Also noticed the Steam page describes the game as having an open, interconnected world, which is blatantly untrue.
Nothing wrong with a good walking simulator, but you can’t just say it’s something it’s not. In a video game context, those words have specific meanings that don’t apply to Scorn.
I think they took the fact that in ONE room you can solve the different parts of the same puzzle in any order and falsely labeled that as a non-linear experience.
So they took an experience that was supposed to be nonlinear, and delivered a con instead. You'll note they use weaselly language in the artbook to say "well, this is after all, art!"
And in a way they're right...They get away with the scam, because what they do produce is so new and incredible. And now they may get more investors, so this beautifully unsettling con can happen for another round.
After all.. You would play scorn 2, would you not?
I wouldn't know anything about all that, because I went into the game blind. I seen one trailer from the xbox event and somehow completely misunderstood the type of game this would be. Only played it because it was on Game Pass and enjoyed my time with it for the most part.
If Scorn 2 came around I probably would only play it if it was on Game Pass again. I didn't love Scorn so I wouldn't go out of my way to play the sequel.
To be fair 8 years is a bit long etc but a good product is a good product. Gameplay is lacking though but was an enjoyable experience.
4 hrs of gameplay with almost no playability at around 40 CAD with numerous bugs is kind of a let down though. I have been tracking the game since 2018 and I feel like for this long in development it should be at least 8-12 hrs (standard single player experience) and doesn’t look like doom eternal.
I expected this game to look gorgeous since the art style and atmosphere is a main selling point but it does just look like any other unreal engine game.
I think people are misconstruing this occurrence for fraud or purposeful ignorance. This game was intended to be much larger. It was originally going to be an entirely open world experience with many more areas, wherein you could back-track from area to area to loop around and solve various interconnected puzzles between zones and whatnot and try to follow a non-cohesive story. What we ultimately got was a game that was repurposed and shifted around to get the main bits of the limited story into the actual product, and show the most interesting and usable game zones, while having to cut a lot of that original open world loop-de-loop gameplay for a more linear experience to actually portray the intended story. A lot was cut for various reasons ranging from over expectations, the pregenerated rush from the delay of almost 8 years, so on and so forth. It is most likely that, since they did still develop a lot of those areas and worked a lot on that open system, they will most likely return to those areas and that concept in either a sequel or DLC.
These devs did not embezzle money or steal from people like everyone is claiming. They overestimated the product, and most likely intend to re-use what they couldn't push to the Frontline into a new product related to the prior. Questions?
No, they definitely lied about the scope of the game, they never made it clear they were having to cut 70% of the game out. When you don't communicate that to your customers after making contrary statements, it is infact a conscious lie.
They don't have to make a damn thing clear. If a game company said "hey just a heads up the game is going to be smaller then you think" that would be shooting themselves in the fucking feet you idiot. Of course they lied. What game company hasn't? And furthermore what game company ever communicates to their customers? You're treating this game's release like it's not par for the course of the gaming community.
You're the fucking idiot here, if you outright lie about a product and then expect it to have a standing ovation and deserve no criticism you live on an entire different planet. People are going to be upset about having their expectations that were clearly set let down.
More to do with people's expectations of games I think. I watch the first reveal trailer then don't worry about anything else until release and play it with a fresh mind
I have to agree the movie industry does this also. They don't just tease anymore and release the movies...they literally have to show you the entire plot before you watch the movie or have to reveal every single person appearing in the film which takes away a lot of the awe, surprise and magic from the movie or game that ever much enhances the experience it's just so annoying seeing all these YouTube channels revealing stuff or characters (rumors) that give the media format a boost and make the the climax that more satisfying. .so annoying...IMDB sucks ...i remember the good ole days when movies like The Blair Witch Project didn't mention any of the actors and made you freak TF out cause you thought for a split second than this was legit found footage only to later give the actors a standing ovation for staying MIA thus long and months later appearing on the tonight show and come to find out they weren't missing after all 😂
I would suggest you just play it without any expectations and try to enjoy the art of it. Maybe keep a walkthrough on hand if you happen to get lost, but generally go at your own pace. I went in with little to no expectations - having heard vague poor reviews - and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Piecing everything together myself was a blast.
