SKIN-SCARE ROUTINE
Scorn turns its Giger counter to maximum
If the gaming scares on offer in 2017 just weren’t “juicy” enough for you, it’s time to go a little more, er, organic with PC Kickstarter success Scorn. A unique horror adventure from Serbian studio Ebb Software, this grim indie wants you to lose yourself in a world that even your nightmares haven’t had cheese dreams about.
While recent scarefests like Resident Evil 7 or Outlast 2 delivered relatable environments, Scorn makes haunted hick-filled Louisana mansions look like Disneyland. In this twisted dreamscape, the walls are coated in muscle and flesh. Metal melds with skin and bone effortlessly to craft hideous experiments in biomechanics. And that’s only the first corridor.
Out next year (initially) on PC, Scorn is heavily influenced by the surrealism of HR Giger and Zdzisław Beksinski. Windows are eye-holes, and keys require your in-game hands to meld with items in new disgusting ways. And while there are weapons to defend yourself against the fleshy creations that are unlucky enough to inhabit this world, these are no ordinary AK 47s or Uzis. Yes, even your gun in alive and that means every reload is a squelchy exercise in juicy wriggling as you pile bullets into an arsenal made of flesh and bone.
Throughout development, the team has focused on the idea of being thrown into an alien world and that means nothing is explained or highlighted. “We are not trying to push traditional plot-driven narrative. Games are all about interactivity, so we want to tell the story that way,” explains Ebb Software’s Nikola Rakic. “Each player will have their own experience, and it is quite possible to miss some of the events that take the place in the game. The story utterly depends on the player and their approach to the game – meaning it will go as deep and far as you want it to go.” Isn’t that reassuring?
Scorn Part 1: Dasein is out on PC in 2018.