Scorn may need more scary elements
I played 30 minutes of “Defiance,” an upcoming horror game full of alien elements, and nothing happened. It takes a lot of guts to show a demo of a horror game without scary scenes and jumping up and down, but “Contempt,” as a trailer, does just about exactly that.
It begins with a birth in some sort of bio-mechanical factory. As the umbilical cord slips out of its belly, its joints crack and cling. You look down and see your body sewn together in a mass of gray, wet flesh. Tendons look like hydraulic pistons, bones are barely hidden under the skin, ready to pop out at any moment, and horrible claws dangle from each finger.
If you were in Contempt, you would be wrapped in a particularly absorbent towel, handed a warm cup of cocoa, and given a gentle kiss on the forehead.
Instead, you’re supposed to wander the halls of the humanoid factory, slide your hands over the various meatball control panels, and solve puzzles to move on. Everything is deliberately strange and abstract. There is no narration, no clear instructions, and very little user interface, so you must slowly look around for clues as to what to do next. It’s all a great way to immerse yourself in the horror without getting completely lost.
The puzzles themselves in the game are a bit of a chore. The main objective is to get through a giant door that can only be opened via the control panels on either side of the room. In other words, you need one more person, and you are in a factory where people are made. Since you have just witnessed your own birth, you know that the first step is to get the eggs from the huge egg chamber. To do this, you have to move the various clusters of eggs around on the grid to keep the “live” eggs within range of the crane. It is as simple as moving a large cluster of eggs to the far end of the grid so that you can maneuver the correct eggs down the narrow, crowded path to the crane.
We started by moving a few eggs around to figure out how the puzzle worked and if there were any hidden constraints. However, this seemingly innocuous motion made the actual puzzle more difficult to solve, so the developer, who supposedly knew the solution and how to do it at hand, stepped in and spent several minutes frantically trying to solve the puzzle. I shudder to think how long it would take to solve this. It is frustrating because it is a very simple, albeit daunting, task.
Once the eggs are safely born, we now have to push them in a sort of pram while the monster inside squeals sickeningly. Moving from station to station, the eggs are prepared to be sawed open with a giant circular saw, the final step in the hatching process. All the steps lead to a distressed humanoid animal that barks at the control panel at the front gate step by step.
This is what we call compassion. Cruelly, if you skip the step of putting a protective helmet on the monster, instead of tearing into the egg, you can plunge straight into the helpless humanoid and pull the arm for the double-door mechanism from it, leaving behind exploded limbs and bloody flesh.
It’s very atmospheric and I can’t wait to see more, but the complete lack of danger still leaves “Defiance” with some pretty big questions. It’s mellow so far, but how mellow will it be when the enemy is closing in? It’s moody, but how scary will it be, will it rely on cheap thrills, or will it sting with well-crafted scenes? As a fan of physical horror, I’m looking forward to this experience. I just hope I don’t feel uneasy as the whole game unfolds.
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