Scorn Reviews
Despite a beautiful artistic design, Scorn is a tormenting journey to a strange world where there is no logic, purpose or fun.
Review in Persian | Read full review
I have enjoyed some action-adventure horror games out there. Limited ammo and health reserves can be a great tool for upping the tension and a great story helps make it worth seeing things through. Scorn has none of that. It is bland, boring, plays poorly, and excels in no areas.
It should be pointed out that Scorn is a day one Xbox Game Pass game, and that is really the only way to justify playing it. Otherwise, Scorn is an experience that even the most diehard horror game fans should skip.
So much about Scorn feels like a trap. It’s designed to cost you progress, to waste your time, and some might think this burdensome despair is some sort of brilliance on the part of the developers. To someone who values their finite time on Earth, it’s snide crap that shows contempt for its audience at every opportunity.
In Scorn, a game of wonderfully horrible atmosphere and smart, hands-off puzzling is undermined by some dodgy checkpoints and wonky combat.
Scorn is unlike anything you can expect, sins somewhat by the lack of final satisfaction and a misfit and rudimentary gunplay. Short-lived, it is worth the visual presentation of a different concept in a genius of the unknown, to know what comes next and how we will achieve it. But more was expected of this title, or on the other hand, was it too required of the producer? It may be a case of too high expectations. Those who have the Game Pass can always try, but I prevent the high level of violence.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
It’s also quite a short game, although I personally thought the length was sensible given this kind of overwhelmingly horrifying atmosphere can become tedious if used too long, which was one of the criticisms pointed at the otherwise excellent Alien: Isolation. Scorn is a difficult game to love, but for its singular visual flair, it is one I respect.
By the time the parasite does finally obstruct your ability to use machines or change weapons, the damage is already done. There are few enemies left and the game is almost over, so whatever additional tension might have resulted from these restrictions never materializes. Scorn is a transportive experience to be sure, at times a genuine masterwork of visual craft. But the unfulfilled possibilities linger a little too prominently, a reminder that it falls short of being a mechanical masterpiece, too.
Scorn is an exercise in environmental storytelling, eschewing cutscenes and exposition in favour of simply letting the player piece things together for themselves. It doesn't provide all the answers, leaving much of its deeper meaning wide open to interpretation: and it's all the more compelling as a result.
Scorn's dreadful bio-mechanical world is a fantastic example of horror design and level design alike, but its lovely mess of flesh is let down by messier combat.
“Scorn” is an art house experience. I’m sure that other reviewers will plumb “Scorn” for its hidden high-minded commentary on the human condition, but for me, the appeal of the game is how it made me feel rather than think. I felt a constant, humming anxiety for simply existing in its macabre world. I was never particularly scared of anything I encountered; like the playable creature, I just wanted out.
