Scorned 2013 Trailer
Darios Uclaray
The new Scorn trailer from today's PC Gaming Show is narrated by none other than Doug Bradley, Pinhead from Hellraiser, which signals very clearly what Scorn is about. The trailer paints a dark and sinister environment designed to be deeply unsettling: We get a glimpse of the main character waking up in "an industrial civilization now lying in decay and ruin," along with the character interacting with gnarly biomechanical devices that do a great job of making your skin crawl.
Essentially, if you've watched Alien, Aliens or Prometheus and thought the Engineer's biomechanical ships looked like a fun place to spend your time, then Scorn is the game for you. Also, you should probably seek help. Oh, and stop mentioning Prometheus, it was a rubbish film.
Heavily inspired by the art of HR Giger, the designer of the original Alien, Scorn offers up a visceral labyrinthian world for you to explore and puzzle your way around. It's been designed from the outset to be a first-person horror adventure, not an all-out shooter, which makes for a nice change to the norm.
It's creepy and unsettling but still utterly coherent, making the fact that you have to put your hands into various squelchy consoles and machines a surprisingly natural thing to do. You may recoil as you're doing it, but at least it makes sense.
We've had glimpses of Scorn's beautifully crafted world for a long while now, with the first pre-alpha trailer gracing our screens back in 2014. The last eight years have made for more detailed models and environments though, and the latest trailer shows off Scorn's beautifully realized world alongside its deeply unsettling first-person hand... stuff. Scorn isn't for the faint-hearted, or indeed for those that don't possess an absolutely iron-cast constitution.
Given I was grossed out having to squish the antlion grubs in Half-Life: Alyx but still love Giger's art, Scorn has me equal parts intrigued and disgusted. Not a bad mindset to have when wandering around an alien environment that is intent on grossing you out, I guess. I'll probably spend far too long agonizing over opening a door to actually get anywhere, and so won't have to face its more horrific treasures.
There are biomechanical guns to play around with, though, and they're every bit as gross and unsettling as the environments. You're going to need to manage your ammo so that you're ready for those critical moments when you do have to dispatch something grotesque lumbering towards you. Or just get used to running away. Or at least running away until you get to a locked door and discover you've got to do something unspeakable in order to open it again. Yeuch.
Alan has been writing about PC tech since before 3D graphics cards existed, and still vividly recalls having to fight with MS-DOS just to get games to load. He fondly remembers the killer combo of a Matrox Millenium and 3dfx Voodoo, and seeing Lara Croft in 3D for the first time. He's very glad hardware has advanced as much as it has though, and is particularly happy when putting the latest M.2 NVMe SSDs, AMD processors, and laptops through their paces. He has a long-lasting Magic: The Gathering obsession but limits this to MTG Arena these days."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Alan DexterSocial Links NavigationAlan has been writing about PC tech since before 3D graphics cards existed, and still vividly recalls having to fight with MS-DOS just to get games to load. He fondly remembers the killer combo of a Matrox Millenium and 3dfx Voodoo, and seeing Lara Croft in 3D for the first time. He's very glad hardware has advanced as much as it has though, and is particularly happy when putting the latest M.2 NVMe SSDs, AMD processors, and laptops through their paces. He has a long-lasting Magic: The Gathering obsession but limits this to MTG Arena these days.
Several games have waved H.R. Giger's subliminal dicks and fannies in our faces, mostly through Alien connections, but in recent years I've seen few go for it quite as much as Scorn [official site]. It's an upcoming mix of first-person shooter and adventure game, with all the biomechanical ribbing, pumping, throbbing, squicking, and glistening of Giger with touches of Zdzisław Beksiński and David Cronenberg. I've peeked at Scorn before but what pushed me to post about it now was this new trailer - it seems to show a meatgun changing function as the player pulls out a toothed, gristly gland and swaps in a fatty glob of sphincters. It's the small things in life, you know?
Serbian studio Ebb Software explain that Scorn is set in a non-linear open world where each glistening region has its own bit of story. Expect puzzles to solve, limited inventory to manage, and a spot of scrapping.
I do like that Ebb talk about flinging you hard into this writhing meatworld, not over-explaining what's going on, not having distinct cutscenes so you need to pay attention, and having full body awareness. If you pick up, use, or otherwise touch something, our skinless star will reach out and do it with their awful arms. The big question now is: can you look down and see your legs?
