Conscript [Review]
Conscript is a terrifying vision of World War I brilliantly depicted through the lens of survival horror.
Conscript. Credit: Catchweight Studio / Team 17
One-man game dev Catchweight Studio has made Conscript, a survival horror game in the vein of PlayStation classics. While this genre usually has players fight to survive zombie hordes (Resident Evil), psychosexual demons (Silent Hill), and other horrific creatures, Conscript brilliantly sets its horror in 1916, in the middle of the bloody Battle of Verdun. There are no monsters, unless you count other men.
The setting is a landscape made barren by shelling, littered with the corpses of some of the 300,000+ fallen soldiers lost in the battle. Waterlogged trenches, No Man’s Land, bombed villages with collapsing buildings, and dark fortresses are where the action takes place. You play as a young French soldier doing your best to survive, pressed into increasingly dire situations as you descend into hell for your country and to rescue your brother who may be hurt further up the front lines.
Conscript. Credit: Catchweight Studio / Team 17
The sights and sounds in the game are truly horrific. German soldiers, often with their faces hidden by uncanny gas masks, yell at you in a language you can’t understand as they unwaveringly try to kill you. Men with their lower limbs blown off by explosions drag themselves toward you. Soldiers who you cripple but don’t kill lay on the ground yelling in pain. Corpses you don’t burn will attract diseased rats that would far prefer to eat your living flesh over that of the dead. After you kill a German soldier, you’ll often find photos of their loved ones on their bodies along with the cigarettes you scavenge as currency. Blood covered medical tents, mazes of mass graves, bodies floating face down in water-filled craters. When you think it’s bad, it’ll get worse.
This isn’t the typical power fantasy of mainstream war-set games like Call of Duty. You’re fragile and have limited resources. Verdun wants to eat you alive. Conscript is the most effective game about war that I’ve ever played, with the gameplay tropes of its genre and the trappings of horror creating a truly incredible and affecting experience. The only bit of absurdity is that you need to deal with the clichéd survival horror puzzles of emblems and special keys to open doors, but everything else is so good that I let that slide.
Conscript. Credit: Catchweight Studio / Team 17
Rather than the fixed camera angles of classic Resident Evil, Conscript sets its action in top down, more like Metal Gear Solid. It creates an atmosphere of tension by making you dread what may be lurking just offscreen and will often put you in situations where you need to navigate darkness with your flashlight. The color palette is limited and the resolution is low, like you’d expect in a game of the PS1 era. I feel that the graphical limitations here make the visuals more powerful than hyperrealistic 3D, because your mind often has to fill in the blanks.
You don’t move very quickly, and if you run your stamina will drain quickly. You can attack with an equipped weapon—guns, melee, grenades, and more—and perform a slow dodge roll to try to avoid damage. You’ll either find or craft your ammo and healing items. As typical of the genre, you must contend with limited inventory space, but you get the benefit of the magic storage box that lets you access all your stored goods in safe rooms. Your cigarettes and gun parts for weapon upgrades don’t clutter your standard issue pack.
Conscript. Credit: Catchweight Studio / Team 17
After finishing the game, you can start a New Game+, which I plan to do because I got a bad ending, though what I need to do to improve the outcome isn’t very clear. My first playthrough took me around 15 hours on the game clock. It was probably longer because of all the times I died. By default, the game has a limited save ink mechanic; you can disable it at the cost of not being able to achieve S+ Rank.
If you like survival horror games, history, or war narratives, you can’t do much better than Conscript. It’s a great game and also a scary, sobering experience.
Conscript will be available on July 23, 2024, on PC (Steam, Epic, GOG, Humble), PlayStation 4/5, and Xbox One / Series X.
Overall Score: 9/10
Played on: PS5
