CONSCRIPT

A new survival horror game set in the trenches of World War I; from the moment I heard about this game I was hooked.

I played this on my PC through Steam, with a controller.

According to Steam, I played the demo for this back on the day I launched this blog, October 2, 2022. The demo covers the first half-hour or so of the game, and the game's been on my radar ever since. 

Proof of what I'm talking about.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a new release (it's from July of this year) that aims to evoke the classics of the survival-horror genre. In regards to its inspirations, it's a bit of a hodge-podge. It takes elements from Resident Evil 1 or Silent Hill and is largely comparable to something in that vein, but it also introduces an economy and upgrade system that's more reminiscent of Resident Evil 4. It's a love-letter of sorts to a type of game we don't see much nowadays and I adored it.

I suppose I should get into some of the specifics of what I mean. For starters, the game asks you for a few settings when you first boot it up. You can choose to enable autosaves and unlimited saves, but by default the game operates under a similar system to the early Resident Evils with a finite amount of consumable ink pellets that you can find while exploring. Whenever you die, you're booted back to your last manual save. It can be punishing, yes, but I happen to like this system (for reasons I'll get into later).

Safe rooms feel appropriately, well, safe.

I suppose I should address the elephant in the room and actually explain what this game is. This is a survival-horror game without any sci-fi or fantasy gimmick. The "horror" in it is purely the horror of war. You play as a French soldier fighting German soldiers during the battle of Verdun and the whole thing is very grounded. You'll be fighting a pretty absurd number of enemies on your own, but it's generally trying to be a straightforward war story.

Aesthetically, the low-resolution characters combined with the relatively detailed backgrounds gives off a similar vibe to old RE games with their pre-rendered backgrounds, and in general I have to say I love the way this game looks. I'm not entirely sure whether the characters are 3D models run through a filter or if it's immaculate sprite work, but the end result is something that feels reminiscent of older games without necessarily seeming "retro", if that makes sense.

The visuals are striking, to me at least.

The combat in this was pretty fun. There's a lot of it, but that's to be expected for a story about a soldier during one of the bloodiest battles in history. There's a good variety of weapons, a stamina system, and even a dodge roll. Fights get pretty hectic and awkward as a result, but the way things get frantic feels apt for a game about this war.

I've included my results screen below.

I was able to get the "best" ending.

While my ingame time says 15 hours, according to Steam I spent nearly ten more hours playing the game because of how stingy I was with my ink pellets, and the lack of autosaves. Personally, I kind of liked replaying sections of the game, at times, because it meant my subsequent runs through certain sequences would go faster. Playing these kinds of games is a an exercise in short-term speedrunning, for me, because once you know where to go and what to do you can get through them significantly faster than on an initial attempt.

It should be clear by now that I really liked this game. I've pretty much always loved the first World War as a setting, partially because it never received the same attention in my history classes that WWII did so it still feels like largely unexplored territory to me. Seeing a game treat it with the reverence it deserves while also being pretty dang fun was a delight.