Discover the secrets of a nightmarish realm of biomechanical terrors. An exploration of the dark, haunting worldbuilding in Ebb Software’s 2022 horror game Scorn.
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Scorn depicts a biomechanical nightmare. Yet under the foreboding surface, the world of Scorn is a masterpiece of haunting and poignant worldbuilding, bringing to life a fascinating ecosystem of decay. While the game is ambiguous by design, in this video we’ll explain the story and explore the hidden themes.
So, for this entry into the Archive, we’ll embark on an expedition across this disturbing realm, comparing environmental details with clues from the artbook to uncover the shocking secrets behind the terrors on screen.
Now, let’s awaken to the nightmare of Scorn…
0:00 The World of Scorn
1:02 The Genesis Wall
2:34 The Graveyard
4:16 The Assembly
7:53 The Dark Garden
9:29 The Heart
12:36 The Crater
14:20 The City of Polis
18:44 The Meaning of the Madness
Copyright Disclaimer: Under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. All video/image content is edited under fair use rights for reasons of commentary.
I do not own the images, music, or footage used in this video. All rights and credit goes to the original owners.
♫ Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio:
Mysterious Green Fluid, Sanity Unravels, Haddonfield Horror, Alone in the Dark, Dusk, The Witch, The Vanishing, Tenebrae, The Guardian
♫ Additional music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com):
Floating Cities
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
#CuriousArchive #Scorn #Worldbuilding
39 Comments
Scorn definitely left an impact.
Scorn reminds me of the nightmares i'd get from watching spongebob as a kid
You can tell that long before the world of scorn started completely breaking down, the functions of the biotechnology had been mildly malfunctioning for generations upon generations, eons even, resulting in these "functioning" systems that clearly barely coped even in their prime. It's like a self-sustaining tech intended to adapt while preserving its crew got something small wrong… billions of times.
I have a general idea for a video its not gonna be to specific but you should do the biology of a zombie video game such as left 4 dead
Isnt the birthing wall just right from HR giger too? 🤔
Use me as a petition button for Curious Archive to do a video on the biology of the Alien franchise.
Scorn this nuts
quality fantasy documentaries
a game that evokes some of my fav artists, absolutely beautiful
12:50 That giant thing is called the crater queen
I don't know if you take viewer requests, but I would love to see you cover the biology of the Half-Life franchise, especially the fan remake Black Mesa!
I never expect that you'll make vid about Scorn. Nice.
The tech just makes me think of the weird shit from Rick and Morty.
Do Mad God next!
If I woke up in scorn I'd just be licking walls
Certain games just bring out the absolute best in this channel. A pleasure, truly
I started watching this, then realized that I didn't want to because I want to experience the game first-hand and discover these things for myself. I promise I'll come back and give the video a proper watch after I've played Scorn myself 🙂 In the meantime, here's a like.
grimdark bionicle
meatal
How did the very first cell form?
I have an general idea of it, (chemical evo. I call it for the short form = ce )
I mean ce sounds good… and pretty reasonable… but there are some problems too it, first, how did it even came to be alive? Maybe small electric discharges from Lightning hitting the water? … sounds good..
But how did it eat? I mean if protons go into the cell, it dies, but water is like and transporter for protons
And when water flows into the cell the protons must come in too… unless the door/protein that lets water in, turns every water molecule, so that the protons get reflected before letting the water in…
The overall color of this Scorn feels "Meh" I prefer the earlier versions which can be found in Early Trailer
Dindt expect that
Fascinating.
You have a really nice voice
Art style is indeed very coollooking but I didnt hear the same thing for gameplay.People who played it said it was average or boring gameplay-wise
I cant wait til you do a biology of avatar video
10:51 terraria refrence, sorta!!
