Carrion

Carrion is a reverse-horror game in which the player controls a monster that has escaped a laboratory and is running rampant through the facility consuming humans and gaining new powers. It’s sometimes described as a metroidvania without a map, and whether the lack of a map is a a feature or bug is up to the player.

Before we get started, there’s the icon controversy.

When Carrion came out on Nintendo Switch the launcher icon was either hilarious or horrible, depending who you asked (image on left). They have since changed it to the image on the right. I am not sure how this went down but the original icon certainly evokes a sense of bodily discomfort that is latent throughout the game.

Carrion is deeply atmospheric and gory. Gore normally turns me off, but the pixel art makes it manageable here. The play control is interesting because it’s both precise (I am sometimes able to flip a switch without harming the human standing next to it) and goosey (running around, especially in the larger bio form, can feel kind of haphazard and weighty, with body parts sloshing all over the place) in a way that emphasizes the body horror component. You have this messy, writhing monster body that’s springy and powerful and can easily decapitate and devour humans, and while in theory you can delicately open doors with a carefully-aimed appendage, it’s also true that sometimes your body just sort of… gets away from you… and you rip the door off the hinges anyway. When I play this game I feel very much like a horrifying laboratory monster. It’s an interesting and surreal vibe, and while there is a level of play control unpredictability that can be frustrating but also keeps things from feeling too samey. I go into a room with a plan but you know what? Sometimes my body does shit I don’t want it to do. And I think this is something most of us humans can relate to.

The powers are cool. Carrion eventually evolves to shoot webs (also useful for pulling levers), attack, pull, turn into water worms, turn invisible, and take over human bodies. These powers are not all simultaneous, they are available depending on Carrion’s current biomass, so an important feature of gameplay is changing size to be larger (by eating biomass or humans) or smaller (by depositing excess biomass into pools) to change the powers that are available for the current puzzle.

Rather infamously, Carrion doesn’t have a map. This is a + for immersion, as an escaped laboratory monster would be unlikely to have a map, but a - for absent-minded human players. I am somewhat torn between appreciating the immersion and ruing all the backtracking I’ve had to do, but the needle settles on “feature.” The game is short enough, atmospheric enough, and immersive enough the lack of map works for it.

Full disclosure, this is the third time I’ve attempted to play this title on Game Pass. The first two times I played a few hours, got lost, stepped away, then came back and was well and truly lost and shelved it for a bit. Each subsequent attempt I’ve started over from the beginning and haven’t really minded. Carrion is fun to play. The main criticisms of this game are that it is too short and the gameplay is too samey. Both are valid, but I think the game’s shorter length works precisely because the gameplay is relatively repetitious and there is no map.

At the final level I found myself having a lot of difficulty with the controls in regards to drone enemies. Drones cannot be attacked directly if you’re not at 3rd level biomass, you must use webs or the environment, and I have found this to be incredibly hit or miss–usually a miss in my case. I did get stuck or lost a few times, and had to read a guide at one point (where I learned about an ability I wasn’t aware I had), but this was the first time the game became truly frustrating for me. Dying repeatedly against flocks of drones was not fun, but the workaround is to get to the 3rd biomass level so you can spike them. In some situations, but not all, you can backtrack and figure out a way to do this.

In conclusion, Carrion is pretty fun and if you’re into body horror I recommend giving it a look. Some people, evidently lacking a frame of reference for how much labor and time is required to make a game like this, take exception to paying $20 for what might be a six-hour game. If you’re that sort of person you might want to check this one out on Game Pass. If the idea of a metroidvania without a map makes you break into hives (which is a reasonable reaction IMO), avoid. I think the game is interesting and different, and the short length means it doesn’t outstay its welcome, but it does have the capacity to be frustrating in certain areas, especially towards the end.