Scathe (PC)

Scathe developed by Damage State hopes to marry the world’s of First Person Shooters in an unholy union with the intricacy of Bullet Hell, match made in Heaven or relationship from Hell?

Scathe sees you taking on the role of the titular character as they take on the task of breaking out of Hell by defeating the Guardians, to do so Scathe must collect 40 “Runes” in total to do so. 

The story isn’t exactly Legend of Heroes level of intricacy and I can’t fault it for being more of an excuse, you often don’t even need an excuse as to why when you play some of the classic shooters and I won’t be docking points off Scathe for doing the same.

Visually Scathe nails the typical look of a labyrinthian hell, lots of lava pouring through the ancient temple like structures, various torture devices knocking about and other images of the macabre. Fortunately this hellish maze isn’t just restricted to one biome and presents you with forest styled areas and more, the area designs are fantastic and just varied enough to keep it fresh. 

 Enemy designs are grotesque but pretty standard for the genre, if you’ve played any “Doom” inspired title you’ll be familiar with the legions you have to take down and the ones you aren’t while surprising aren’t all that inventive, I’m looking at you silver ball of doom!.

Scathe is a Boomer Shooter at heart, it moves like a boomer shooter, looks like a boomer shooter, plays like one, heck if I could smell it I could guarantee it has a boomer musk about it. 

The unique selling points of Scathe are how the game progresses and its focus on jump in & jump out co-op, yes you can grab a friend, raise some hell and when dinner is done you or friend can drop out and come back when you’re ready. 

The progression I mentioned in Scathe involves each Sector being presented as a map, you are shown which zone of that sector you’re in and you can work out which path is going to yield the results you want for that “run”.

You need a certain amount of runes which can be found in most zones, grab enough of these and you’ll be taking on that sector’s boss, it’s down to you if you’re prepared enough to do so.

The game provides you with 10 lives per run and you can find additional lives around as well as the rare health pack and other power ups such as super speed.

Weapons are located in certain zones so it’s always well advised to track them down first, as fun as the base machine gun/rocket launcher is with its infinite ammo, it doesn’t quite put out the damage on the bigger units. 

Combat feels great, it’s visceral and reactive and you can also dash into foes splatting them into a red mist!I have zero complaints with the combat beat. I just wish weapons were paced a little better in terms of being unlocked. 

My issue with Scathe is the general progression of it all. The zone features create this really disjointed almost roguelike feel to the stages, especially with the lives system and the level design really gives off that procedurally generated feel even when they aren’t. 

Death also comes randomly quick in Scathe and a plethora of bugs just didn’t leave the greatest taste in my mouth, fortunately the drop in, drop out co-op works brilliantly and the balancing and pacing makes me feel multiplayer was the focus over solo. 

I wanted to love Scathe and while I did find enjoyment from it, the weird nature of it feeling procedural and almost indie in nature really worked against it. I’ve no doubt a few tweaks here and there will fix the bugs and possibly the pacing but as it stands it’s something Boomer Shooter die hards can get SOME enjoyment out of but don’t expect it to scratch any itch.