every machine in scorn presented me with some sort of living cavity through which to interact. sometimes it was a puckered anus. sometimes it was a comically gaping vagina. sometimes it was both. sometimes biology and machinery were so intertwined that, for a second, i felt silly to have ever conflated the former with the latter in the first place. but at one point, my character gently caressed a contraption before roughly jamming every finger into separate holes in the instrument’s slimy carapace and my visions of chitinous genitalia came rushing back so fast it made me motion sick.

scorn, released october 14 for xbox series x/s and pc by serbian studio ebb software after 8 years in development, is the latest attempt to translate the largely static works of h. r. giger and zdzisław beksiński into an interactive medium. and while, truth be told, there’s more than a little of author harlan ellison to be found in scorn as well — it contains several in-your-face references to his most famous work, the short story i have no mouth, and i must scream — the game’s lofty ambitions attach firmly to the marketable legacies of visual artists known for the nightmares they released upon the world.

but for me, scorn is inextricably tied to a giger creation more tangible than his iconic paintings: the alien franchise’s xenomorph, or rather, its brutal method of reproduction. after becoming acquainted with giger’s work on another project (maybe you’ve heard of it), writer dan o’bannon eventually collaborated with giger to create the alien’s titular creature, based on an oil slick-skinned monstrosity depicted in giger’s 1977 compendium necronomicon. while scripting alien, however, o’bannon and co-writer ron shusett hit a small roadblock.

“dan said, ‘i know what has to happen next is the creature has to get on the ship in an interesting way,’” shusett explained during an interview for the documentary alien evolution. “in the middle of the night, i woke up and i said, ‘dan, i think i have an idea: the alien screws one of them […] it jumps on his face and plants its seed in ‘em.’”

“soon as i heard it, i thought, ‘oh well, that’s it,’” o’bannon added in the same documentary. “that was one of the ideas that made it possible to make this thing worth doing at all. this is a movie about alien interspecies rape. that’s it. that’s scary because it hits all of our buttons, all of our unresolved feelings about sexuality.”

much like alien, violation is at the heart of the scorn experience. its entire foundation is built, if not on literal rape, then on the idea of imposing one’s will through gruesome, invasive methods. as i traversed the ruined corridors of the game’s abandoned structures, i quickly realized the only lasting impact i was making on the world around me (and vice versa) was one of degradation. scorn so revels in rapacious cruelty that, at only five or six hours long, it often feels as though it’s squeezing as much torture and inhumanity as it can into every minute.

much hay has been made about the absurdity of a game as aesthetically foreboding as scorn opening with a slide puzzle, but i think the direct consequences of this out-of-place riddle perfectly sets the stage for what’s to come.

after freeing a glowing egg from the slide puzzle, it became my task to navigate its malformed, semi-humanoid occupant through a series of contraptions that slowly and painfully remove it from the gelatinous shell. all the while, it slammed against its confines, eyes rolling erratically in their sockets as hands reached out to me for mercy. its mouth was sealed by a membrane, but it still managed to muster a guttural scream in its throat. i was given two equally horrific choices: destroy my captive and use an intact arm left among the viscera to open a nearby door or force it to cooperate with me on its crooked, shambling legs and, once the way forward was clear, leave it struggling to escape from the clutches of the machinery i couldn’t operate on my own.

scorn is full to bursting with such moments. some hours later, i was tasked with crushing sharp-toothed, fetal monsters in a hydraulic press to fill a key with blood. one was still alive and, even in its weakness, managed to look me in the eye before being turned to goo. an entire chapter revolved around removing a gigantic, moaning hive creature from its symbiotic perch atop a vital elevator by using phallic constructs scattered around the environment to open gaping passageways to new areas in its skin. step by step, the sad-eyed flesh golem peered at me through windows both man-made and organic, unable to do anything but watch as i penetrated and, eventually, murdered it in an explosion of muscle, fat, and entrails.

i’d be remiss, of course, to dismiss the utmost sincerity with which scorn assaults players. it’s not quite sure what it wants to be, mixing elements of survival horror, point-and-click adventures, and walking simulators into a slurry that’s more elevated tech demo than full-fledged video game, but there’s an undeniable glimmer of self-assuredness amidst the confusion. for all its name-dropping PR fluff, scorn really does look like the giger–beksiński collaboration we never got while the two men were alive. and much like giger encouraged viewers to find the beauty in his nightmares, ebb software absolutely managed to make something that’s as compelling visually as it is horrifying to pilot.

during the filming of the documentary never-ending man, famed japanese director hayao miyazaki was shown a presentation on artificial intelligence and animation that resulted in a human body that dragged itself along the ground with its head.

“it doesn’t feel any pain, and has no concept of protecting its head,” a researcher explained as the 3D model struggled on a screen beside him. “it uses its head like a leg. an artificial intelligence could present us grotesque movements which we humans can’t imagine.”

miyazaki wasn’t impressed. in a now-famous moment of biting criticism, the visionary filmmaker behind castle in the sky, princess mononoke, and spirited away called the project “an insult to life itself.”

“every morning, i see my friend who has a disability,” miyazaki said. “it’s so hard for him just to do a high five, his arm with stiff muscle reaching out to my hand. now, thinking of him, i can’t watch this stuff and find it interesting. whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever. i am utterly disgusted. if you really want to make creepy stuff, you can go ahead and do it. i would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all.”

i didn’t truly understand miyazaki’s revulsion in that moment until scorn. it deserves to exist, but even as a fan of both giger and beksinski, it’s not something i encourage anyone to experience.