at least. Initially, you’re ossified and fused to the floor, but you never quite get rid of the extra bones. Imagine Gollum crossed with a lobster. Your mission after waking up in this maze stronghold is simple: escape. Ebb Software makes an icky Ico. We see sarcophagi that line a wall, only for one to be cracked open and a frail form to be winkled out. It’s like Fumito Ueda’s opening scene, where a young boy is immured and set free.
It’s the fact that, while he was liberated by fate – a lucky tremor shook his coffin loose – the poor thing in Scorn is shucked and plucked by God knows what. Pincers on robotic arms, shunting pistons, writhing generators: all triggered not by cosmic design or karma, but by you. Why? If you’re patient, you can hack off the creature’s arm, which will open a door. That’s obvious. I give Ebb Software credit for honoring not just Giger’s aesthetic, but the obsession that feeds it: the gnawing covenant between anatomy and machine.
Scorn has you snooping through connected chambers in service of some hulking central device. We’ve got a heavy tread on our leading shuffler. Fortunately, this kind of puzzle design took a lighter tone in games like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Tomb Raider: Underworld, and solving them was easy. Using magnetised grappling hooks and regal acrobatics, the Prince and Ms Croft defeated the systems trying to entrap them. Scorn’s exploration progresses slowly, and may cost more. Since we begin by tearing ourselves out of the labyrinth, it takes on a self-destructive tone; escape is an operation we might not survive.
This is a gratifying challenge, requiring keen eyes and some patience. Conundrums also include cylindrical keys that must be encoded with rock accretions, power cores that look like glowing milk tanks, and tentacular remote controls that wiggle around. But there’s no sense of the people who made these tools – probably cheerful and charming, and good at dinner parties. The Nostromo crew roped themselves down into that derelict ship in Alien, stoking the awe, further proof that Giger’s designs are at their best when they clash with the man-made. In the hostile environment, Ebb Software is enamoured with the look for its own sake, but doesn’t squeeze any further meaning from it.
What an atmosphere! The art director, Lazar Mesaroš, brings a stew of weirdness. Stone fists, lavender deserts with gothic rubble, and egg-shaped lumps scarfed in dry ice. You need headphones, a dark room, and an undernourished social calendar for this. The chilly gloom of Scorn left me longing for Lieutenant Ripley to roll up with a flamethrower and roast it. Also, if you like tightly paced science fiction that stays away from horror, this is the game for you. Though it doesn’t go deep into any real darkness, it’s got enough shadow and stuff that pumps and bleeds to make you feel pleasantly drained afterward. This makes this an intriguing proposition, but I’ll try to convince you: Play Scorn, feel worn!