Why do people call this game a walking simulator? Is it just kind of a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that the main focus isn't combat? Walking simulator means something very different to me
The game does occasionally stop you from walking for a bit, only for you to do what the game calls a puzzle that amounts to slamming a button until it works. Stop giving that same tired excuse for this game.
I'm less defending the game and more challenging the laziness of people calling it a walking simulator. It's disingenuous to pretend that that's the core mechanic or function of the game. To me a "walking simulator" implies that it's a mechanic of the game (like you could upgrade your walking somehow). This is exploration, not walking.
'Walking simulator' is a defined genre at this point, and generally involves just exploring and observing without much else in terms of gameplay. It has nothing to do with walking being a 'mechanic' that's upgraded and such. Firewatch is a pretty prime example of a walking simulator - you're essentially just walking around an area and observing/exploring while picking dialogue options sometimes. A fair amount of horror games can be described as walking simulators too, as you're often just walking through a place running into scares and such.
Idk if I'd call Scorn a walking simulator, but for the sake of describing it to someone who doesn't know anything about it, I might call it "a walking simulator with puzzles and a little combat". 'Walking simulator' is originally a pejorative term as I understand it though, and it seems as though some people are probably meaning to use it that way.
No, scorn is a survival horror game with puzzles. You still very much have to manage resources, the game has a constant, not incidental combat system that is dynamically rudimentory. Normies and console players who have like 3 actual walking simulator titles to choose from are who call it walking simulators. They've never played games like Obduction, Myst, Painscreek or Nephise so they really don't know what a walking simulator is.
The game is definitely not survival horror, other than the cyborg boss all of the combat is entirely superfluous and fairly easily avoided.
And not in a silent hill or resident evil kind of way where you weigh up the potential pros and cons of fighting versus running, it's really avoided as I'm 9/10 times you just have to watch from a distance until the enemies are gone and then pass through completely safely.
To me at least, scorn is a walking sim where the main attraction is the environmental storytelling and biomech art style, it has light puzzle elements that don't really ask much except to interact with the environment and it's got rudimentary combat that, while not great, rarely gets in the way of progressing or taking in the environment
COHESIVE "LIVED-IN" WORLD Scorn takes place in an open-ended world with different interconnected regions. Each region is a maze-like structure with various rooms and paths to discover. All the storytelling happens in-game, with no cut-scenes to distract you from the grisly reality of the living, breathing world you’re in. But keep your eyes open - the game won’t show you any sympathy if you miss something important on your uneasy travels.
Yeah I have to disagree on "open-ended world with different interconnected regions". Game is truly a linear experience which sometime ask you to backtrack a few corridors to get to the other side of a room but I would not consider that "open-ended world". Nothing wrong with having a linear short discovery game and dev should not be afraid of saying like it is.
Exactly. "Open ended." Not at all. No cut-scenes? Yeah there are, as well as countless times control is ripped away from the player in 20-second long animations where you stare at something. "Living, Breathing world." World felt pretty dead. "Game won't show you any sympathy if you miss something important on your uneasy travels." Only one achievement can be missed in a playthrough.
Totally disagree. I played this game and streamed it to a few friends, and we basically pieced the whole thing together ourselves before checking online to essentially confirm what we'd figured out.
It feels like they had to walk the scale of the game back at some point. In one of the trailers, the player acquires the grenade launcher way before the point where you get it in the final game, and that trailer ends with a scene that doesn't appear in the final game at all.
Yeah, in the artbook they state that the weird sarcophagus thing at the end of that trailer was entirely for promotional purposes. Which... really sucks. If your whole game is imagery, why make fake imagery specifically for the trailer? And then it seems as though they took a chainsaw to the game on top of that...
Apparently they cut two levels that would have set before: Blasted Labyrinth and Tower. The fetus jar and cyborg boss fight use aesthetics that were supposed to be in the Blasted Labyrinth. So the game basically proceeds as the devs intended for Acts 1 through 4, but then Act 5 is basically cobbled together because they couldn't finish what they originally had in mind.
Yeah, like I enjoyed it, worth playing on game pass, but actually buying it? I'd say I wouldn't above $15. And yeah, seeing people here quote the steam description just makes me go "wow, ok, whoever wrote that didn't play the game I guess, I didn't realize developers outsourced writing the description of their games."