Ebb Software plan to release Scorn in two halves. The first, named DASEIN, is coming in 2017. In the meantime, they're taking a crack at Steam Greenlight. You might have seen Scorn when Ebb failed a Kickstarter attempt in 2014, but they managed to attract a private investor to fund development.
Adam and I have grand plans for a Vive experience which starts as a wacky physics 'simulator' about dining but degenerates into body horror as you assemble a gun from your meal and your own teeth. I've suggested it use modded motion controllers with pliers attached for fun mix-ups with that weird VR 'imaginary body' sensation.
Scorn grabbed plenty of headlines when it was announced last year, mainly thanks to its deeply unsettling aesthetics. At the time of writing this, the official Scorn trailer has had over 23 million views and the game's Kickstarter campaign has been funded with a week still to go, proving that gag-reflex inducing graphics certainly have an audience.
The twisted locations in the trailer might look like they've ripped straight out of one of H.R Giger's sketch books, and the weapons made out of wobbly bits of flesh and stringy sinew are certainly eye-catching, but how well do these grim graphics translate to gameplay?
I spent 30 minutes with the Scorn's Alpha demo this morning, and honestly, my first impressions aren't great. The clunky puzzles, coloured door locks and frustrating insta-kills feel archaic and completely at odds with the innovative visuals. Even more bizarrely, for a game that sells itself as a horror, it's just not scary at all.
You can see 20 minutes of footage from the Scorn demo in the video below, where I swear my way through its trial-and-error gameplay and make lots of childish jokes about bodily functions. Because of course I do.
While Microsoft's May 7, 2020 Xbox Series X presentation featured games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla and The Medium, the most memorable game from that showcase was Scorn, which turned heads with its cerebral horror. This disturbing game came out of nowhere with H.R. Giger-esque visuals, and its confusing trailer establishes the same kind of mystique that surrounded Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding prior to that game's launch.
A vague cinematic trailer was all that was shown during the Xbox Series X, but the developers followed up in October 2020 with a lengthy gameplay trailer. For anyone that still can't get some of the imagery from the game's reveal trailer out of their heads, here's everything you need to know about Scorn.
Yes. A new gameplay trailer for Scorn was released on the official Xbox channel on October 21, 2020. It isn't a sizzle reel of cool moments; instead, it's a slow-paced 14-minute video showcasing uncut gameplay that's running on Xbox Series X.
In the video, we see the player navigate through Scorn's labyrinthine corridors that give H.R. Giger's visuals a fleshy aesthetic. It's a pretty disgusting game, as the gun they are using is seemingly made of bone and makes disgusting sounds when reloading. While it's slow-paced, the gameplay video also highlights how beautiful the game looks, the grotesque enemies that players will take on, and some of the puzzles players will have to solve.
A release year was confirmed in the extended gameplay trailer released by Ebb Software on October 21. We now know that Scorn will be released in 2021. It seems to have been delayed slightly, as previous statements from the developers made it seem like Scorn would come out closer to Xbox Series X's launch.
In the press release that was released following May's Inside Xbox, the developers stated outright that "the game is planned for release during the Xbox Series X launch period," though a date wasn't mentioned in that trailer. Based on previous gaming trends, "launch window" could refer to any time between launch and the end of March 2021.
"The only thing that is important to us is creating the best game possible, and people enjoying it when it's released. We really hope to make something that is going to be well worth the wait." Hopefully, we don't have to wait too long into 2021 to try out Scorn. That said, an October 2021 release around Halloween would also be quite fitting.
Scorn is the first game from Ebb Software, a Serbian team formed in 2013. Scorn first emerged in 2014 and sought crowdfunding through Kickstarter. While its first attempt at crowdfunding failed, the game returned to Kickstarter in 2017 and was successfully funded. Video game fund Kowloon Knights have also invested in Scorn, though the game itself is still being self-published by Ebb Software.
A PC version was confirmed back during the game's 2014 announcement, and a Steam page for Scorn already exists. The PC version of Scorn appears to be on track right alongside the Xbox Series X version of the game. Game Pass owners will also be happy to hear that the game will be on the subscription service right at launch, which is an indication that the game may never come to Sony consoles.
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