Scorn is an upcoming atmospheric horror game that does not hold back. The development team isn’t even worried about spoiling the experience of the game for you because it’s that unnerving. Today, about eight minutes of gameplay was released to show off the prologue sequence. Yes, the following video is for the beginning of the game, and it is that creepy.
Horror comes in many forms, and Scorn appears to lean towards the resonating horror that gets under your skin and lingers in your brain rather than focusing on jumpscares and tension. From a first-person perspective, players wake up in a completely alien realm with no explanation. They will have to explore a series of locations, each built like a maze and stocked with puzzles. There is a constant sense of mystery because there are no cut scenes. All storytelling happens as you play and touch the things around you. This feeling of disgust and uneasiness is purposeful according to the developer, Ebb Software.
“It is designed around the idea of ‘being thrown into the world.’ Isolated and lost inside this dream-like world, you will explore different interconnected regions in a non-linear fashion. The unsettling environment is a character itself.”
Ebb Software
The art style is based on the works of H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński. The latter was a Polish painter with an eerie Gothic or Baroque style, and many sci-fi fans would recognize the work of the Swiss artist H.R. Giger. He was famous for his biomechanical pieces where he depicted blends of humans and machines, and of course, for his work on Alien. That inspiration is immediately present in this prologue gameplay video as we see the character’s hand become embedded with some sort of alien tech. Later there is a horrifying humanoid warped and trapped in a sort of egg or cocoon. Check out the video below to see for yourself.
The developers were aiming for atmospheric horror and nailed it. The setting appears ancient, yet has superior technology. Trapped in a maze that resembles both an abandoned subway line and the intestinal tract of a very large being, there’s a haunting sense of being alone and not alone. There’s no one around for most of it, which is scary itself, but isn’t it so much worse to wonder who else might be there out of sight? Watching. Waiting to be encountered. While it appears abandoned, it doesn’t feel abandoned.
It was the sounds that were surprisingly effective though. Besides the rumbling of a door or the occasional distant howl of the wind, it’s very quiet in this new place. Until you touch something. The squishy, fleshy sounds are enough to make your stomach turn. Having to put your hands into things that squish to open doors is also a nightmare. Then when you encounter the humanoid thing, its muffled cries are deeply uncomfortable.
Scorn looks like the perfect game for fans of the Alien franchise and H. P. Lovecraft stories. The game will be released on October 21, 2022. You can find it for PC and Xbox Series X|S. If you have Xbox Game Pass, you can play it on day one.
