Conscript review

Once upon a time, survival horror needed monsters. Whether it was a horde of shambling zombies and packs of ugly mutated canines or a swarm of screeching, flying lizards and, well, even uglier mutated canines, much of the mood in the landmark examples of the genre was defined by these fantastical creatures. Conscript, Jordan Mochi’s top-down throwback to Resident Evil, needs no recourse to such supernatural threats. The brutality and madness of the First World War’s longest, most senseless battle will suffice. 

The year is 1916 and Andre, a teenager from provincial France, has been trucked off to Verdun along with his brother, Pierre, to sacrifice themselves for the greater good at the slowly collapsing front. The protracted standoff, in a battle originally intended by the Germans to serve as a meat grinder for the local resistance, has turned into a never-ending nightmare. 

Soldiers suffering from starvation and lack of sleep cower in the trenches to shelter from the constant shelling, flanked by the bodies of their dead comrades. To make things worse, Andre has made a promise to his ailing mother that he’ll keep Pierre safe, but his wounded brother has been captured during the latest German offensive. The task of rescuing him initiates a series of ordeals that bears every hallmark of old-school survival horror, made even bleaker for the fact that nothing our hero witnesses would be out of place in a history book.

Conscript faithfully sticks to the original survival horror blueprint, with each area (whether the winding corridors of a battered French fort or the still-smouldering ruins of a bombarded village) a maze of interconnected hubs of carnage peppered with scattered sanctuaries where you can store non-vital items and trade or upgrade your equipment. Simple lock puzzles temporarily block progress until you can gather the necessary keys or the bits of information required to guess a combination code, granting access to new rooms or potentially life-saving shortcuts to previous ones. Everything essential to your continued survival is turned into a finite resource: ammo, medical supplies, and even the ability to save your progress. 

I’d often agonise over that familiar dilemma, introduced in Capcom’s classic nearly three decades ago: is this a good moment to spend one of my remaining ink cartridges or should I risk pushing forward in fear of running out?

Wrenching trenching 

Combat does feature some concessions to modern sensibilities, including extra damage to unaware enemies (I saved dozens of bullets with a well-placed shovel to the back of the head) and a handy dodge roll which comes with precious invulnerability frames. Still, its intentional clumsiness and slow, stuttered rhythm perfectly channel the mindset of confused, scared draftees reluctantly locked in an endless cycle of violence. Aiming takes ages, leaving you immobile and vulnerable in the process. Mud puddles hinder your movement on the battlefield. Barbed wire fences and clouds of hovering phosgene gas injure you if you’re careless. And don’t even think about trying to reload while an active enemy charges at you. 

These enemies come in all shapes and sizes: there’s rifle-carrying Germans and bayonet-swinging Germans; short, angry Germans with clubs and massive, armoured Germans with hatchets; German officers with pointy hats and pointier rapiers; trenchcoat-sporting Germans with flamethrowers. It’s a surprising range for a game that features only two enemy species (the other being the rats that emerge to feast on rotting corpses during later chapters) and I never felt that the game lacked variety despite taking me roughly 20 hours to complete.

The developer has obviously studied the era in some depth and it feels like the research has affected him on a deeper level than simply informing a handful of design decisions. Mochi’s commitment to historical accuracy generates a layer of authenticity that makes his work stand out among more traditionally-themed approaches to the genre. It also enhances Conscript’s relentlessly oppressive mood; every aspect of the game feels meticulously crafted to convey the absurdity and depravity of war. The palette, consisting almost entirely in sickly browns and drab greys, allows no glimpse of hope in that disintegrating world, while the backdrops complete the impression with images of death and decay: piling corpses, ruined churches, withering orchards. The soundscape is equally distressing with the simple effects of booted feet on gravel and rusty metal on fragile German craniums suggesting a sort of paranoid isolation. On a more abstract level, the ambient noise of artillery barrages, the screaming wounded, and the occasional ominous synth further alienates you from any semblance of humanity.

This unity of purpose, the determination to look unflinchingly at the horrors of war, manifests in every little detail of the game, from the inspirational-yet-morbid propaganda posters you find pinned on the walls of public buildings to the tranquil interludes between chapters that poignantly juxtapose Andre’s life at the farm with his current plight. Mochi shows rare sympathy to the other side’s unwitting cannon fodder, having them carry personal photographs and portraying them as pathetic shell-shock victims, not so different from your afflicted allies. The morality being questioned here is the one imposed by the conditions of war itself, rather than any camp in particular, and the lines are blurred further from mechanical touches like the fact that retreating from the battlefield earns you a bullet in the head from your own officer.

There was no sense of triumph when the final battle had been won. Even after trying to do my best for my comrades, the ending I reached had an air of ceremony but no medals were awarded during the sombre occasion. If it makes for a disheartening experience, at least Conscript stays true to its creator’s singular vision. The trappings of classic survival horror are an acquired taste and chances are you already know whether you’re among those that love them or hate them. But for sheer, despair-inducing darkness, no game in recent memory captures the torment humanity can inflict upon itself quite like Conscript.