Scorn's October 21, 2022 release on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
Scorn has little interest in explaining its alien world to the player. The main character is a desiccated humanoid who awakens on an alien world, with fleeting memories of walking through a storm and witnessing colossal buildings in the distance. The protagonist finds themselves in a bizarre alien facility, where the levels and buttons require the merging and manipulation of flesh, with even simple switches being composed of rotten tissue. The goal of the prologue is to work out how to escape the facility, with no instructions nor context as to where the player is or who they even are.
What's striking about the puzzles in Scorn is that the player is given no help or indication of what to do, save for the most basic of UI instructions for the buttons. The player has to come to grips with Scorn's alien and horrifying machines, even if some of the puzzles themselves are basic and obtuse on purpose. In order to proceed through the first area, the player must pull an egg from the top of the structure using a claw-like device, cracking it open and revealing a broken and bloodied humanoid inside. This humanoid is placed in a trolley-like machine and the player must use another device to line up tracks to move the trolley from one area to another. The humanoid in the egg must be taken to an area where its body is gruesomely crushed, leaving only its arm. The dismembered arm can then be used to jam a console, allowing a door to be unlocked and opened, so the player can proceed to the next area.
On the surface, these puzzles are essentially a slide puzzle, a lining-up puzzle, and a key puzzle. What makes the experience so special is the visuals and presentation. Scorn's world is truly alien to behold and gradually uncovering the uses for every item is genuinely satisfying, as the player slowly comes to understand what everything is and how it works together. It bears mentioning that the game doesn't hold the player's hand at all and they will be expected to try out everything and uncover the secrets for themselves, as Scorn has no quest menus, no maps, nor any quest indicators. The Myst comparison is apt, as it's all about unlocking the puzzle of the world itself, with elements that are only vaguely familiar to the player.
The visuals in Scorn are the star of the show and it's no coincidence that Scorn is going to be a Halloween title. Scorn is a contender for the best-looking game of 2022. There have been games inspired by the works of H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński in the past, with The Medium being one of the most recent, but few have captured the surreal body horror as well as Scorn. This isn't just about xenomorphs or decorations that resemble reproductive organs, as it's the massive towering alien structures and mist-filled chambers filled with unsettling rust-covered devices that really sell the world, with the player always feeling like an unwanted guest in someone else's post-apocalyptic story.
The Scorn preview only covered about forty minutes of playtime and in of gameplay, it didn't exactly do anything new. What it did do was offer an immersive and unique visual experience that needs to be seen to be believed. Scorn's world is like stepping into an H.R. Giger piece and seeing everything that didn't make it onto the canvas. The fact that it's coming to Game means there is no reason for PC and Xbox players to not take a step into its world and see its horrifying sights for themselves when it launches near Halloween.
Scorn will be released for PC and Xbox Series X/S on October 21, 2022. Screen Rant was provided with a code for the PC demo of the game for the purposes of this preview.