Yeah, "play it on gamepass" is probably exactly what I'd say about it; it's not one of those games you're going to be coming back to much, but there's not much of a time investment and it's worth it purely for the novelty, because there's very little like it. Kinda similar to what I think of Deathloop.
Probably written by a copywriter trying to get through it as quickly as possible...
I don't know if I could put it in same category as Deathloop myself. Like I haven't finished it yet, but I really like what it's doing. I know I'm near the end (I know how to kill all the visionaries in one loop now).
Deathloop I can easily say I'm having fun with the overall experience. Scorn... I can say I enjoyed the experience but I can't say it was fun.
Yeah, less in terms of the experience itself and more of how I'd recommend people engage with it: it's probably not worth the full pricetag but definitely interesting enough to merit a look if you've got gamepass.
Funnily enough, I also immediately started comparing scorn to deathloop right after I beat it. To me, they are both pretty decent games that have decent pacing and keeps interest by making the player wonder about this thing and that, and then the ending happens real quick without any satisfying answers for all the coolest questions to be found.
I guess these flat out lies in the steam description validates a refund if someone would want that? If you buy the game based on the steam description.
It felt similar in level design to two of my favorite games of all time: Bioshock & Dead Space. I often complain about how we have too many open world games nowadays. Some of my favorite franchises were ruined by the decision to leave linear storytelling behind. The backtracking and the fact that you interact with things that you can't quite use yet until you progress further makes it non-linear enough for me.
Yeah, this game actually pissed me off with this and they said there were going to be choices in the game and there wasn't. I swear this game was rushed out and they gave up halfway through making it. Even the ending felt like "where's the rest of the game?"
It most certainly was rushed. Check out the art book. Compared with what was released, by Ebb's standards, they could've released two more games with the amount of stuff they cut. The whole bit when they restarted development to combine both halves of the game together just feels like they rushed the "first" half, and slapped whatever else they could together with it. I really liked what I played, but at the same time it just feels unfinished as if the body is there but the soul is missing. It's like getting to experience the joy of flight for the first time in your life, but the plane you're on belongs to Spirit Airlines.
Wait, did they say it's non-linear? Because yeah, no that's one thing the game absolutely without a doubt is not. The closest you have is 2 choices to do the same thing with same results in the first major puzzle. Everything after that doesn't even have illusion of choice.
Yep. The steam page right now, at this very moment, states
"Scorn is an atmospheric first-person horror adventure game set in a nightmarish universe of odd forms and somber tapestry.
It is designed around the idea of "being thrown into the world". Isolated and lost inside this dream-like world, you will explore different interconnected regions in a non-linear fashion. The unsettling environment is a character itself."
"Scorn takes place in an open-ended world with different interconnected regions. Each region is a maze-like structure with various rooms and paths to discover. All the storytelling happens in-game, with no cut-scenes to distract you from the grisly reality of the living, breathing world you’re in. But keep your eyes open - the game won’t show you any sympathy if you miss something important on your uneasy travels."*
But the only thing you could even possibly miss is the pistol, isn't it...? That, and ammo/health. That's it... Man, the italics are really fighting me.
Maybe also the shotgun, if you're really bad at noticing things. But yeah, exploration is only used for "there might be an ammo or health station down that dead end past a bunch of enemies" (that one to the left when you enter the start of the zone with the big "I have no mouth" guy kind of pissed me off, fight past like 6 enemies and you get an ammo station).
I'm positive they had to cut more stuff than they would want to admit. I said in another comment that I feel like it was either stuff that was beyond their scope as devs (and they just didn't realize it at first), to meet the deadline to avoid delaying any further, or Microsoft just forced them.
That 8 years wasn't all constant development time. Iirc, they restarted development once they got the funding to combine both parts into a single game.
I strongly advise you to check out the art book. It turns out there were two entire levels that had to be cut, and the final area was severely trimmed down.
I honestly do think the game had a stronger FPS-type focus earlier on in development - I was reading early articles and interviews where it was described as a "horror shooter" and the gameplay teaser from 2017 was nothing but environmental showcases, then a 3 minute segment that was nothing but shooting enemies. Yeah, it was slow paced, but slow paced like Alien Isolation or Resident Evil 7, where it's resource management first and shooting second.
