A mess of flesh and teeth propels itself forward on meaty tendrils. A sharp bark of gunfire returns a cry of pain from the creature. In the blink of an eye it’s gone, moving from one corner of the room to a dark alcove above with supernatural speed. Scientists and security personal are frantic. They scramble over one another screaming and pleading for an escape. A sudden hoarse scream and one of the security guards is gone before anyone can lay eyes on him. A shower of blood rains down from above, followed promptly by a pair of dismembered legs. The remaining guards begin shouting at each other as the scientists begin screaming again. They retreat and steel themselves deeper in a barricaded room. Now there is a new noise. Scratching? Slithering? Breathing? The survivors will realize too late. Eyes peer up from the grated floor beneath them, the eyes of a hungry monster.
More aptly the eyes of the player about to crash through that floor and have a human buffet.
Carrion is a viciously simple game. Science people have horrible monster locked up. Horrible monster breaks out. Horrible monster gets revenge. It could be almost any horror B-movie special, only with a flip-flopped perspective.
This beautiful simplicity translates to the way you control the creature in Carrion too. Move with the left analog stick, control a gross tentacle with the right one, combat abilities on the shoulder buttons. (I played on the Switch but also tried the demo on PC where left and right click are used in addition to WASD.) The minimalist controls really lend themselves to immersion in the best moments of the game. I often found myself becoming tense as I underestimate the force on the other side of a door, my bloody squid salad monster scrambles away with the speed of Hermes off to some overhead-tuck away but not before snatching a flamethrower wielding friend to come along for a late dinner.
Something bothering your tentacle and mouth beast? You want that drone gone? How about those pesky kamikaze RC helicopters? Ok, grab it. You got it? Ok, now smash it all the heck around. That’s how you take care of problems in Carrion, you shake or beat the living ghost out of them. In all seriousness this is one of my favorite things about the game. There is no melee button, there is no instant stealth kill. You loudly burst into a room from the entrance of your choosing, grab whatever looks good, and become the most energetic wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man you can be. Very early on, when I realized this, it filled me with glee.
I had just started encountering enemies that not only fought back, but were inedible because they were androids or something like that. My tried and true tactic of “hit and run and carry one away to eat“ wasn’t working here. Not only that, but I was on the losing side of this attrition war. Rethinking my strategy I started exploring for other ways in. I removed a vent and began to creep into the opening, casting aside the covering with a loud crash. That’s when it dawned on me. I slithered back out and recovered the big hunk of grated metal. In a few seconds I’d barge though the ceiling flailing around metal death and moving faster than they could keep up with. Situational flexibility is something I love seeing in games, and Carrion has it in spades.
Carrion has some other fun elements for the discerning player. As you gobble people up you gain health and increase in size. Eventually you’ll get so big that some extra hit points are awarded to compliment your new size. This new larger you can do different things, like literally throw its weight into a previously unbreakable object, that subsequently will replace the abilities available to the teeny tiny version of your angry spaghetti and meatball monster. Fear not! There is a way to lose all that weight from the incalculable number of scientists and guards you consumed. You’ll eventually stumble upon areas with red fluid. When submerged you’ll see an option to deposit some biomass and shrink down to the next size.
So multiple pairs of abilities that are available based on the size of your monster, and pools of red liquid where you can shrink down and later return to consume the bio mass and regrow. It shouldn’t be any surprise that this is the typical set-up for puzzle areas once you’ve progressed a little in the game. Many of the puzzles aren’t too much trouble to figure out once you have the abilities you need, but there were a few that stumped me for a few good minutes of trial and error. I do have to say that when I did realize the solution to most of those, it was glaringly simple and the fault was that I overlooked or overthought something.
At this point I think its only fair that I go into a little more detail about what kind of a game Carrion is. Metroidvania is accurate but at the same time so broad. I can’t talk about Carrion without mentionIng how it cathartic it is to play. Yes, it is an action-adventure game set in a large over world with locations that are meant to be revisited. Yes, you will gain new abilities that will allow you to traverse new areas and interact with enemies in new ways. All at the same time, I feel like these are just methods to deliver the unique experience of Carrion. That experience is definitely more about fluidly traversing a facility as a bloodthirsty monster than it is having loads of secret collectibles and bosses. Thats just fine in my eyes.
There is a story in Carrion, it too is very simple. Really, it’s all told through a series of flashback segments that are player controlled. No cutscenes, no dialog, just those segments and what you’re able to interpret from the world as you tear through it. I think its great how it is and I do appreciate a less is more take on storytelling for this type of project. That being said, I certainly went into the game expecting a more tangible story and I still think that could have been a cool idea. However, seeing the game in its final form and playing it, I’m happy with what we got. This is by no means a long game, I finished my play through in about 9 hours, but I had a blast rampaging around and solving puzzles during my time playing.
