Scorn | Story Explained, Narrative Analysed 

Some say that the combat is deliberately like that to highlight the setting as you can avoid most of it by retreating and letting the critters go on their merry way.

Scorn tells of two peoples. One who wishes to live forever, and one who wishes to ascend. Two people in conflict, one cannot achieve their goal without the other failing. C'est la vie.

I think it's also very interesting how the ending of the story is an almost perfect reflection of the beginning. You need to be two people to open the door at the beginning and you leave a deformed and less fortunate Moldman behind after using him. In the end, the character you controlled at the beginning is now the deformed one getting left behind.

What I loved about that games is that i made me feel a bit like the team in the Nostromo in the first Alien film when they discover the spaceship with the alien egg. If we were to discover such a civilisation we wouldn't have more informations than what we have in the game. It's a bit like archeology. (+ the game if beautiful the i loved every aspects of the visuals)

The opening scene works like this: you are born at the top of that dusty ass place, fall into the ground, which you see break at the end of the opening. So the end of the opening in reality, is the beginning of the 1st you, which then crawls out of the place after being mutated by the "fertiliser" or something else, by the time you're on the outside again, you have turned into the parasite, that's why there are 2 different switching visuals, one of when you were "human" and one of when you became infected

So. There are multiple layers to this. Three, I would say, which are of import: There is the metaphor for birth, or more specifically, *failure* in reproduction (including the death of the mother during childbirth); there is the literal interpretation of the human race in the far future, or more specifically, the *failure* of the human race (including its death as it abandons all that makes it human and fails to ascend to a higher plane of existence); and there is the philosophical argument that all conscious beings are inherently tethered to their existence in the world, and because one cannot escape the necessity of one's connection to the reality of their physical existence, they fail inevitably in the search for certainty in metaphysical truth (which is paired with conceptually carrying the burden and consequences of your birth and all who came before you who affected who you are as an entity, and these inexorably influencing your way of thinking, the outlook you have on life, and the prospects for your worldly being in general; worth noting, though, that it is the refusal to accept that legacy, and the desire to divorce one's self from it which kills the protagonist in the end, despite the perceived harm the parasite seemed to be doing to him and the slow death of the "individuality" of the person they could have been otherwise-- for humans are not creatures that *can* exist outside of their connections with others: we are social animals, and multi-faceted beings which have group identity in addition to a sense of self, rather than the completely distinct and individual consciousnesses which philosophers like Locke previously asserted; a human being's identity can only be understood, and in fact can only /form in a healthy manner/ if our connection to the world and the web of connections we inherit are accepted *alongside* our existence as individuals). I will not fully explain the other two sides to this story, but as for the first layer of meaning which I mentioned, consider this: the beginning of the game sees you journey into a factory which is largely underground but has an upper part that sticks up, phallic in shape. Therein you must select a single, small being encased inside a shell, and must acquire the use of this being by determining which amongst the countless like them is *worthy* of the selection, and then either help them stand and use their identity as a man to open the door to your future, or take the most essential part of them to force open the way. This is obviously a metaphor for the mass production of sperm, but the fact that only *one* is able to actually go on to succeed in its task, despite the fact all of them working together is required to make that task possible. This is made all the more obvious by the fact that the protagonist for the section is literally encased in an eruption of sperm in the climax of this segment of the story. You then cut away from the process of playing this protagonist: the part of the father is over, and you move on to the other, more involved part of the story of reproduction. You awaken in an egg, encased in a wall. This plays the double duty of representing the emergence of an egg from an ovary and lampshading the eventual fate of all eggs which are successful in their role: to be imbedded in the uterine wall, where the umbilical cord will keep them connected to the mother until the process of birthing is complete. The egg travels through the world, eventually rejoining the area where the sperm eruption saw the apparent demise of the previous protagonist. You can see that there is a hole where the previous