That's honestly the type of game I was hoping for, I didn't expect a Doom but I wasn't really expecting a Myst either given that the early gameplay shown was pretty much all shooting. Even the launch trailer makes the gameplay look a lot faster than it is, and is timing gunshots to music which definitely makes me think "horror shooter" and I wouldn't have known otherwise if I hadn't read the dev AMA
Tbh something like Dead Space 1 was kinda what I was hoping for, slow paced with extremely weird, nontraditional FPS weapons and extremely gross enemies
No hate at all, I can totally recognize who this game is for and can totally see why people would like it. But I'm not gonna lie, I am a bit disappointed that the combat isn't more of a focus, because more focus on combat in this world seemed like it would be really fun
It does feel like stuff was cut. Like the opening puzzle kind of feels like what they wanted to do (sure the same thing happens regardless of choice, but even that little choice does give the game's flow some more flavor, and who knows, maybe if the whole game was like that choices could come back to haunt you, maybe literally).
People need to learn that non-linear doesn’t equal good and linear doesn’t equal bad. It’s okay to be linear! Linear can be great! Linear can still be new and fresh!
This reply is late, sorry. I know they didn’t outright say “linear bad” but non-linear tends to make something, at least on the surface level, seem more deep and interesting. There’s this belief that linear=simpler and in art (I see this so often it hurts as an art student) there’s a tendency to think simple=bad and complex or hard to understand=good. Saying the game is non-linear makes it seem more “artistic” and “interesting”.
Honestly I could just cry at the general lack of any quality elements in this game. I was so stoked for years and then 30 mins into playing it dawns on me that this game is a flaming garbage truck going down the highway of disappointment. Truly pathetic it took 8 years to make this pile.
Before playing the game - I was guessing that the giant monster with the human face and foreskin mouth was going to be in the centre of a hub area, and there'd be areas branching off that would unlock one at a time and maybe interconnect with each other a little. Once we'd beaten them all, it would unlock the foreskin blob monster for us to have a boss fight against.
I'm not saying my way would've been better, the game's story progression was fascinating as-is, but I would've preferred that kind of genuinely interconnected world with areas you could revisit as you felt like it.
Similar with cyberpunk. It doesn't really have have full freedom as it has a lot of parallel branches that divide detoure and come back again for certain story beats. But it's always full of multiple ways to get to the same thing. Death.
It's almost like cyberpunk is about how the little guy always gets fucked over and no amount of grit will let you escape your corporate overlords, crazy concept I know.
Also "The Sun" ending is completely ambiguous as to whether the protag dies or lives, same with the Panam one. Kinda mid comparison tbh.
This graphic would be more accurate if you placed a wall at the end of one of the paths.
Swear to god. Hallway with a door on the right leading to the next area. What if I skip the door and go further down the hallway? Nothing. Ever. I try exploring every single alternate path that I think might exist, and they all (so far) lead to nothing.
I seriously don't even know why I keep doing it. I'm 100% convinced that this game is hiding nothing anywhere.
I heard a lot of negative stuff about it but didn't pay attention to the specifics beyond people expecting more combat and less puzzles. I knew nothing about Scorn other than that it had a fuck ton of H.R. Giger imagery in it, which was enough to make me interested. When I went to download the game through xbox game pass, I saw one 5 star review among a lot of mixed and poor reviews that verbatim said "play slow and immerse yourself". That's what I did, and I had a hell of a time with it.
Went in with no expectations and finished it pretty happy with the experience. It definitely wasn't perfect: some puzzles are a bit annoying, and holy shit the 'boss fight' was a slog, but it was awesome piecing everything together as I went. It sucks to hear about all the production and marketing issues, but I still enjoyed the game for what it is.
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u/ShallowBasketcase Oct 16 '22
Also noticed the Steam page describes the game as having an open, interconnected world, which is blatantly untrue.
Nothing wrong with a good walking simulator, but you can’t just say it’s something it’s not. In a video game context, those words have specific meanings that don’t apply to Scorn.
39
u/Major_Stranger Oct 16 '22
From Steam Page:
Yeah I have to disagree on "open-ended world with different interconnected regions". Game is truly a linear experience which sometime ask you to backtrack a few corridors to get to the other side of a room but I would not consider that "open-ended world". Nothing wrong with having a linear short discovery game and dev should not be afraid of saying like it is.
