By now you have likely heard of Scorn’s greatest flaw: the lackluster combat. I’m not about to sugar coat it for you and say it’s not actually bad, just misunderstood. Not that it isn’t misunderstood, as few players seem to realize you can just stun an opponent and then sprint on past towards safety. That is a possibility most seem to ignore! However, coming to this realization doesn’t “fix” the combat, particularly as there are some areas or encounters where this will just drive you towards a dead end with several aggro’d monsters chasing behind. It just provides an option to skip most of the combat encounters.

There are some games in which bypassing combat is the whole point, and others where bypassing combat is, in itself, a different kind of skill-based challenge. That is not so with Scorn, and if it is, then Scorn is designed doubly poorly in this regard.

Note that the developers themselves emphasized throughout their marketing that Scorn “isn’t really a shooter”. There was a lot of discussion regarding the game being more of an adventure or puzzle game with only a bit of combat for atmosphere and tension. The problem is that, as soon as combat is introduced, it feels like the game is eager to drop several monsters in great quantities at the player at nearly every turn. At first it is successful in even the weakest of critters being terrifying to run into, but before long the game has thrown so many at the player that it simply becomes tiresome and annoying.

For some, this will be tolerable as the rest of the experience will be strong enough to carry them through. For others, however, Scorn will be one of the worst games they played and, if they manage to forge through to the end anyway, are unlikely to find its conclusion to have been worth it.

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Direct Download

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Direct Download

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Direct Download

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This is the final in a six-part series exploring the game Elden Ring and its design. You can read the prior entry on the game’s end-game bosses and balance here.

I began this whole series in an effort to discuss my thoughts and feelings towards Elden Ring in greater honest detail than I had previously this year. Going by word count, I’ve at least succeeded in discussing the game in far greater detail. To what end, however? Based on that initial essay, it was to try and help illustrate why some are so pleased with this game despite exercising some of the same open-world tropes or crimes as other developers.

While I think I somewhat achieved that goal, I’ve ultimately come to the conclusion that Elden Ring is forgiven because most people playing a game such as this are simply looking to lose themselves in something fun for a few hours at a time. There is a very small population of players, critics, and analysts taking a microscope to any given game in order to figure out how it all works or could be made better. Perhaps these analytical sorts are motivated by pure academic or intellectual interest and curiosity, or perhaps they’re just trying to understand why they came away underwhelmed when so many others are claiming the title to be a modern masterpiece. There will also always be the loud voices of those that simply dislike the game because “it sucks”, or “it’s too hard”, or “it doesn’t explain anything”, though I doubt many of them even understand why they like or dislike what they do. Similarly, many of the fans on social media and Reddit that will endlessly defend it likely don’t know what it is they love about Elden Ring so much. They’ll have inklings and they’ll quote those that seem to hit the nail on the head, but in the end it all comes down to gut feelings.

When I was first playing Elden Ring, my own gut was whispering “masterpiece” to my ears. Everything just felt right, the hands of the clock seemed to speed on by I was so engaged, and every moment spent not playing the game was spent thinking about it. Uncharted corners of the map were beckoning for my attention and incomplete dungeons were turning to new objectives now that I’d powered up some. It was a game that drew me in on every level, from the moment-to-moment of playing to the idle time spent waiting for work to end so I could log some more hours.

Yet familiarity breeds contempt, and the more time I spend playing or thinking about Elden Ring the more I cannot help but feel as if it’s no masterpiece at all.

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