Timed perfectly to coincide with Halloween, the new first-person survival horror game Scorn was released on Oct. 14, 2022, and instantly drew rave reviews for its visceral body-horror immersion. Ripped right out of an H.R. Giger nightmare, the grisly biopunk affair follows a pair of silent protagonists who must defeat a horde of deadly parasitic entities in a labyrinthine wasteland.
With a clear hierarchy of horrifying creatures and formidable enemies to defeat in the game, it’ll behoove new Scorn players to know which ones are the most difficult to take down and which are fairly innocuous.
Moldmen
Moldmen are the first mutated creatures that The Protagonist encounters at the end of Act 1 in the scary survival horror game perfect for Halloween, with players given the option to kill or save one of them. If choosing the former, Mold Men won’t give The Protagonist too hard of a time to defeat, as they’re largely meant as fuel sources for the malevolent aliens. Moldmen do not fight back and often follow The Protagonist like a sad, lost child.
Moldmen are former humans whose flesh has been pressed into molds (hence the name) before being dried out and used as power sources. While saving the Moldman at the end of Act 1 leads to a more desirable outcome, those who attack will make short work of the horrifying hybrid.
Worms
In Scorn, parasitic worms can be found dangling from the ceiling in many rooms inside the Crater. While completely stationary, the worms can shoot harmful acid at The Protagonist and deplete their health with direct hits. Spotting the worms in the stygian gloom provides much of the challenge, as the nasty nematodes can be shot down with relative ease.
More annoying than difficult to beat, the worms in Scorn can be dispatched with a shot or two from The Protagonists’ default pistol. Moreover, worms are far less abundant than Drones, Floaters, and Workers, making them a fairly simple threat to bring down.
Chickens
Dubbed “Chickens” by the online Scorn community, the small four-legged creatures typically remain attached to the rear of Workers. The second-most common creature found in the Crater, Chickens will detach from their host and attack players. However, the single-pronged attack is fairly weak and easily avoidable.
Chickens’ lone attack includes firing a projectile akin to The Protagonist’s default pistol. Other than that, the small creatures pose no real threat. They can move nimbly and hop with agility, but most experts and beginners alike will defeat them without much effort or depleted health.
Drones
Drones are mid-sized floating enemies that resemble a giant brain fused with a heart valve. While they do not attack players directly in the awesome Xbox X/s horror game, they do emit a toxic mist that will damage a player’s health if they become exposed for too long. Given their ability to roam overhead, Drones are slightly harder to beat than Chickens and Moldmen.
The key to defeating Drones is spotting them early enough in the dark and dank corners of the Crater before wandering headlong into their poisonous gas emissions. Using a pistol to shoot Drones several times from a safe distance should suffice.
Floaters
Similar to Drones, Floaters (aka Flydere) are flying counterparts to Workers, the most-common Scorn enemy. Resembling grotesque flying jellyfish, they detach from the heads of deceased Workers to pulsate and propel through the air at much faster speeds than Drones, which makes them harder to hit and take down. Luckily, Floaters are largely non-aggressive toward The Protagonist during most playthrough options.
When Floaters do pose a threat in the Crater, they can usually be taken out with a single headshot. However, considering how quickly they dart around the dark subterranean lair, accurately aiming becomes a serious challenge.
Workers
The most common enemy in Scorn, Workers are quadrupedal monstrous mutations that remain docile until they spot The Protagonist. Once seen, Workers will often attack using three methods; they’ll either lunge and bite them with sharp teeth, attack them with slavering red flagella from their chest cavity, or fire projectiles from their chest.
While fairly easy to bring down individually, Workers have immense strength in numbers, making groups of them much harder to defeat when they swarm. Responsible for the biological ruin inside the Crater, it’s paramount to defeat as many workers as possible.
Large Workers
Bigger, beefier, and more brutal than the common Scorn worker, Large Workers require extra work to bring down in the game. Rather than squirming ant-like creatures, Large Workers resemble hulking, hard-charging bulls or yaks that will deliver immense damage to The Protagonist on impact. Fortunately, it’s the only real attack move in their arsenal.
Even still, ducking, dodging, and sprinting away from Large Workers is a futile endeavor. Rather, to defeat them, players must obtain the Riot Shotgun and hit the ferocious beasts at least two times up close as they make a charging attack.
The Crater Queen
The Crater Queen is the monstrous mother of all creatures terrorizing Scorn’s nightmarish landscape in the highly anticipated 2022 horror game. Despite being immobile, the humongous mutation has a hunched back and stretched-out neck that she uses to stare in the face of The Protagonist and scare them to near death.
While The Crater Queen is passive and doesn’t attempt to harm the player physically, The Protagonist is still required to defeat the monster, which requires cutting her skin in three different rooms, a supremely difficult chore to pull off even for expert gamers in multiple playthroughs.
The Parasite
Technically the main antagonist of the acclaimed H.R. Giger-inspired video game, The Parasite turns out to be the remnant of the first humanoid protagonist played in the game’s prologue. Essentially a giant lizard-like hybrid, the serpentine mutation attaches itself to the player’s back like an appendage and slowly leeches their life force. By the end of the game, players must remove The Parasite before losing their lives.
Oddly enough, there’s a mutual symbiosis in play with The Parasite as well. Once attached to a player, it can be used as a weapon or inventory that can stockpile items for them. But again, The Parasite will eventually look out for itself and begin using the player’s entire energy supply to keep itself alive. As such, The Parasite needs to be dealt with far more strategically than most Scorn enemies.
Cyborg Boss With Alien Homunculi (Final Boss)
Yikes! The final boss in Scorn is a mortifying cyborg that implants a sentient alien Homunculus into its chest cavity and takes homicidal orders from the evil extraterrestrial. Cyborgs and Homunculi are harmless alone, but once paired together, the result is a frightening and ferocious alien Mecha with the most baleful intentions in the game.
Rather than fusing humans with technology, Cyborgs in Scorn are comprised of dead human beings, the parts of which often come from different corpses. Once piloted and powered by the Homunculus, players will inevitably face the hardest test Scorn has to offer as the Cyborg stalks, fires projectiles, and require no less than 20 minutes to defeat from the beginning of the final boss battle until the end.
