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.