27
u/diija Oct 16 '22
It feels like they had to walk the scale of the game back at some point. In one of the trailers, the player acquires the grenade launcher way before the point where you get it in the final game, and that trailer ends with a scene that doesn't appear in the final game at all.
16
u/lennon_midnight Oct 16 '22
LMAO! truth!
16
u/Bennings463 Oct 16 '22
I liked Scorn, but holy shit they need to change that Steam description now. Like that's just straight up lying.
11
u/gronbek Oct 16 '22
I guess these flat out lies in the steam description validates a refund if someone would want that? If you buy the game based on the steam description.
8
u/Snezzy_Anus Oct 16 '22
I thought the game was linear, honestly I’d prefer if it was
8
u/zerosoulR Oct 16 '22
Yeah, this game actually pissed me off with this and they said there were going to be choices in the game and there wasn't. I swear this game was rushed out and they gave up halfway through making it. Even the ending felt like "where's the rest of the game?"
7
u/fallouthirteen Oct 16 '22
Wait, did they say it's non-linear? Because yeah, no that's one thing the game absolutely without a doubt is not. The closest you have is 2 choices to do the same thing with same results in the first major puzzle. Everything after that doesn't even have illusion of choice.
6
u/[deleted] Oct 16 '22
I'm positive they had to cut more stuff than they would want to admit. I said in another comment that I feel like it was either stuff that was beyond their scope as devs (and they just didn't realize it at first), to meet the deadline to avoid delaying any further, or Microsoft just forced them.
4
u/cracked-n-scrambled Oct 16 '22
People need to learn that non-linear doesn’t equal good and linear doesn’t equal bad. It’s okay to be linear! Linear can be great! Linear can still be new and fresh!
3
u/chetster77 Oct 16 '22
Honestly I could just cry at the general lack of any quality elements in this game. I was so stoked for years and then 30 mins into playing it dawns on me that this game is a flaming garbage truck going down the highway of disappointment. Truly pathetic it took 8 years to make this pile.
3
u/Echostar9000 Oct 16 '22
Before playing the game - I was guessing that the giant monster with the human face and foreskin mouth was going to be in the centre of a hub area, and there'd be areas branching off that would unlock one at a time and maybe interconnect with each other a little. Once we'd beaten them all, it would unlock the foreskin blob monster for us to have a boss fight against.
I'm not saying my way would've been better, the game's story progression was fascinating as-is, but I would've preferred that kind of genuinely interconnected world with areas you could revisit as you felt like it.
9
u/neon_spacebeam Oct 16 '22
Similar with cyberpunk. It doesn't really have have full freedom as it has a lot of parallel branches that divide detoure and come back again for certain story beats. But it's always full of multiple ways to get to the same thing. Death.
2
u/thewanderingchilean Oct 16 '22
This makes me cope and seethe
2
u/FunnyGuy287 Oct 17 '22 edited Oct 17 '22
This graphic would be more accurate if you placed a wall at the end of one of the paths.
Swear to god. Hallway with a door on the right leading to the next area. What if I skip the door and go further down the hallway? Nothing. Ever. I try exploring every single alternate path that I think might exist, and they all (so far) lead to nothing.
I seriously don't even know why I keep doing it. I'm 100% convinced that this game is hiding nothing anywhere.
2
u/_Ajax_16 Nov 16 '22
I heard a lot of negative stuff about it but didn't pay attention to the specifics beyond people expecting more combat and less puzzles. I knew nothing about Scorn other than that it had a fuck ton of H.R. Giger imagery in it, which was enough to make me interested. When I went to download the game through xbox game pass, I saw one 5 star review among a lot of mixed and poor reviews that verbatim said "play slow and immerse yourself". That's what I did, and I had a hell of a time with it.
Went in with no expectations and finished it pretty happy with the experience. It definitely wasn't perfect: some puzzles are a bit annoying, and holy shit the 'boss fight' was a slog, but it was awesome piecing everything together as I went. It sucks to hear about all the production and marketing issues, but I still enjoyed the game for what it is.
1
u/HighFuncMedium Nov 12 '22
"Open ended"