The Haunted Hoard: Scorn (Xbox Series X)
Scorn is a game of few words, avoiding them entirely outside of necessary moments like menus and minor control hints. For the most part, much of Scorn is based on the gradual discovery of something unnerving and alien, a world coated in flesh and composed of viscera functioning in ways where learning how something even works is often part of a puzzle. The lack of immediate understanding is part of the atmosphere and narrative, the disorienting feeling often intentional as you grasp at the same straws in this first-person horror game as you would stumbling across a place beyond normal understanding.
Scorn’s world is one of organic technology, most every object no matter its importance or purpose having some ties to biology. Despite this, the world you explore is not one of bloody grotesque sights, the macabre keeping itself understated in its use of blood until you start activating organic systems or finding other living things. For the most part, you’ll find Scorn’s environment to be coated in grey or tan desiccated flesh that actually makes a lot of the visuals blend together into a less disturbing backdrop. You might not really comprehend that you’re looking at a massive pile of lifeless naked bodies because the coloration and choice of shapes will sometimes blend the imagery together. That does giving observing it more closely an unnerving sense of discovery though as you start to realize you’ve walked into an area with darker implications. Many areas feel dry and still, like whatever had been going on in these strange facilities had long since been abandoned or simply did not work out as intended, but it’s not just aimless imagery meant to get under your skin either.
Scorn’s words-free story will never come together into something that can be fully explained, but as you explore deeper into the strange facilities you find yourself in, the game will eventually provide some more concrete clues that lead to some intriguing recontextualization of the earlier areas and machines. Snatching at whatever clues you can find to try and understand the humanoid figure you control and his aim in exploring this grim locale does make some of the quiet wandering less dull, although the same approach to color that can soften some of the horror of what you’re witnessing can also obfuscate areas of importance. You might need to find a single hallway nestled into a wall or an important pedestal to activate to progress, but you’ll be given a large area to search and important objects can blend in just as well as the unnerving imagery. In one way Scorn does do a decent job of making areas feel a bit more thought out because there is little artificiality in how areas are blocked off or presented, the game even trying to make sure that small touches about navigation are more immersive even if it makes things a bit more inconvenient. Having only two hands limits you at first as you can’t lug around important items if they’re full, some puzzles even based around finding some way to transport things. Other times it’s more a bit of tech that adjusts to match the theming, the player’s need to get a view outside of their first person perspective having them look into a device’s strange membrane to look at something they couldn’t reach otherwise.
The presentation is definitely Scorn’s strong suit, although its devotion to body horror with devices fueled by body fluid and moments where it looks directly at something being maimed certainly push into territory that could make some players queasy. The often quiet exploration just nails in the tone of uncertainty and unease though, and while there’s often something notably human in much of what you find, it also effectively captures an alien quality where its clear whatever is responsible for all of this has a different understanding of the purpose of a living body. This can arise in some disturbing moments though where harming a clearly living and undeserving creature is necessary for progress and without definitive answers on the purpose of your journey it can be harder to mentally justify it, although Scorn is likely banking that its macabre presentation probably already scared off anyone who would outright object to these actions. These do feel a bit more indulgent compared to Scorn’s usual handling of things, but it also at least nails in some of the desperation that suits a world where clearly things can’t be done in their original intended manner thanks to whatever befell it.
Once we begun to move away from appreciating a meticulous approach to disturbing world design though, Scorn starts to face some issues. While it’s easy to get lost, taking in the unusual sights and trying to make sense of them is perhaps the experience at its best, because once you have to do some puzzle solving or even fight for your life, things show a lot less care and creativity. Many puzzles involves standing in place and shuffling a few things around until everything’s where it needs to be, things like undoing locks or completing a little light maze rather basic and sometimes clearly more just there to necessitate moving between the relevant terminals and encountering whatever is along the way in the process. Sometimes realizing what needs to be done is more of the obstacle than the actual act of rearranging everything as required, and beyond some of the messy or eerie atmospheric elements many of them would feel more like busywork. The game angling for the sense of discovery over most everything else does avail it sometimes as you come across a strange device and it’s more about learning how such a thing even functions rather than what you need to do with it after, but puzzles that made better use of the organic technology certainly feel like they’d be the best approach for adding some interactivity to Scorn.
