Update (Fri 14th Oct, 2022 11:45 BST): When we first published this article, we only had a couple of reviews to analyse, but now the embargo has officially dropped, and the first Scorn reviews are finally hitting the web in numbers!
The "mixed" feedback that we talked about earlier this week is still present here though, as the critics seem divided on their opinions of Scorn. Some are giving it great scores, others are giving it terrible scores, and everyone else is sitting somewhere in the middle.
Here at Pure Xbox, we gave Scorn a "Good" 7/10 in our review, calling it "a memorably gruesome puzzlebox adventure". We've included a brief snippet of our review in the roundup below, along with various other verdicts.
If you're playing Scorn on Xbox Game Pass, don't forget to check out our full Scorn walkthrough guide, which includes everything you need to complete all the puzzles in the game. It's already live right now!
Let's take a look at some reviews, shall we?
VG247 (4/5)
"In truth, Scorn doesn’t tell a particularly fascinating story, but it hardly matters; the way in which it’s told is done to perfection, and provides an incredibly refreshing horror experience that truly gets under your skin."
The Guardian (4/5)
"Scorn is an incredibly evocative work of art and the things it evokes are so unpleasant I had to ration it out in hour-long sessions throughout a week of play."
"A revulsive but rewarding nightmare."
IGN (7/10)
"Scorn is a relentlessly unsettling delve into a surreal, macabre world of alien mystery, but the scariest thing about it is the dreadful combat."
Pure Xbox (7/10)
"Scorn may make a few missteps here and there, with some short-lived but shoddy combat sequences and puzzles that grow a little repetitive as the game reaches its climax, but none of this really takes away from the artistic achievement at core of this adventure."
Windows Central (7/10)
"Scorn presents one of the most visually striking and untouchably atmospheric game worlds in recent memory. Ebb Software also admirably challenges horror gameplay conventions and profoundly examines humanity's insatiable desires. Unfortunately, the crawling pace might deter players from seeing it through."
Eurogamer (3/5)
"I love Scorn for its atmosphere, its light-touch storytelling, its world-building, and confident hands-off puzzling. It's just a shame those wonderful attributes are a tad undermined by that measly save system and tedious combat."
VGC (2/5)
"Scorn has one of the most beautiful worlds you'll see in a game (if you can see beauty in the grotesque). It's just a shame that world is also home to a frustrating puzzle-heavy adventure filled with aimless wandering."
GameSpot (4/10)
"There's simply too much in Scorn that works to push you away from it rather than pull you deeper into it, making even its relatively brief adventure a difficult one to suggest you give your time to."
The Metacritic rating right now sits at 71 based on just over 30 reviews for the PC version, so some of these lower-scored reviews haven't brought down the average too much. Still, it seems like a polarising game for sure!
Scorn has finally arrived for Xbox Series X|S, PC and Xbox Cloud Gaming today, October 14th. The horror title has also hit Xbox Game Pass on day one, so you can always try it out for yourself if you're a Game Pass subscriber!
What do you think to these early reviews of Scorn? Let us know down below.
Comments 44
I wouldn't call that "mixed reviews" lol the game will easily average a 8/10 and 80 on metacritic when all reviews come in, NME has a history of wrong scores, they don't know how to score games, everybody knows that about them
@Kaloudz I know! But the game is on GP, so I guess it won't hurt to give it a spin.
@Kaloudz Yeah. It looked way too similar to Agony and we know how that one turned out.
Hopefully, Scorn turns out better.
this website bestgamingprice gave the game a 9/10 but said the only con is "body horror is too scary" lol
@Kezelpaso also i think it's too early for a headline like that, 2 reviews is nothing to say "mixed" about. gotta wait for at least 5 or more
Was never going to be a 10/10 so I don't know what people expected, the experience will vary by person, those that enjoy horror, puzzles and the aesthetic will love the game.
@BRUTALSAM We're just commenting on these first couple of reviews for now - The Guardian clearly likes it a lot, while the NME seemingly didn't enjoy it (despite the 3/5 score), hence the "Mixed" mention in the headline.
Once we get a lot more reviews doing the rounds, we'll return to this article and alter the headline / body of the text accordingly.
I will try it anyway that’s the beauty of gamepass .
Expect it to linger at low 70s to high 60s on meta....but I'm still interested
This was to be expected. It's had "Engrossing atmosphere but poor gameplay" written all over it since the first showing and that's largely what has been reported so far. I'm looking forward to hearing from a few more voices I trust, but going to give it a go regardless of what they say, I think It might be my kinda jam.
@Kaloudz I didn't try Agony, but I read about it! So, is it a sequel planned? Lol!
Yeah most of us here have been saying this would split opinion. I’ve been looking forward to it and I’m still gonna play it as it’s on Gamepass and looks interesting to me. It might be sh*t, I’ll see 😄
I'll wait and see what others have to say. If it's hard to play (through either mechanics or presentation) then I'll likely give it a miss.
@BRUTALSAM I highly doubt it’ll average somewhere in the 80s; I’m thinking it’ll be more along the lines of mid 70s.
On a side note - I’ll try the game out but I’m not expecting much. Additionally, it’s more of a puzzle game and I’m just not a fan of that. I’m going in with little to no expectation so who knows - I might be genuinely surprised.
People kept expecting a first person shooter when literally none of the prerelease info showed it as such.
This has always been been shaping up to be a game like Myst, or any of the adve ture games of old.
