Carrion casts players as an oozing red spaghetti beast with hatred in its heart, or in whatever is at the center of all those meaty tentacles.
Phobia Game Studio offered a demo of their “reverse horror game” as part of The Game Festival, an interactive Game Awards tie-in event that gave players short looks at a variety of upcoming games via Steam from Thursday to Saturday. In the very small dose this demo provided, I was impressed by how great it felt to slide through this eerie facility, stealth kill guards (and, admittedly, a whole bunch of unarmed, shrieking scientists) and upgrade my globby mass.
Carrion’s Steam page states that your monster’s origins are unknown and the game, likewise, doesn’t reveal much about the creature. In the opening beats, I don’t get the sense that the monster is a victim with vengeance on its mind, à la the primate pugilist at the heart of this year’s Ape Out. The best horror films leave their antagonist’s origins shrouded in mystery, so my hope is that I can finish this game knowing absolutely nothing about this violent creature.
No, I don’t know why the blob is killing people. But, I sure am glad it is. Movement feels effortless, as the meat ball’s agile cilia allow it to move left, right, up and down with ease. You won’t need to jump or climb: move the left thumbstick in any direction and the creature follows. Taking out enemies is similarly easy. You can move tentacles with the right thumbstick, and grab guards and grates with the right trigger. A fanged bite icon shows up whenever you can grab something; a nice touch. Though your creature can’t use a gun, maneuvering it through the facility feels a bit like playing a responsive twin-stick shooter.
During my time with the game, I picked up one ability and a pair of upgrades that increased my size. The ability upgrade allowed me to dash, which can be used to burst through wooden barricades and access new areas. Growing in size, unsurprisingly, increases the amount of damage you can take but slows your monster down.
While I easily steamrolled the first rooms I encountered, it quickly becomes apparent that maintaining your reign of terror requires stealth. There are plenty of vents to slink through, and sneaking up behind shield-bearing guards was especially fun, though, as they carry powerful flamethrowers, trying to take them out comes with a risk. I quickly learned, though, that I could grab the grate off a vent and use my tentacle to hurl it at an enemy while keeping the bulk of my mass hidden in cover.
While I’m generally optimistic for the game, I did encounter minor frustrations during the demo. The world, so far, doesn’t seem memorable enough to warrant the demo’s complete lack of a map. This is especially true once you’ve dispatched all the enemies that might help you differentiate bloody hallway from bloody hallway. Given that Metroid-style games are built around the loop of hitting a brick wall, gaining an upgrade then returning to the brick wall and busting through it, I would love to see Phobia add a map before Carrion’s 2020 release.
That said, even without a map, I can’t wait to become the monster.
Carrion is out 2020 on PC, Xbox One, and PS4.