Scorn could have likely slipped by with some basic puzzles to break up the consideration of its bleak flesh-coated world, but over time combat starts to sneak its way into things and it’s almost never welcome. Your first weapon uses a piston-powered spearhead to hurt enemies that have to be fairly close to you and it needs a few seconds after two stabs before it can be used again. The most common enemy type will likely take five of these stabs unless you luck out and it plays a long animation of a grisly kill for the headless creature instead. Before the game grants you some weapons with range you’ll have to dance around the bile-spitting quadrupedal flesh beasts quite often to have the same slow fight again and again, but they are better than the monsters that look almost like roast chicken. These creatures are easier to kill but fast and more importantly fire a shot that practically can’t be avoided so unless you can find some walls to hide behind you’re likely to get hurt. You do eventually get a way to heal but refills for that healing method are spaced out quite a bit.
Soon though you’ll get some weapons that function closer to normal firearms even if they do still make sure to have some organic rooting so they don’t feel out of place. Ammo for these is similarly limited to refuel stations that don’t replenish and you’re often asked to conserve your ammo if you want it for something that might be harder to put down, so you have to whip out that awful piston tool so later battles still can be annoying and tedious interruptions. For a while too much of the focus is on the battling even though ewhen the toughest enemies appear they’re often repetitive in their attacks or so aggressive you’ll probably die until you give in and always use precious ammo to take them out. Rather than fearing these creatures you’re more likely to groan as each new one appears, this obstruction to your progress feeling sloppy and needlessly limited. If Scorn didn’t want you to be a powerful monster killer it could have focused on more meaningful desperate encounters instead of running into the same few basic and bothersome beasts, but even its strongest foe isn’t a tense fight so much as one about waiting until you can actually do something besides run around. Luckily some apparently rough checkpoint placement was patched in an update, but the methodical progress still makes almost any setback bothersome since it’s less about applying strategy and more about how much ammo you’re willing to use while fighting your way forward.
THE VERDICT: If Scorn had kept its focus on showcasing its nauseatingly detailed but still fascinating biological technology and environments, it would still be a bit of a bumpy ride, but a tolerable one. The shallow and simplistic puzzles are often more about even coming to understand what you’re interacting with, like learning new tools to use on a familiar project. The environments, despite sometimes obfuscating important information, also have a sense or purpose and work to build at least some greater understated story worthy of some interpretative contemplation. Once you are given insufficient weaponry to fight against bothersome flesh beasts though, Scorn shifts away from the horror derived from organic machinery to being horrified by sloppy mechanics. Conflict is often tedious or frustrating since the game isn’t properly built around it, so while it doesn’t take up so much of the experience it becomes absolutely defined by it, it still greatly impedes your ability to enjoy the macabre sights on show.
And so, I give Scorn for Xbox Series X…
A BAD rating. Scorn stands on the precipice of being a far worse experience but pulls back away from its combat focus just enough to avoid absolutely spoiling the work put into its grotesquely detailed and well-realized art direction. Had it lingered on its flimsy fighting system even longer it would certainly lose all of the good faith garnered elsewhere, but its relative lack of substance in some other departments still means it’s not quite fascinating enough even if you strip out the action. The moments spent trying to comprehend the odd organic mechanisms all around you to solve a puzzle feel like an appropriate form of marrying the focus on atmospheric contemplation with some interactivity, but unfortunately once you do understand what you’re working with the actual activity is rather simplistic. Had that growing knowledge of this strange realm paid of with being able to solve more complex dilemmas than it would have been a compelling payoff to trying to understand the setting, but having them be isolated cases of fiddling with a gizmo until you can do some mundane task means its not quite where it needs to be. As said before, they could have functioned as simplistic obstructions so that it’s not just a house tour focused on the terror of life twisted into thoughtless machines for unclear purposes. It wouldn’t be an exceptional experience, but it would allow you to breathe in the bleak and dreary environment and you could take your time trying to puzzle out narrative implications even if the true puzzles are just about shifting objects around or figuring out to hold something you need. Adding in the combat guaranteed things wouldn’t work out though, not nearly enough work in trying to find out how to make it gel with the rest of the experience or even function well enough that it could be something beyond obnoxious.
Scorn’s body horror would certainly be too strong for some people to stomach the experience, but those who do find its vision fascinating will still likely be put off as it is remarkably short-sighted in how it introduces combat to the affair. It didn’t need to be exploration without conflict even if the haunting tone of such a place being all but abandoned was effective while it lasted, but the action is far more likely to pull you out of the experience than continue to add some stakes to the affair. Becoming aware of checkpoints, seeing video game information like ammo and health appear on-screen, aching for some first-person combat controls and weapons that function well, it yanks you back into reality rather than trying to contemplate the unusual world you find yourself in that was otherwise crafted to feel believably alien. Scorn’s art direction could have been a great fit for a video game, but it seems the creators spent more time contemplating environmental design over game design and the medium is not something you can simply ignore when trying to get someone engrossed in your world.