YMMV / Scorn

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • At the end, the Parasite attacks Scorn Guy when he was mere feet from freedom and turns him into a horrific amalgamation. But consider for a moment that this attack happens after Scorn Guy removed the Parasite before continuing without it, meaning this could be a case of revenge for being used and abandoned (even if the Parasite deserved it, with the constant kidney stabbing). Especially if the Parasite was the opening protagonist, furious yet again at being denied a chance to escape, although this resulted in Revenge Before Reason when it just could have escaped itself. Furthermore, Scorn Guy did hack his way through the Crater Queen's body even though it was causing it pain and it was non-malicious in spite of it, suggesting Scorn Guy is rather ruthless.
  • Since the protagonist is born from the Genesis Wall as a seemingly fully-formed adult there is the question of how aware he is of his circumstances - and with no dialogue or context there's little evidence that can answer this question. While he seems to instinctively know how to operate some machinery, most of it does seem to surprise him which begs the question whether or not he's operating on some sort of Genetic Memory with a clear goal of getting to the Polis or is he just stumbling and guessing his way through the facilities using the same reasoning skills the player uses?
• Awesome Art: Love it or hate it, everyone can agree that Ebb Software nailed it when it came to the Beksinski and Giger aesthetic.
• Crack Ship: "Scorn Guy" with Dark Samus.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: More like "Enjoy the Art Direction", given how the game has no text or dialogue. It's universally agreed that the art style is the game's strongest point, being visceral, grotesque, and unique. Those who like the game generally agree that the vision outweighs the sometimes-clunky gameplay.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Whatever you do, never EVER call Scorn a FPS horror game, a walking simulator or a puzzle game. Fans call Scorn as a surreal horror visual narrative game with elements of survival-horror and puzzle-solving. If you are playing Scorn like Doom, then fans would state that you are playing it wrong, as you are meant to soak-in the narrative visuals and craft your own theories on the mysteries behind the setting.
• Fandom Rivalry: Although there isn't much of a fanbase to begin with, but the Scorn fanbase loathe Agony because of frequent comparisons between the two back in 2017-2018. Since they are both hellish nightmare hellscapes filled with surreal horror and open flesh pits. Doesn't help that people often confuse the two since both of the alpha teasers came at the same year. The comparisons is made worse after the disastrous and buggy launch of Agony, which some have speculated to have convinced Ebb Software to scrap the two-parter release and take their time instead. The result was - whilst not a perfect game and a flawed one at that - a game backed by Microsoft that finally got out of developer hell and at least ran smoothly upon release.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Players often discuss how the game has a rather sizable amount of cut content, including entire areas, enemies, weapons, and even mechanics. As a result, it's not too uncommon to hear someone expressing disappointment with how much stuff went unused.
• Goddamned Bats: The Chickens are the weakest enemy type, brought down by two hits from the piston gun, but this is little comfort when the little monsters can spit blood at you from medium range with great accuracy, almost ensuring that they'll manage to hit you at least once. It doesn't help that, unlike other enemies, they retreat to use this attack rather than chase you relentlessly.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A number of Steam reviewers were not happy of the game's short playtime, considering the game's nearly 8 year long development cycle.
• Memetic Loser:
  • "Scorn Guy" is often seen throughout the fanbase as an unhappy loner who fails at everything. Unfortunately, they aren't completely wrong.
  • However, in a combination of both Memetic Molester and Memetic Badass, he is also commonly joked about being irresistibly sexy to any non-human woman. This only got more prevalent as the brief shot of his penis shows that he's surprisingly... endowed.
  • And in another, more straightforward example of Memetic Badass, the artbook and unused content paints a picture of a Scornguy who is much, much more capable than his game counterpart. Such as finally killing the Parasite, becoming a cyborg with an Arm Cannon, killing a skyscraper-sized monster, and fighting through an entire warzone full of cyborgs. This has lead to people joking about how "Cut Content Scornguy" is The Juggernaut and a One-Man Army.
• Memetic Mutation: Scorn...^note Started off as a joke from one of Jerma985 streams in which he recorded a few sound-clips of himself saying the title of the game and interspersed them through his playthrough. People started joking that this is an intentional and confusing part of the game and eventually it evolved into using the title itself in sentences, replacing nouns and verbs with some variation of it.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The whole combat system is regarded as this. It's clunky and slow, with no hip-firing to be had. Your first weapon is a piston gun with terrible range that has to regenerate every two shots, and takes several seconds to do so. Enemies deal way too much damage while the game is at best stingy with health refills, so any hits you take just sting that much more. Even when you do finally get guns, they aren't that impressive and you'll go through an entire clip just to kill the bigger enemies, with ammo likewise being somewhat sparse. While most enemies are avoidable and will crawl back into the walls if left alone for a while, this isn't guaranteed and just makes the lackluster combat system all the more apparent when you have to fall back on it.
• Scrappy Weapon: Even for an Emergency Weapon, the piston gun you first get is pretty dire. Even though it's a melee weapon, it needs to recharge after it's been used twice. Additionally, even the weakest enemies take two hits to die with it, while most enemies take five or more. If they're not dead after you use up those two hits, you'll need to spend some time running around evading enemies while you wait for the gun to recharge. The recharge time is also surprisingly long and the only way you can see its progress is by aiming the gun, slowing you down and putting you at risk of attacks. Before you get the pistol, several parts of the game are needlessly difficult simply because this awkward gun is your only offensive option.
• Squick: Scorn is gross. A game full of phallic machines, pulsating openings, mutated Meat Moss everywhere, more vaginal imagery then you'll ever want to see...
• Tear Jerker: Despite how surreal and nonsensical the game is, the ending is pretty depressing. Scorn Guy, after suffering horrific injuries and inconceivable terrors, is mere feet away from salvation only to have it ripped away from him at the last moment and damning him to And I Must Scream scenario where he is forever reminded of how close he was to victory.
• Ugly Cute:
  • "Scorn Guy," despite being a mouthless, nearly skinless humanoid, is regarded as utterly adorable by a good portion of the fanbase. His constantly distressed facial expression just makes him even more pitiable
    A post on 4chan: "Why is Scorn guy so instantly relatable and likable? He's ugly as sin, and barely has a face. But you can see in the art and just the expression of his eyes his innocent quest to suffer through life and horror."
  • The Moldman you interact with in the first puzzle is even more deformed than the protagonist, being stuck in some sort of fleshy egg, his head being partially fused with his shoulders. Despite that many found his design to be cute and pitiful, especially since if you free him, he starts following the protagonist around like a child. The fact that you either have to kill him or leave him behind to solve the puzzle has saddened quite a few people with many wishing there was a way to save him.
• The Woobie:
  • Scornguy. Holy shit, Scornguy. Throughout the entire game, he is violently assaulted, maimed in inconceivably horrible ways, slowly Eaten Alive by a parasite, lost, confused, and ends up in a horrific And I Must Scream scenario mere feet away from potential salvation.
  • Slightly crosses into Iron Woobie due to his Made of Iron tendencies and sheer tenacity to survive. It's tragic that it wasn't enough to save him.

---