Is Scorn The Scariest Game of 2022?

Scorn has been long in the making. Revealed and hyped around the same time as Madmind’s unfortunately descriptive Agony, Scorn was always much more of an enigma, while Agony was heavy metal horror without much in the way of nuance. The two being gross-out indie affairs inspired by classic horror minds is what connected them the most, but while Agony released to a whole lot of scorn itself, Ebb’s Scorn has every chance of going down as one of 2022’s most unique horror games, though it absolutely will not be for everyone.

Inspired by the works of H.R. Giger and Zdzislaw Beksiński, Scorn sees you playing as, well, that’s tough to explain. You see, Scorn doesn’t spell a single thing out for you, from the moment you first wake up in this decayed, seemingly sex-obsessed world right up until its bewildering yet fascinating climax. There’s not a single written or spoken word throughout the entirety of the 4-6 hour story: no signs, no map, and not even any names for either you or any of the strange beasts you encounter.

This gives Scorn an isolating, alien feeling, like you’re a foreigner who’s been thrown into this crumbling civilization right as it’s teetering on the edge — perhaps it’s already plummeted. Something has gone wrong on this planet, but you’ll have to figure that out for yourself, or just stumble your way through it and appreciate the game’s beautifully twisted aesthetic and disquieting soundscape.

Playing Scorn sometimes feels like exploring a particularly unsettling art installation, with its environmental design providing some of the most captivating, original sights in a horror game in quite some time. Every doorway, random tool, and strange vine tells some kind of unspoken story with you left to try and fill in the blanks yourself. If Thatgamecompany’s Journey was a macabre first-person horror with invertebrate humans who would probably have deep chats with Cronenberg, it might look a lot like Scorn.

But what is the moment-to-moment gameplay in Scorn like, what do you do? Well, all of the gameplay videos released to date weren’t hiding the truth: it’s a slow-paced action horror game with a heavy emphasis on puzzles. And when I say “heavy,” I mean heavy, almost to the game’s detriment, particularly when it comes to pacing.

Scorn gives you about fifteen minutes to soak up the sights in its eerily dead world before it pumps the breaks and forces you into a very monotonous, long-winded puzzle that takes the form of a giant, horrid vending machine. Unless you have a guide to hand, you’ll probably be stuck slowly moving around weird eggs for so long that you will forget the game’s strong first impression, killing the pacing dead. There’s a lot of complicated puzzles throughout Scorn that interrupts any momentum the game is building and takes you out of the grim immersion (grimmersion, if you will). It’s almost like Ebb didn’t have much faith in their combat system.

That’s odd, as while you’re obviously not Dante slaying demons and watching meters fly up, Scorn definitely has something to its combat that feels visceral and tense. Ammo (collected from some kind of weird fallopian tube) is scarce so you need to hit every shot, while your back-up weapon is like someone put a fist on the end of Anton Chigurh’s iconic “gun” and only let you have two shots before it needed to recharge. While they don’t have the same impact as something like DOOM Eternal, the sound effects of gunfire all feel chunky and significant, with the weapon designs themselves being hideously inventive. The lack of movement options also means each shot has to be measured, as there’s a huge chance you will get a face full of acid if you don’t land it. In a lot of ways, Scorn feels like a survival horror game for a modern audience, theorycrafting and all.

But is Scorn scary? While fear is in the eye of the beholder, it’s hard to imagine anyone being petrified by what lies around the next corner, unable to look at another pseudo-dong. It’s not a particularly scary game, but it’s something that will absolutely stick with you far longer than most cheap jumpscares would. I’ve found myself thinking about Scorn fairly often after both my playthroughs were wrapped up; there’s just something so fascinating about this world and the creatures in it that’s hard to shake. There’s a compelling coldness to the world of Scorn, an oozing, beautiful mess of muscle and bone that feels like it’s hooked up on life support.

It’s also hard to forget some of the game’s ghastly spectacle, which is so graphic that it might even make seasoned horror veterans a bit squeamish. Going into detail here would spoil things a bit (and maybe even get us limited ads), but let’s just say that Martyrs is a bit of an entrée for how gruesome Scorn can become.

There’s a lot to like about Scorn, yet just as much that frustrates or disappoints. It’s tough to say that it’s been worth the entire six-year wait, especially as it’s on the short side, even with its mind-bending puzzles. However, it’s still something that’s really worth experiencing at least once, an enthralling crawl through a hellish, destroyed society that will stick with you for far longer than most horror games this year.

A Steam code was provided by PR for the purposes of this coverage.