As someone currently working on a race that has forgone flesh for mechanical hive mind, and is desperately trying to regain some semblance of biology or mortality… this has been massively helpful <3
Who'd think that a world full of life could be so bleak? But I realized one thing about the episode is how different it is from the usual episode. I mean, most episodes the Archivist compares speculative biology with real life example, but here he can only recur to other fictional works to compare with the world of Scorn. I feel this must've been the world that puzzled the Archivist most.
This is absolutely brilliant,bold , fascinating and fearlessly created. Bravo to the artists .
Hey man, when downpour comes out, you gotta do rain world. It's a really in depth game and you could talk about it a lot.
That "Monarch" thing looks like an even grosser version of the Death's Hand mini-boss from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (and that's saying something!)
SCORN 🎶
It Reminds Me Of The Master From Fallout How He Had Flesh Inside The Walls Of The Cathedral
look up what oogenesis is, and the wall will make more sense.
Hey can you help me how to make better videos
How am I just now hearing about this? What a wild and interesting looking adventure, I'm going to have to look more into this
Amazing video! As always! Can you please make a video about Dead Space?
*attention mild spoilers, stop reading if you haven't played the game through*
Well, its a masterpiece. The art is beyond fantastic, gigeresque or not. There is not really language to give it enough credit. Only maybe the jockey, being a quick to decomission (oh my god) filmset piece may peak minimally higher. At least there are videos of it. Anyway. There is one small problem Scorn has. Like all games it likes to focus on the players ('s?) perspective and it overfocuses. Whilst it builds all that to discover its purpose alien machinery and you piece together its world it creates mechanics around the player character too heavily, spoiling it a bit.
It becomes apparent that the player traverses a biomechanical dystopia fallen ruin to a major conflict. Things are ancient. Things are running. Some things run erratically. This is all very good. The atmosphere is superb. As a computer game the world is tailored to the player experience usually the world it simulates, however, shouldn't. It should work, realistically, without the player story for which its actually built but which it isn't in the game's context. Confused?
Well, it is strange that all this parasite removal machinery turns up everywhere just as the parasite begins interfereing with manipulting items. Fairly random event being seized by a parasite, ESPECIALLY considering the storyline of the parasite bing a UINQUE being. Oh, i am sure you can explain it away somehow, but thats a designflaw worldbuilding-wise. It just is. The world gets too intertwined with the player storyline. Yes, that is a thing.
Okay, so you have removal equipment for a parasite which is supposed to be very special all over the place not to mention the muril. You could put it down to prophecy i supposse but then there is the ending and the entire factory process to it. The war biomechanoid assembly in the temple could pass except if you hadn't to squeeze the pilots to open up the inner sanctum of the temple. I could understand if they were supposed to guard it but literarely squeezing them out to open up doors is kinda out there, not to mention the wall dispensers. In the initial factory you have to mush the poor fella to open the door – the purpose of the factory is to produce the rawmaterial species for the later piloted biomechanoid. Why can only elongated humanoids open a door in a factory practically mass mutilating elongated humanoids? They arent turned into war biomechanoids there. I could put it down as macabre being overseen by war mechanoids but the corpses in the facility indicate another process and from a security point of view it makes no sense at all. Only the inmates can operate the locks? It makes sense from a game mechanics perspective but not from a worldbuilding one.
Reproduction is a theme in the game undeniably, that being said i have to disagree here with the species… ah… lets just call it humanity, lost its ability to reproduce. At least two humanoids are popped into existence without any problems in short order at random. Its not a lifeless world by any means. Also whilst there are many mutations i have not seen any alien influence anywhere besides three different species of humanoid: the players, the elongated biomechanoid raw resource race and the "pilots". There is the mural, but after analyzing it in detial considering the tendrils resting on a skull i am fairly sure it symbolizes that neural network there.
As of the nature of the rift… that is a tough cookie and aside of its very obvious shaping open to basically any interpretation.
It gets a bit caught up there. That being said its a sinister version of planetary exploraion in an alien setting that is not on an ocean planet. I hope it spawns many sequels. Best of luck to its creators and much respect. Don't miss it if you can stomach it.