Scorn tips: How to solve puzzles and fight abominations
This is a spoiler-free guide on how to navigate “Scorn’s” world and deal with its enemy abominations.
Everything push, push and pull
Interact with every object and device you can find. There are no instructions for anything, so the game encourages you to explore and experiment frequently.
Some puzzles have multiple dials and switches that you can interact with. If you’re having trouble with this, make sure you click all of your movement buttons multiple times. In one instance, I got stuck on a puzzle—until I realized I’d missed a switch because I’d never clicked my back button. It was a puzzle with multiple switches, all of which could be rotated using the left and right movement keys, but the middle piece was not selectable until I used the back key.
Some mechanisms may not have an obvious purpose or effect. Activate them and pay close attention to what happens. How the machine reacts shows you how it works and shows you what to do next. For example, an early puzzle involves a door controlled by two consoles. One console opens the door while the other removes the locks. You cannot use both at the same time. Time to think: what if there was a way to activate one and keep it running?
Don’t forget to check your surroundings too. The room you are in can provide clues as to what a machine is doing. Take a close look at any items that might be scattered on the floor, as well as anything that could serve as a connection to something else. Pay careful attention to changes that may have occurred in the room after trying something.
The most complex puzzles in Scorn involve devices that activate things in other parts of the world, so keep your ears open and listen for something that may be awakening in another part of the map.
Each act in “Scorn” ends with a grand puzzle that unlocks the next area, and these puzzles require you to constantly revisit old areas. You’ll spend a lot of time running back and forth playing around with different objects and trying to figure out how they connect to each other.
Unfortunately, while Scorn renders fantastically, the consistent design can make it easy to get lost in some areas. If you really want to go vintage, you can draw your own maps to mark where you’ve gone and what you’ve found.
You’re bad at combat, so fight carefully – or don’t fight at all
Your player character is a humble, naked humanoid who is terrible at fighting. As the game progresses, you’ll be given a handful of weapons to defend yourself with, but you will quiet suck at fighting. The game makes it clear that you are a desperate survivor, not a soldier. Sometimes the best course of action is to run away.
But if you have to fight, be conservative. Even the weakest opponent in the game needs three shots from your biomechanical shotgun and ammo is tight.
In the beginning, your only weapon is a giant pneumatic hammer, which sounds cool but is actually a rather mediocre weapon. It takes you four blows to kill the main monstrosities in the game, and your hammer needs to recharge after two consecutive hits. In the meantime, you’ll need to take cover to avoid the monstrosities’ pursuing ranged attacks, or run in wide circles.
Other times, it’s best to avoid the fight altogether. If a giant monstrosity patrolling an area hasn’t spotted you yet, leave it at that.
Keep your health updated at all times
Health cannot be regenerated in Scorn, and the only way to heal yourself is through blood sacs taken from donors. Use the Blood Sacks as soon as you get them to keep yourself refilled at all times. The healing animation is a little long and it’s definitely not something to worry about when you do get into a fight.