MEAT IS MURDER

CARRION is more of a buffet line than a hunting trip.

- Imran Khan

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT? 2D metroidvania action with some horror elements

EXPECT TO PAY £17

DEVELOPER Phobia Game Studio

PUBLISHER Devolver Digital

REVIEWED ON Windows 10, AMD Ryzen 7 1700, 16GB RAM, Radeon RX480

MULTIPLAYER No

LINK devolverdigital.com/ games/carrion

There’s no overwrought origin story to Carrion’s horror. There’s a monster. The monster eats those people. The monster does not like getting shot by the people so it should probably eat people before they shoot it. You’re the monster, and this is Carrion’s tutorial sequence, which introduces smooth controls that propel the creature through a dank underground laboratory. As I direct it, it attaches its tentacles to surfaces with no interference or complication, evoking a feeling of flight.

It’s with that same streamlined gusto that Carrion pursues all its mechanics. The game is a metroidvania in concept, but the espresso shot version of one, without offering much of the way in actual exploration. You move the monster throughout the base, seeking simply to get outside, growing larger by absorbing biomass (eating people) and then distributing that biomass into holes in the wall to spread through the laboratory. Doing so opens up new paths and crucial progress doors that lead to new areas, and is also surprisingly gross. There are a lot of gooey tentacles here.