Some theorize that Giger always carried that trauma with him, letting it bleed into his art. The artist notably had a difficult birth, one that required doctors to yank him out of his mother’s womb with forceps. Giger knowledge first.įor some art critics, Giger’s work is as arresting as it is because it’s a raw projection of his subconscious mind. Though to connect its disparate images, you may want to brush up on your H. It’ll be easy to write it off as hollow gross-out horror, but that would be underselling what Ebb Software is aiming for here with its ambitious tone piece. In its opening hours, I spent a lot of time questioning if there was much meat to its unsettling atmosphere. While it’s immediately impressive as a technical feat, Scorn can be thematically elusive early on. Though most notable of all is its astonishing sound design, full of wet sloshing and ambient humming that benefit from a great pair of headphones. All of that is brought to life with impressive visual design, as grotesquely detailed environments pump blood into its raw body horror. Through my playthrough, I’d encounter ancient statues with glowing red wombs, have an alien parasite violently burrow into my stomach, and see a whole lot of phallic imagery. Most specifically, birth is a running visual motif through the game right from its opening moments. While Scorn has an abstract narrative, its thematic throughlines are unmistakable. Veins and flesh run through its narrow passageways, as if it’s all part of some giant being’s nervous system.Īll of that is brought to life with impressive visual design, as grotesquely detailed environments pump blood into its raw body horror. The horror game largely takes place in dark corridors that look like the inside of a body. The “story” follows a skinless humanoid wandering some form of eerie alien world that looks like an H. Rather than delivering a clear narrative, Scorn wants you to feel it in your bones. Ebb Software makes bold design decisions here to achieve the perfect atmosphere, but those decisions make for a frustrating shooter and first-person puzzle game that never quite feels fully formed. Even when it does, Scorn’s artistic ambitions and its video game obligations are often at odds with one another. Despite nailing the aesthetic it’s going for with excellent sound design and striking visuals, it struggles to deliver the same intimacy that makes Giger’s work so unsettling. Giger’s art, but it’s playing a game of telephone. Though taking the deeply personal works of a singular artist and turning them into a genre video game feels a bit like squeezing a watermelon through a straw. It’s an unconventional horror game that explores birth trauma through a series of grotesque and nightmarish images, from claustrophobic flesh canals to bloated fetus monsters. Instead, the developers at Ebb Software are eager to engage with the thematic threads present in his work. Heavily inspired by the Swiss artist known for creating the iconic Alien Xenomorph, Scorn isn’t just interested in imitating Giger’s biomechanical aesthetic for flattery’s sake.
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