@HarmanSmith That's the awesome thing about Game Pass, you can use it as a way to play infinite demos. I love horror but just a few IPs do it right in my opinion, Project Zero, Silent Hill, Resident Evil and little else. We'll see about this one.
@BartoxAbrasiveness I remember IGN used to do it a lot where they'll say a lot of negatives about a game and end up giving it a 8/10 or reverse praise it and give it a 7/10
Xbox will always trail Playstation in the exclusives department. Every big PS exclusive is guaranteed to be mind blowing, Xbox not so much. This is wat worries me about Starfield. If it was a PS exclusive i’d be far more confident in it’s quality.
@sjbsixpack I agree, Destruction Allstars was mind blowing in its sheer awfulness.
@UltimateKGB This isn’t really good argument. You pick one game out of dozens. The overall point of their comment is correct.
I will say that FH5 was mind blowing for me. So I need more of that kind of experience from Xbox.
Definitely has the Agony taint — luckily the GP inclusion will make checking it out pretty painless.
@FatalBubbles to be fair it was a tongue in cheek comment (and I did miss the bit about big exclusives).
Honestly I’m not that big a fan of most of the 1st party exclusives from all 3 console makers with the exception of Forza and Halo and not really even played either of the last one of each of them.
@sjbsixpack Not sure about that. Forza and Halo Infinite were both triple A games last year, in my opinion. As far as Sony, I tried Ghosts of Tsushima, Death Stranding and Spider Man Miles Morales - all on PS Premium and didn't like any of them. I also didn't like GOW at all so a great exclusive game is obviously subjective.
Hopefully it is more fun than it looked in the 1st hour impressions I saw. One guy said there is zero dialog, zero cutscenes, zero combat for that 1st hour (which is almost 20% of the game based on the devs 6 hour claim). He said there is no hint of a story that he could tell. I like puzzle games just fine but this seems like a letdown from the survival horror fps that the trailers made it seem like.
I have it installed and ready for tomorrow but my expectations are substantially lower than they were a month ago.
I'm all for this game, because it's not the same regurgitated casual gameplay like most today, for example, get on a horse or in a car, go A to B going high and low whilst getting your hand held along the way with directions or voice dialogue's, find an item, add cosmetic clothing, use skill points for upgrades, solve a quest, watch a cinematic scene 20 times, beat a boss or a mini boss by hacking, slashing, shooting with a rifle, go to X Y Z, to then finish a check list. Games that leave me to my own demise having to use my brain by problem solving with puzzles or just naturally trying to find my own way is right up my alley, but most people get stressed out with stuff like that because they don't want to try, people are used to the same types of gameplay these days like mentioned above and if it ain't that, then it ain't good.
I will play it as i have gamepass so its essentially free whether i enjoy it enough to finish it thats another matter but i certainly want to see it as it looks interesting
@Warriooh So, you don't like video games. Gotcha
@sjbsixpack I'd agree but scorn wasn't made by xbox, and is also coming to playstation next year.
@UltimateKGB I forgot about Psychonauts 2. That was a great game as well!
Playstation does have some great exclusives...but ps fanboys also make out they are pooping out nothing but hits...quite a few ps exclusives wouldn't be considered anything special if they where multi platform games...totally blown out of proportion how good some of their exclusives are
This game is obviously going to be divisive. As a fan of HR Giger and David Cronenberg, the Amnesia games and more I'm clearly the target market. But these niches are hardly mainstream, this is a game which COULDN'T BE more subjective for the player and one in which everyone remotely interested would do better in ignoring reviews altogether due to the subject matter of this game.
@Serpentes420 Classics retro from the 80s, and beyond, games that have never been done before like indie games, not COD, FIFA, GTA, battle royale games, etc etc that most play, any recommendations young padawn?
@Warriooh Have you played Manifold Garden? Looks like we have similar game interests and Manifold Garden was an incredible experience for me
I never take a guardian review seriously lol
@Moto5 No but I have just looked it up after you mentioned it, it made my mind boggle, i ended up buying it haha, thank you the recommendation man, I've been playing antichamber that is fairly similar recently and a game called kubic.
@UltimateKGB not exactly a big game. It was free!!
@Romans12 yeah, of coarse it is. I myself don’t like Halo. FPS shooters i’d rather be on earth using real weapons, much prefer COD to Halo. You could always look at sales and awards tho. God Of War for example sold over 20 million copies and won Game of the Year beating Red Dead 2 in to second place, another incredible game. My current fav Xbox game has gotta be Forza H 5. Gears is decent but not on same level as the likes of God of War an Uncharted 4.
It sounds like the game doesn't attempt to hold your hand at all when playing. Of course that's going to be divisive, so many gamers today have been brought up with "Press X for the game to play itself".
@Kaloudz Yes, we did know what the embargo was (for us at least), but we couldn't reveal anything yesterday
@BRUTALSAM yeah, it would be more accurate to call the reviews "mostly positive." There are far more above-average review scores listed in this article than below-average.
More like tech demo. Boring
The game looks freaking amazing. Combat is so so but I'm avoiding most fights and running through the labrynth in order to do so . It's a really haunting experience, great exclusive imo. Some of the combat can always be patched later, think it's a good bite sized game that doesn't overstay it's welcome
@Warriooh I find Scorn to be pretty refreshing for many of the reasons you've just said
Quite liked Deathloop, but this one is hit my bag. A little too obtuse. Gamepass is great because ut lets us llay games normally would avoid and very much looking forward to Tuesdays release.
its not survival and not horror, just simple h.r.giger look a like puzzle game with 6 hour of main story...
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