Survival Horror is going through a big resurgence at the moment (even if it never really went away) with genre titans Resident Evil and Silent Hill being joined by originators like Alone in the Dark and indie breakouts such as Crow Country. Amongst this assortment of monstrous experiences, Conscript stands out with its setting and visuals. Largely the work of a solo developer, Jordan Mochi, the end result is a traumatic and challenging game that takes the tried and tested tropes of the genre and mixes them with a truly horrific tone and feel.
While not unique in its wartime setting – relatively recently both Ad Infinitum and Amnesia: The Bunker featured a similar backdrop – Conscript really comes into its own by focusing on the real horrors and traumas of The Great War (a name that becomes more ironic as time marches on). Supernatural elements are largely kept to the background here and instead the most horrific aspects are the violence and inhuman acts carried out by soldiers following orders. Your fragility and fears go a long way to replace the usual zombies and monsters that characterise the genre.
Set during the Battle of Verdun, you play as a French soldier who is trying to find his missing brother and make it through the conflict alive. In between chapters you play through short quiet flashbacks that help to familiarise you with your character and their background whilst also serving to offer a dynamic contrast with the dark and claustrophobic nature of the rest of the game. While this highly personal story runs the risk of romanticising or sentimentalising a savage and lethal part of history, the opposite is the case. This story places you within the conflict and gives you the opportunity to empathise with those put in an impossible position.
Conscript’s art direction is very distinctive. Using a top-down camera and employing a PS1 era level of fidelity gives the game a grimy look that is perfectly suited to the trenches and bunkers you’ll be traversing. The use of line of sight and the environmental darkness ensure that you never feel at ease too. Environments themselves are somewhat lacking in variety but that is a necessary part of the setting. That being said, the game does offer a range of locations from the trenches and forts to an occupied French town. The audio accompanying this is suitably oppressive and low key with the main focus being on atmospheric sound effects.
Very much in keeping with the Survival Horror genre, you’ll spend your time scavenging for resources, making choices about how best to best items to craft new supplies, juggling your weapons within a limited inventory and solving puzzles using logic and key items. This is all very on brand and there is little here that deviates from the established traditions, but that isn’t a criticism. In fact, most of the puzzles are well designed and just difficult enough to be enjoyable with a number requiring you to make notes.
Combat is a pretty large component of the game too, with a decent range of melee and ranged weapons to be scavenged and used as you try to survive. Enemies mostly consist of a handful of German troops with armaments that go from shovels to flamethrowers. A couple of more armoured types are used as mini bosses, but the combat is deliberately monotonous to highlight the pointlessness of the conflict. Your weapons can be upgraded by collecting weapon parts scattered across the maps and a recurring merchant is available who feels like an early ancestor of Resident Evil’s more iconic shopkeep. Here, the main currency is cigarettes, an especially evocative period feature.
There are various difficulty levels available, with extra rewards and trophies locked behind specific approaches, such as not killing outside of setpiece encounters or not taking damage. I began on the default difficulty and it mostly felt the right side of challenging, but the pre-release build did suffer from a rodent problem as the swarms of rats that appear after a few hours were far too fast and savage, with their attacks made even worse by a virulent poison effect. You can mitigate this to some extent by using grenades to destroy their nests and by burning bodies to prevent them spawning. This has been addressed in a patch (at least on PC) so should be less of a problem now.
