RoliTheOne
First-person horror shooter Scorn has shown off 13 minutes of gameplay in a new video. The new title, developed by Serbian studio Ebb Software, has had a somewhat troubled history. After we introduced it back in 2014, development news on the game went quiet until it reappeared for an ultimately failed Kickstarter campaign. Scorn then had to delay its then planned October 2018 release yet again.
Now, Scorn has resurfaced with a new gameplay video, which gives us an extensive look at its dreary world, inspired by Alien designer H.R. Giger and dystopian surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński. The new video finds the player in a labyrinth made from bone structures overgrown with all sorts of organic fleshy material. The lack of context to the game’s setting is 100% intentional, as the creators actually want you to have no idea what is going on and to find out what is what for yourself.
What is immediately evident is the flawless art direction present in the scenes. Everything looks scary, alien, horrifying, but it all fits together into a coherent nightmare-world. Asset details, animations, audio and everything else looks absolutely amazing. It makes the tense and threatening atmosphere in this strange place so thick you’d need a sharp knife to cut through it.
The weapons shown in the video also fit right into the game world, as they are also made from boney materials with organic parts underlined with almost pain-inducing noises. The reload (?) animations in particular reminded me of the 1999 sci-fi thriller eXistenZ’s gristle gun – a tooth-firing weapon made from bone and other organic parts.
As the video mostly shows scenes exploring hallways, shooting the odd lurking creature and solving some key puzzles, my biggest worry is what the gameplay will hold for players. Regardless, what we can see in the video already shows us that Scorn will be a piece of gaming art whose sole existence will be justification enough for many, myself included, to check it out closer.
Scorn is currently set to release in 2021 for Xbox Series X and PC, including XBox Game Pass. Check out the incredible atmosphere of the new gameplay video for yourself below.
