Scorn

Scorn's frustrating combat, unbalanced puzzles, and unforgiving checkpoints make it an infuriating slog through an otherwise intriguing setting.

Although some enemies are placed in spaces that allow you to cleverly find alternative routes around them, many of them appear in narrow hallways that don't allow you to get on either side of them easily. Exploration and puzzles are at the core of Scorn's gameplay loop. You'll explore a handful of different constrained biomes during each of the game's five acts, all of which are large, multi-step puzzles made up of small ones that must be solved in a specific order. It's not that any of them is frustrating or annoying to interact with, it's more that they're just completely unsurprising. The walls of its labyrinthine halls are constructed with twisting contortions of flesh, and its mechanically complex contraptions are drenched in the blood of discarded carcasses that lay decaying without care. Scorn's violence isn't memorable; instead it's a disappointing departure from the well-crafted horror of its inspirations, wasting the potential of its alluring aesthetic.

The game design gets in the way of the art design in this gruesome adventure…

In fact, playing it on the Deck with the lights out and headphones on was our preferred option (until we got stuck again and had to remind ourselves not to launch it against the wall). It's just a shame that world is also home to a frustrating puzzle-heavy adventure filled with aimless wandering. Sometimes it’ll lead to a puzzle (which is also typically lacking in any real signposting), other times it’ll just mean you have to move on to finding the next thing to activate. Instead, most of Scorn is spent stumbling around, looking for parts of the scenery that might be interactive. We fully appreciate that some players will be more tolerant of Scorn’s complete lack of signposting or even any subtle nods as to what to do. This specific issue aside, the whole thing is so deeply disappointing, because in any other situation Scorn’s world should be held up in the highest of regards. And on paper, other games like this have succeeded, going all the way back to the likes of Myst. This would be annoying enough were it not for the fact that these beautiful environments aren’t really designed too well when it comes to determining which parts can be navigated. Or, to return to our tenuous analogy, give us the zoo without forcing us to keep returning to the function room. It’s a deeply atmospheric, artistically accomplished environment, then, and we’d be more than happy just being given free rein to explore it in detail. We can’t even describe what we’re seeing most of the time – all we know is it’s both disgusting and dazzling at once. Lots of slots, holes and wound-like notches for you to jam your fingers, your hand, even someone else’s dismembered arm into, with the magnificent sound design accompanying this with a satisfyingly sickening squelch.

The game has gone through two Kickstarter campaigns, private funding, and a partnership with Microsoft, but now Ebb Software's love letter to everything H.R. ...

To ensure that everyone was on the same page about the game’s expected completion time, the team later posted that predicted playthrough length on their [Twitter account](https://twitter.com/scorn_game/status/1574429065615900672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1574429065615900672%7Ctwgr%5E825402cd206304f18003e300c91f2f9b6da7fb4f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pcgamesn.com%2Fscorn%2Fhow-long). [ACG](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_ogpRIEaI4), attest that it’s more akin to a walking simulator with guns and puzzles. In 2018, Ebb Software secured even more funding from Kowloon Nights, though that deal required them to combine Dasein and Scorn’s [unnamed second act](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1777595379/scorn-part-1-of-2-dasein/posts/2206856) into one big game. The protagonist plods through the game’s biomechanical halls and is slow to aim and reload his weapons. You’re probably looking at something closer to the median (about 5-6 hours), but that really depends on a few factors. Most early estimates suggest you can expect to spend about 3 to 15 hours with the new horror game.

In Scorn, a game of wonderfully horrible atmosphere and smart, hands-off puzzling is undermined by some dodgy checkpoints and wonky combat.