protagonist came to rest, indicating that the duty of the sperm is in fact not complete, which will be confirmed shortly afterward with the initial attack from the parasite, where they begin to meld with your body. Sperm and egg meet, forming the beginning of a singular being that is a fusion of both. The violent act of the sperm piercing into the inside of the egg in order for the process to begin is literally represented by the parasite piercing your body with its arms and beginning to fuse with the player. The characters, together, now, then travel to a deeper layer, where you see fleshy, blobby beings that have no heart, brain, or real purpose other than as shed flesh which protects their source. It is incredibly obvious that the giant entity at the bottom of the Crater is a physical embodiment of the womb, motherhood, and the feminine existence. She sheds her flesh, and is stretched. We stop her from ever shedding that flesh again. This is a representation of periods, the shedding of excess buildup of uterine tissue, being stopped by the chemical markers which occur in pregnancy. Note how violent a process this is, and how damaged the womb is as a result. This is, as will become more obvious later, because this is an aberrant pregnancy, occurring after many previously failed attempts. You use a train, which takes you to the housing place of a rift in the universe. This is obviously a metaphor for the birthing canal, and the fact you have to fight through a very complex process to actually attempt to exit through that rift at the end of the story represents the labors which are required for any birth to occur. In the holy city, you see homunculi: life which is deformed, ugly, and needing to be hooked up to the dead limbs which they struggle to connect with and properly move. Through the process of your labor, you must see them pulped and broken, likely representing many miscarriages which have previously occurred in the attempt to get a single successful pregnancy. Then, once you are finished with the trials of these broken beings' failed existences, you come to the point of truth. As you are ready to attempt to emerge from this world and into the next, the sperm has nearly fused with you completely, but it is also increasingly pushing you closer and closer to death. Your life depletes. You need more and more infusions of blood as you struggle to operate machinery, and in the end, irreconcilable clashing between the two of you prevents your hand from being able to access the mechanisms at all. The egg rejects the entity it was bonding with, first tearing up its left arm in order to continue, and then shredding all of its body in the vain attempt to continue and live on. By the time you arrive to the threshold of birth, and the doctor operates upon you, you are a bloody mess, with already horribly damaged internal organs, hardly able to function. He cuts into you further, likely botching the surgery, and then hands you off to your parents, with the end of the game being *quite literally* a mother desperately struggling to carry her child to term before the consequences of the tissue rejection which happened earlier in the process resulting in the protagonist becoming a vegetable, brain to damaged and body too twisted to make it meaningful even if they *did* make it out. The mother physically stops, unable to carry you to the end. Both she and the child struggle to reach the end, but despite desperately clawing and giving everything they had for a chance at life, they fail. All parties die, along with their world. Darkness consumes everything. (On a personal note: my own story was very similar to this, but after many failed prior attempts, **my** pregnancy /was/ a success, and both my mother and I survived.)

Most underrated story telling in video game history

Incredible editing, amazing explanation of your thoughts on such an interesting game! If anything- this game is an art piece even without a definitive message. I find it's grotesque art so interesting and fresh as well as it's lack of explanation. I tend to dislike games that force-feed you information to MAKE you understand the message. Games like this let the mind run wild and experience a variety of emotions

This guy deserves more veiws

You’ve become one of my favorite RU-vidrs. You deserve far more views and recognition, and I hope you get that soon. In spite of your underrated viewership though, you still continue to make high-quality videos. That’s something I respect a lot! This game looks freaking disgusting. I’m squeamish and I felt like vomming multiple times. Anyway. Maybe you and I could Collab one day. Our channels are pretty unrelated. But that’s cool.

I was really hoping that you would cover this. I love the deep dives you do on games. I haven't finished the video at all but I'm already excited. I think you really have a knack for organizing your videos- I haven't once felt lost during an explanation. So with a game like scorn, I'm excited to see what you say

Scorn very much feels more like an interactive painting than a game or a story. It evokes ideas and concepts and can make you think, but it does not leverage the media of Videogames to do anything else. It deserves respect, but not love.

