CONSCRIPT Review - A Glorious Set of Stairs We Make

Concealed in a lot of anti-war messages is this “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” nature. There’s not a lot of genuine empathy for the characters involved for a lot of it, even if they do harbor genuine regret at the actions brought forth by the powers that be from the beginning. Still, it’s always a place to showcase the damage done to its soldiers, and CONSCRIPT is no exception.

CONSCRIPT is the debut title from Catchweight Studio and the brainchild of solo developer Jordan Mochi. Based in Australia, Mochi has been working on CONSCRIPT since 2017 and has personally been a highlight of my Twitter timeline the entire time. Sitting alongside other games like SIGNALIS, Resident Evil, and the old-school Metal Gear games as inspirations, it’s been a long time coming, but we’re out of the trenches now.

You play as André, a French soldier during World War I who is stationed in Verdun. Your brother, Pierre, is fighting alongside you, known to the fritz above as they continue their assault in the French countryside. During a tumultuous assault on several forts occupied by the French Poilu, Pierre goes missing during a raid, and you must find him before the Germans do.

You may be surprised to learn that CONSCRIPT’s penning as a psychological horror game all comes from reality. There are no ghosts, no supernatural element attached whatsoever, just the pure cold realities of war. A noble effort, especially as you walk out of your bombed-out tent for the first time and see what war truly means.

Continuous machine gun fire in the distance. A thin haze covering anything with a wispy overcoat, and screams that call out for help, for mother, or for God. As first impressions go, CONSCRIPT is right up there with the best of them for immediately setting a tone, that being “war is hell”, and sets you up for what should be the fight of your life.

Combat can be rugged, bone-shredding, and otherwise brutal as you attempt to get to grips with it. Everything has a hearty kick, and the ranged weapons all sound and feel like they’re doing damage. There’s a quirk to some weapons like the revolver or rifle where you’ll have to cock it back after each shot, which only makes your timings all the more crucial.

In practice, it falls apart, however. There’s not a lot of grace or nuance to any of it, you’ll mostly be kiting several enemies around a square set and popping off shots whenever you can, which isn’t really in the spirit of things. The enemy AI also has no other play than “run forward and swing”, which is probably why it tends to cheat half the time you’re in combat.

When you’re facing enemies who actually have ranged weaponry, survival instinct says to dodge, or hide behind cover. Your combat roll can get things done in the heat of the moment, but for some reason, the level geometry - even when it’s clearly above André’s head - is penetrable for the German soldiers. It’s a deal-breaker when you’re looking to just breathe and focus on the next play, and the flammenwerfer soldiers can do it too!

It’s entirely plausible to avoid combat entirely, thanks to some fairly basic stealth mechanics introduced early on. Enemies have a wind-up timer for noticing you in plain sight, and you can do one-hit takedowns of most enemies if you hit them from behind without noticing. Actually navigating some of the areas later in the game with this mindset, however? Forget about it, due to the previously mentioned level geometry being a flat-out stinking lie, and the game hosting some absolutely godawful map design.

Some may call it intricate, but in its essence, it is obtuse to the point of sheer derision. Occasionally, André will pen maps as he explores the game world, but only occasionally will he decide to actually mark down blockades that otherwise wouldn’t appear on the map. This is something that is forgotten pretty quickly however, as the game will present you a map that has dead ends, but actually has rubble, fire, or barbed wire preventing you from continuing further.

So you start to completely ignore what the world offers, as it soon becomes clear that CONSCRIPT isn’t remotely interested in playing fair. Early on, there’s a rat mechanic introduced similar to how it works in Dishonored. If you kill an enemy and don’t take the proper precautions of burning their body afterwards, rats will spawn in, feast on the carcass, and become a new threat.

While they tend to be fairly negligible since dealing with them is a complete faff, it turns out they’re part of a bigger issue. Say that German soldiers have respawned in an area where you’ve already wiped them out, and rats have spawned in before the soldiers arrived. What might be considered a smart move - letting the rats deal with the soldiers or vice versa - is instead nullified by virtue of… I don’t know, the rats are also German, I guess?

So that’s two hazards in cahoots with each other, acting as a punishment for the player for overlooking their mechanics. If you place barbed wire in certain spots, it can stop the soldiers from respawning, and throwing a grenade into tiny cubby holes in the trenches can stop rats from feasting on corpses killed by André. It’s a good game of inventory management it presents and is indeed one of the few mechanics that aren’t immediately overused or immersion-breaking.

It’s hard pretending you’re the last line of defense between a German invasion and French liberation when the trenches you’re stuck in seem to be an offshoot of the Spencer Mansion. Survival horror can be as indebted to Resident Evil as much as it wants, but when CONSCRIPT invites the same arbitrary “3 keys for 1 door” blockade several times in a playthrough, I realize I am not in Verdun trying to save my brother and comrades; I am in an escape room playing for a Personal Best.

CONSCRIPT Review | Final Verdict

I cannot stress enough how much I wanted to like CONSCRIPT. The world is begging for survival horror with undertones like this, and while it certainly tries, mere words cannot explain how badly it misses the mark. It’s a constant cheat in its gameplay, its horror elements are downplayed to the point of mockery, and the story lacks anyone or anything that warrants sympathy.

If this is a love letter to survival horror, it’s a Dear John.

CONSCRIPT was reviewed on Xbox Series S using a copy provided by the publisher over the course of 15 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.