I might be biased, or based as the people on the internet say, but we need more wild and explosive games these days. Games, where you push start, and the action pretty much begins with a cool little story stringing it along. Not that there’s anything wrong with games that focus on major social and political issues or explore the dimensions and complexities of humans and class systems. Sometimes, you need to relax and blow things up. That’s what Scathe is, Scathe is a new first-person shooter from Damage State. After a short amount of time with it, I am ready to plunder into its gnarly depths.
Inspired By Greats
At first glance, players will make obvious comparisons to Doom and Doom Eternal, with their demonic settings. The inspirations certainly are worn on the sleeve, between some of the monster designs and quick moments of observation when a new weapon is picked up. However, the key in Scathe is speed and quick reflexes, as enemies will through volleys of bullets, and themselves at you.
Scathe is an FPS inspired by the speed, tenacity, and fury of 90s shooters. Older shooters, or what is more popularly referred to today as boomer shooters, were games that were all about two things: style and skills. The style came from the presentation and world depicted. For Duke Nukem, you had an absurdly muscular protagonist, wielding three barreled machine guns and moving around like Usain Bolt, dodging incoming fire and punishing enemies. Shadow Warrior put players in the role of a wise-cracking Asian assassin, using katanas, magic arts, and duel-wielding Uzis to punish horrifying demons. Even Ion Fury, released in 2019, put players in the role of a badass female cyborg hell-bent on pumping an invading army full of hot laser lead. It’s a formula that works for its speed, skill, and euphoric action sensations of felling larger foes with devastating weapons. Scathe follows this tradition but introduces a demonic setting, coupled with inspirations from Japanese bullet-hell games.
Speed Run
The demo for Scathe was a quick one. The goal was to make it to the end of the level as fast as humanely possible. There was actually a record of three minutes and thirty seconds, set by a PAX attendee. The goal, of course, was to finish the demo.
All About Speed
Scathe is about speed, and it absolutely shows from the moment the demo began. Dashing, running, all of it was essential to take on the demonic hordes. Some were easier to take down, as the standard grunts, but the flying demons were brutal. The demons were infused with both demonic abilities and cybernetic weapons, perhaps ancient weaponry from an advanced civilization. Scathe takes place within the labyrinth of a hellscape, an underworld of pain and suffering, and the various monstrosities have obtained ways to punish and destroy you.
Brutal Slayings
In the initial encounter, I died a few times, but I managed to slay some enemies in a brutal fashion. The main rifle I had packed a punch and contained a secondary fire that made short work of enemies. Running through the fiendish hordes, I finally made my way to the end, featuring an arena fight with a beast resembling a Cyber demo from Doom. A cybernetic head, two arms replaced with radiating plasma cannons, and a whole lot of attitude.
Difficult Bosses
This battle was brutal, but not impossible. I fought, dodged, and died a few times, but fighting this boss felt like a rhythm shooter in a sense, memorizing the pattern, and listening for cues as to where enemies were and where enemies were firing. During this match, I also got access to a futuristic double-barreled shotgun. The primary fire was solid enough, but the secondary fire launched volleys of demonic energy toward enemies. Each volley took big pieces off the enemy’s health bar. After moving quickly moving and fighting aggressively, the massive beast was felled, resulting in the end of the demo.
Boomer Shooters At Their Best
There is the old saying that an imitation is a sincere form of flattery, but in the case of Scathe, it isn’t imitation, but instead, a viewpoint. The team at Damage State looked at the genre of the boomer shooter and said “ let’s put our own spin on it” complete with demonic weapons, fast, brutal gameplay, and an incredibly hardcore presentation. My demo was short, but the ambitions that Scathe sets out to do work extremely well. It’s fast, aggressive, and incredibly fun, not to mention very sharp to look at. Some of the ambitious features Scathe will have is a drop-in-drop out online co-op, meaning that fighting the maze of monsters doesn’t have to be a one-man job. Scathe is looking to be a gory good time, and with a release window of 2022, we won’t have to wait for long.
Scathe will be releasing on Steam, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