A couple theories here based on visual interpretation: First, you know how the cutscene is spliced into two? It might be the pov between the antagonist and protagonist. (not sure how they’re connected that early on). Second, the part where your your brain gets tossed up connected to the other neural links. I think this symbolizes society, where everyone is trying to put their minds together to work on a goal. Third, at the end when the antagonist/parasite/rot assimilated with protagonist before transcending, I think this symbolizes humans being stuck from moving forward. So in conclusion, if you connect these three, basically the protagonist is the side of society trying to do something good or better, to ascend. Of course, there is another side of society the rot/parasite trying to take everything good that the society has made. Therefore, right at the end, just before the antagonist ascends. The parasite takes everything, leaving both of them stuck. Unable to make any progress, just like today’s society. Sorry for my bad grammar, hope you enjoyed reading 😅

Absolutely love your channel since I found the bioshock videos! Like your new approach alot ^^

Great work. You deserve some more recognition, so here's some food for the algorithm!

I think it's about 40% Geiger, 60% Zdzisław Beksiński

One more subscriber. Thank you, Sam, for fascinating content!

Glad to see you covering this game!

“In a sticky white substance. Maybe I should’ve worded that better.” No no, it’s exactly what it sounds like. That is indeed nut. RemDot explains the entire story REALLY good

Brilliant breakdown!!

You have to take and kill for yourself so much in this game your first character literally becomes the parasite that slowly fuses with your second one.. preventing both from reaching salvation. That is some powerful stuff right there.

Also glad you're calling the thing that infects you a symbiote, Many people incorrectly call it a parasite. Nevermind, you still called it a parasite.

thankfully, 2 weeks after finishing the game i understand something

Bro ur one of the most underrated RU-vidrs I love ur videos so much❤️❤️❤️

the narration makes me want to hear a whole podcast narrated by him-

I think if a game isn’t going to go with character or narrative, then it *really* needs to go all in on its world, honestly it just needed more of itself in my opinion.

Great video man, you deserve more views. subbed

What a wonderful video, there‘s really no other Game Analysis channel on here, that‘s as clear-spoken and in-depth as yours. I completely feel like the fact, that Scorn has no explanation, is what makes this game unique and for me it‘s not frustrating but intriguing in terms of story-telling. But as a game, I agree, it‘s not replayable, but then again, does it have to be? (See Outer Wilds for example, although I still much prefer OW over Scorn)

Reminded me of the game "inside" by play dead. Very dark and weird. Always needing to use something or someone (who subsequently dies) after been used!! Inside is also 10/10 !!

Thank you, I tried playing this game and I couldn't get into it. But I was SUPER interested in the "story".

Sir for as much work as you put into your videos you deserve only the best and I hope you have a great career on YT some day this was the first video I have watched of yours and I loved it dude your awesome

Hi, the final parasite is a different parasite because the gun attached to its tail was gone. It waved its tail twice just before taking the protagonist’s body. Therefore there was another person born from the wall and transformed into this parasite.

I hope they had at least put more than one ending, this one just leaves you unsatisfied and thinking you did something wrong, like we just wasted our time and it was all for nothing because you can't get a different ending

You're a funny guy! Good video!!!