Coupled with enemies who could seemingly acid-snipe me with unerring precision from the other side of a room, it resulted in me dreading combat segments and I stopped enjoying this cryptic, otherworldly adventure and got fed up instead. I'm raising this hesitantly and with the full disclaimer that I have no idea if the problems I encountered were because I was using a controller (which admittedly developer Ebb says it only "partially" supports on PC) or if I'm just, well, shit, but when I switched away from the grenade launcher, I often couldn't get it back without reloading a checkpoint, and even though the reticle said I was getting the headshot, I seemingly wasn't. There's no manual save here and going to the "load game" option will only ever spawn you at the beginning of an act, even if you were, say, halfway through when you stopped. It is stunningly disgusting and disgustingly stunning in all the right ways and for all of Scorn's faults - and I have a few, I'm afraid - its meticulously detailed aesthetic is not one of them. Yes, you will be frustrated but yes, you will solve it in the end. Sometimes you'll know what you have to do, if not quite how to do it, and those are some of my favourites. I solved them in my own time and I am firmly of the belief that if I – the Most Average of All the Average Gamers – can, so can you. To be clear, this isn't a criticism - I'm never happier than playing a jump scare-free horror - but combat aside (more on that in a bit) I never felt uneasy. And I can't help but admit just a sliver of disappointment at that. Before you're out of the opening hour, you will have pried a deformed form from a rotting egg and ripped an organic weapon from its umbilical holster moments before you're soaked in a thick, milky substance so overwhelming, it knocks you out. There are claustrophobic corridors where the walls look like they're constructed from bone and skin, and you can't shake the feeling that the track on the ground below your bare feet looks more like a spine than a transport system. For such a taciturn game - Scorn has no text prompts, no dialogue, and no map; you move through its world by organic exploration, hope, luck, and nothing more - this circle-of-life stuff is surprisingly in your face.

Clumsy map design, phoned in combat mechanics and an especially intense set piece late in the game made me wish "Scorn" was a more focused, ...

It kept me immersed in the game’s atmosphere instead of worrying about a trophy I might’ve missed. I was never particularly scared of anything I encountered; like the playable creature, I just wanted out. I emailed Kepler about this and was sent a content warning screen that will be added to “Scorn” before release, containing the usual disclaimers about epileptic seizures, violence, gore and “sensitive and adult themes.” Maybe I’m overanalyzing how brutal this scene could be for some people, but I don’t think this general warning is enough of a heads up for what I played. All I can say is that it involves extreme torture, mutilation and what I would argue is a form of sexual assault. Still, I also wish there were more small titles like “Scorn” that play out like one giant level with a clear, cohesive theme. If you die, you’ll be punished by “Scorn’s” unforgiving checkpoint system and forced to retread a significant amount of gameplay, unable to skip any of the game’s lengthy puzzle animations. The game’s description on Steam and the Microsoft Store make note of all this. Toward the end of the game, there are also lots of risque statues and landmarks clearly influenced by Giger’s more erotic work. Once, the game crashed on me during a cutscene, costing me nearly an hour of progress. Even the dust particles drifting in the smoky, dull light of eye-shaped lamps move in a way that feels unnatural. The puzzles in “Scorn” are hard and many of them had me cursing at my monitor, wishing for walk-throughs that didn’t exist yet. “Scorn,” a first-person horror game from Serbian developer Ebb Software and published by Kepler Interactive, is most definitely not about truckers in space.

Stuck on a puzzle in Act 3 of Scorn? We've got a detailed walkthrough on how to solve the circle yellow light puzzles with nodes needed to progress in ...

Once solved, you can pick up the item dispensed on the right and take it back to the floor with the three alien device holes lined up next to each other again. One floor below will now be unblocked, and you can take the same spherical lift as before to reach it. Your real goal, then, is to make the correct connection with these nodes and bars to light up all four circles at the same time. One of these upper circular lights can now be spun on its own, or just the middle and one of the top circles together. Your goal is to light up all of the inner circles, but when you light one up, others can be extinguished. We’ll explain how they both work below, along with what to do when you have solved these yellow light puzzles so you can complete Act 3 and move onto the next one.

Step-by-step instructions on how you can easily solve the Yellow Light Puzzle that appears during Act-3 of Scorn.

You can use the same strategy to solve the next one that appears. In order to find the Yellow Light Puzzle, you need to progress through Act-3 until you get to the gun — the puzzle should be in the same area. In order to solve the puzzle, you basically need to light up 4 different lights.