Scorn Looks Like Giger, But Might Play Like The Witness - IGN - IGN
Scorn feels as though it teeters on the gunk-covered ledge between “intriguingly disturbing” and “willfully grotesque.” In the hour or so I play of the the game – its completely tutorial-less opening section – I’m introduced to a truly unpleasant biotechnological setting, shown how its many opaque puzzles will link together to form neat chains of wordless storytelling, and gently repulsed by it occasionally pushing beyond its Giger-indebted fleshscape and into less impressive straight body horror.
The story of Scorn is seemingly left intentionally as blank as its puzzle solutions – I imagine interpreting this world will require as much mental effort as the gameplay – but it feels clear that we’re in a horrible location that has gone even more horribly to seed.Without giving too much away about the solution, the core puzzle in this opening area centers on using an almost fetus-like person as the means of your escape.
At its best, Scorn already feels like a deeply odd, deeply thoughtful approach to more open puzzling, perhaps most easily comparable to The Witness.