Scorn: The Art of the Game

Product Information

Official lavish in-depth coffee table art book for thefirst-person horror adventuregame Scorn, inspired by H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński, to be released onXbox series X/S,Microsoft Windows, Steam,and Windows Store.

About This Game Scorn is an atmospheric first-person horror adventure game set in a nightmarish universe of odd forms and somber tapestry. Peklar: We designed the main character first, as he is the centerpiece of the game, so we concentrated on the ideas that we wanted to express through him. There is a feature, that we haven't shown yet, that was really important to get exactly right, both in the concept art and later in the game. My interest comes from the relation between a man and an object, how one changes the other. For that you need familiarity. I noticed that with our new trailer, people just want it to be weird for the sake of weird, and that is not what we are doing.”As for other influences it's quite a big list. If we are talking movies it's directors like Cronenberg, Argento, Lynch, Carpenter and Jodorowsky just to name a few. Writers of different genres from Horror and SF to philosophy like Lovecraft, Barker, Thomas Ligotti, J.G. Ballard, Stanislaw Lem, Kafka, Albert Camus, Heidegger and so on. Games like Silent Hill, Resident Evil or Metroid Prime. Pip: How has the game changed over time? Have you had to accommodate that with the artwork in any particular ways? Peklar: The biggest problem comes from the fact that not all the ideas on paper work in a fully realized 3D world so you have to change them, balance them out or completely cut them and come up with something new. All that has to be done in a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes the most basic thing can create the biggest problems.

Scorn's influences are based on ideas and concepts I wanted to explore. When it comes to visual influences just looking at any comment section for Scorn you will notice two names are constantly mentioned: H.R. Giger (who appears to be a household name now) and the much less well known polish painter Zdzislaw Beksinski. They are certainly the two main visual influences but their work was not chosen because it looks cool but because different aspects of their work relate to various themes and ideas in Scorn. We also tried to create our own style. Scorn takes place in an open-ended world with different interconnected regions. Each region is a maze-like structure with various rooms and paths to discover. All the storytelling happens in-game, with no cut-scenes to distract you from the grisly reality of the living, breathing world you’re in. But keep your eyes open - the game won’t show you any sympathy if you miss something important on your uneasy travels.Pip: I assume you used medical imagery for some of the reference points - can you tell me a bit more about that?