The algorithm is starting to recognise you it seems

Nobody can top Scorns Atmosphere

Like the odst ost ending and your pretty cool in story lore man

You know this is more of your job than mine, but there's a couple of easy dimensions for your analysis that you should consider One is the name of the game, the other the actions taken by its characters, notice that every interaction you have with the other beings in this world, ends in pain, misery and death, including that of the player itself who starts suffering and eventually dying when they come in contact with their old self, the previous player character, now an agent in the world The second one is the greater artistic inspiration to this love letter, Zdzisław Beksiński, not only are the inspirations on Beksiński's art extremely obvious, not just from the aesthetic point of view, but also the practical one, Beksiński didn't even bother to name his paintings, they exist without labels the impact being left solely to the viewer to interpret, and he straight out refused to even comment on any meanings, Beksiński was not drawing for the sake of it, when he made a piece he clearly had themes and a message in mind, but he refused to relay them directly to an audience, when following Beksińsk's works you very quickly find out about his process and ethos, because well, they don't even have fucking names, to communicate with others when talking about his pieces, you have to start describing its contents and either count on them knowing what specific piece you are thinking of, or have superb imagination Well with scorn we have one hell of an advantage, for once there's tittle to the game, but also we interact directly with its world, and we even get an art book that betrays the purpose of the game by letting us peek at the author's process, but as any Beksiński fan, making a love letter, they gotta stop disclosure at one point, frankly they revealed too much already, and it is probably something they regret, and something for people doing analysis to exploit

Just discovered your channel with Immortality Analysis, keep on going your videos and analysis are really well made and welcome for us dumb players !

The game has a strong phylosophical message. A guy called Artistical or something like that explained it using Kant and other phylosopher. Also he mentioned a term called Dasein? I can't remember. Which I would like to know is the lore as you said, so many questions.

I too were more intrigued by the world: Who built it? Why? Who lived there? When did the infestation begin? What _is_ the infestation? Why are there death machines controlled by babies?

loving the new format Sam!!!

Would love to see you cover Sunless Skies

xD nice video

Seems a lot of people don't know that you can save the creature at the start

The deluxe edition comes with a book that clearly explains that this is a version of earth where we breed humans for energy

Thims seems to be the kind of game that would be much better in VR.

The video is quite good! I would recommend an analysis for What remains of Edith Finch! I would really appreciate that if you have time!

This game is meant to be about the experience which, for me personally, was one of the best I've had from a game in a very long time. An interactive work of art. This incessant need for a backstory and meaning is what has essentially ruined great movie franchises like Alien, Star Wars, etc. with mind-numbingly dreadful sequels that add nothing to the original stories but, rather, do the opposite. Some things are simply better left to the imagination.

This game should have been a movie

"Some people think we the writers should have the creativity to establish a comprehensible world and at least have some answers about it and not say 'lol it's whatever you think lmao'." I'm genuinely sick of this type of writing and it needs to fade into obscurity.

As a gentleman with fine taste in youtube videos, i find your work to be exceedingly satisfying.

Felt like that parasite was part of you all along and it just wanted to join back

I know it's an alternate version of earth but I find more interesting to think that it's an alien planet.

Do Signalis next!!

I have conflicting feelings about this game, but one thing is for sure...I'm going to be thinking about it for a while.

Reminds me of the manga BLAME!

this is made well why do u not get views?

Did the first protagonist let out the infection in the world or was it already there?

7:29 could the parasite be the first guy you play? 11:23 haha

Someone discovered that you aren't actually suppose to engage in combat in Scorn. The creatures want nothing more than to just be left alone. If you see something and it haven't spotted you, take a step back and watch

You dont have to kill the first creature to get ojt

Again it's class struggle

Here's what I don't get... 1. did the first guy make it to the end and make the metamorphosis into a "higher being" or whatever then succumb to the corruption because it can be seen in third person that his corrupt character model has that flying brain thing that in the Scorn art book is supposed to be a type of "higher being" thing. 2. Why/How does the second guy still live after his brain is disconnected from his body at the end, we literally see the thing getting carried up to the greater brain mass and by the end his brain...tube...🤢...is stretched to its limits and he can no longer control the shells, so why does his perspective and PoV remain grounded to his body?

Has this man got Valyrian eyes?

"There's no story on purpose to inflict a feeling of emptiness/discomfort in the player" sounds to me like an excuse to hide the fact that it's just a bunch of random weird gory stuff. There's also minimal gameplay and the puzzles are mediocre at best. So what's left? Only the visuals as the one thing that it has going for it. A lot more than that was promised and still is (see the product description on Steam), and that is why the backers are angry. I can understand if you, as a content creator, want to avoid stepping on any toes too much, but to me it felt like you were a bit too soft/forgiving in this one. I found you through Obra Dinn and you did a great job explaining why it is good, giving it the credit it deserves. The other side of that is being able to be critical if that quality is not there.

