Take me back to the pliable blue airy, conscript. It’s safe and sound there, in the save room. No bulky armor with trench assault batons. No tunnels clogged with a diseased, pulpy green gas. No rats feasting on my ankles, occasionally giving me a disease that halves my health bar. “Christ, are they sending in the runners already?” asks a gunner as I head south from Fort Souville after a grueling trench defense has reduced my resources to a broken combat shovel and a handful of pistol rounds.
“Are we finished?”
What a terrible misfortune to realize that it is I rushing for lend a hand – not the rotting carcasses of horses or the tremors of accidents in serene corners – that are telling him of the coming disaster. I suppose spending so much time in hell means that gradual changes in temperature are not really noticeable.
I could really employ that blue airy. Set in 1916 during the Battle of Verdun, the consolations are few and far between. Still, here’s some consolation if you’ve been keeping an eye out for this: While Conscript dresses up the survival horror corpse in a personal and occasionally amusing way to suit its own purposes, it’s a solid implementation of the genre’s skeleton by a craftsman. Sure, it leaves a few of the mainstays on the table. The puzzles are straightforward, and persistent despair replaces overt scares, but that’s all the better for the pacing and atmosphere. Its interwoven Spencer Mansion-style environments are also denser and larger than most. Again, for the better. The genre’s best-placed safe and sound rooms act as rhymes to support the meter, and here, every cycle of the trip feels like being thrown into a maze of rot and rat shit without a thread.
Not entirely without plot, I’ll admit. You’ll find maps – good ones at that – that mark not only locked doors but also details. Notes will tell you which keys go to which doors or where certain puzzles are that you’ll want to return to. But the disorientation and danger still come from the dense, claustrophobic interiors and how regularly areas repopulate with enemies after progression points. Here’s a minor heresy for purists: you can’t really avoid the enormous majority of combat encounters here. Sometimes you can, by slipping into designated spots to wait out a passing patrol. In most cases, though, you’ll be glad you saved a designated slot in your inventory for spare ammo.
I fended off these patrols with a controller. Left trigger to aim, right to shoot, with a reticle that focuses the longer you hold your shot. Pistols are relatively tender, but they do have the advantage of not having to reload every round like a more capable rifle, and those little breakpoints feel both true and strained to the limits in the heat of the moment. But we’re not made of bullets, soldier, so you’d better familiarize yourself with the old and noble art of swinging a shovel at a man’s skull.
Melee works similarly to firearms, aiming and swinging, with a few odd quirks. Stagger seems very inconsistent in Conscript, although I found I could mostly reliably cancel an opponent’s melee attack if I swung at the very top of my swing. Also have fun smashing barrels. Your melee weapon doesn’t degrade when hitting inanimate objects, which is nice, but you also have to wait for your reticle to focus to reliably hit a barrel you’re standing next to. I know, I know. Little things. There’s a war going on, etc. These inconsistencies in stagger were a bit of a bummer for me. I suppose there must be some semi-random element to it, since you can’t aim at certain parts from an isometric perspective, but when resource utilization and spacing between fights are so vital, it’s worse to get scammed and run out of breathing room than to triumphantly receive it. Still, dodging is an incredibly useful tool for making space for yourself if you have the stamina for it.
What feels triumphant, even satisfying, is Resident Evil 4’s sort of subdued loop of collecting treasures that can be spent on resources and weapon upgrades. I say treasures – mostly cigarettes, but you can occasionally find a huge ruby or other valuable gem. The description tells me they were probably unearthed by artillery. I can’t say whether that’s a stretch or not, but it seems to me that Conscript would become unbearable – and discourage optional exploration – without some sort of classic reward loop. I’m not saying it necessarily undermines the atmosphere, just that it’s compelling to point out the trade-offs – although nothing quite pierces the melancholy like an achievement called “What are you buying?” that pops up.
Elsewhere, though, Conscript makes it work. You’ll be called back to the front lines at intervals. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a turret section that felt less like a power fantasy. The reticle shakes and shivers violently. German soldiers line up in groups of twos and threes until all available tools are used up – then they line up even more. A change to Resident Evil 1 Remake’s crimson heads soon sees rats attacking key routes until you stop the source. The setting offers enough hazards that unlocking modern areas with gas masks and dynamite feels like the actions of a resourceful, desperate soldier, as does crafting makeshift Molotov cocktails and medical supplies.
Once again, though, it’s this underpinning machine of map design, lock-and-key progression, and exploration flow that keeps the incredibly bleak tale from ever drying out into dreariness. Conscript often pauses and stares in its implementation of jaundiced lighting and bleak color, its many artistic uses of a palette largely confined to blood, rot, shit, and scales. But while Resi has the camp, the romance of Signalis, and the baroque depth of Silent Hill, Conscript has little to fall back on beyond the grim promise of either a meat grinder or a deserter’s bullet. It’s not an simple setup to make compelling and inspire you to keep pushing, but the game manages to do so. In most horror movies, hell is a place we descend to through increasingly mundane thresholds. Here, that’s where we start.
There are salves. Brief, gallows conversations enhanced by humor and opportunities to lend a hand comrades by handing out valuables. The search for a wounded brother, made poignant by flashbacks that need not be overly sentimental, because just being away from the trenches for a moment is enough to bring relief and comfort. One chapter opens with a non-combat journey through a devastated village – a well-placed display of confidence in an atmosphere of danger and fear, to hold on when the bullets stop flying.
It can be strenuous to judge balance in a genre that relies on feeling hopeless, threatened, and, yes, a little off-kilter from time to time. Resources are plentiful at the start, so I feasted until I was hungry and had to abandon the first round, which honestly made me respect Conscript even more for putting me in it. If that’s not your bag, there are four difficulty levels, plus options for checkpoints and unlimited saves—still in safe and sound rooms, but without the need for ink. Major features like gameplay ranks and unlockable costumes are also included. And—oh my!—an sincere digital manual, complete with a blank page of notes. I love that. The way I’ve just structured this paragraph requires me to make it clear that I’m not just saying this for the sake of the manual, but: Conscript is a good survival horror. Fill your shoes. But first, check for rats, right?
This review is based on a test version of the game provided by the game developer.