This sounds like your talking about cancer

No sisters if you check all the bodies

This game reminds me of The Matrix and Alien films, talk about derivative! They owe Giger's estate for ripping off his art!

Algorithm engagement

another great analysis video, sam. i particularly enjoyed when you surmised 'none of this really matters does it' lmao. also yeah the combat was a slog in this game.

This is some Cronenberg level body horror. Honestly, I think it’s just gross for the sake of being gross.

Sex is NOT procreation. For the love ofd God get this crucial information right! Sex is a CONNECTION,an expression BETWEEN the couple. It have NOTHING to do with babies since sex and children are 2 VERY DIFFERENT things and for a good reason! Procreation is the interaction between cells, not between the people!

This is our future if we have 1 this is what happens when u mess with things you shouldnt in the pursuit of power and absolute knowledge and a disgusting depiction of what life truely is outside the matrix we humans built for ourselves within the last 500 or so years lol life is pain struggle and death but it is in us to fight to move forward even if we dont know why

To be honest once you get past the gross of it scorn is pretty much just a simple puzzle game and a gegger art dump

It's a bullshit incomplete game. Three quarters of the original vision was completely removed and now we're left with rubbish.

Well done

Yknow, as horrific and callous as the various machines are even the scorn smoothie maker makes a twisted degree of sense when you realize the intentions of the people that made them ....gotta juice them homunculi efficiently! Seriously how many people were like me..."what do mean they were bred to be batteries that doesnt make any sense you squish em....oh...oh nevermind." Takes the level of wtf up a level. Although i truly wonder if the stated war between was based solely on square heads vs round heads! Anyway the 2 that truly generated a wtf for me was the parasite remover and the arm muitilater. As anthive as these ppl were they wouldnt build it unless there was an absolute purpose(one that could be achieved as grotesquely, horrifically and painfully as possible) for it. Ive come to the idea that your first pc is a failed ascendancy and with no viable shells it latched on to you Its hard to miss the similarities between the parasite and the (true? Correctly? ) ascendant. Which would explain why it kept following you and tried to uhhh saddle up again?(yes i am absolutely ignoring the suckotron 3000) and....OH GODDAMMIT!! Ive gotta stop trying to figure this shit out.

Wallotext#2 DAMMIT! and once again the plot(reasoning whatever) goes into the weeds. Why the hell would the polis ppl build the gate, be represented as the flying spaghetti monsters to ascend too and bond with shells. Yet they saw off thier skull cap and physically attach thier brain to the....hivemind. booger. And then use what can only be described as a living Bluetooth device, you gotta give em credit they got that right. You lose the signal at the worst possible momen! To the at this point i truly dont wish to know why they made them like that and why they look like that....and especially how and they built them out of! So where are the flying SMs? And how did they hook up? Which 1 Segways into THE BLUE BOOGER. One would think with a device meant to allow movement (that ya already had and didnt need to be in agony to use) could get a tad bit farther away before you lost signal not mention if ascending was the goal why try to take yojr body and get to the portal? Fuc but ive digressed

big creature our parents/elders...

SIGH 3rd try(sorry but i spent to much time typing the first 2 to erase em) being so purpose built and of course as painful and disgusting as possibly. Standards to be maintained! Clearly both failed ascending, re.oval of parasites and the for gods sake is there anything you loons WONT stick your hand it?!?! Seriously both have the utterly callous and cruel as possible vibe. So this had to happen ALOT!!)) Then again youve gotta question why do i have to place my smoothie maker in the biomech war machine? Rather just ace em in thier little jar? As a rule never give someone (,thing?) A second chanceto kill you?

mold people..foxconn laborer...parasite=iphone....we living in a dream hallucination...