How Conscript's Twin Halves Honor Classic Survival Horror

The past year has been a great one for horror games, with one particular type of survival horror game becoming very prevalent. 2024 was host to no less than 5 highly anticipated indie survival horror titles with a PS1-style aesthetic and atmosphere, among which Jordan Mochi’s Conscript was one of the more talked-about. A World War I-set survival horror game with some obvious retro influences and a pixel art visual style, Conscript ended up being one of the few survival horror titles this year to place as much emphasis on its story as its gameplay. It’s the intersection of these two elements that sees Conscript wear its classic survival horror influences on its sleeve.

While not the first game in the genre, Resident Evil is survival horror’s mainstream breakthrough as well as where the genre got its name. Not long after the release of Resident Evil as BioHazard in Japan, Keiichiro Toyama would begin work on Silent Hill, leading to both franchises being synonymous with laying the foundations of the survival horror genre. As a retro-style horror game that pays homage to the 5th-generation classics in the genre, Conscript‘s gameplay might adhere to the Resident Evil school of thought, but its story and emphasis on psychological horror are pure Silent Hill.

Conscript’s Gameplay Borrows Heavily From the Original Resident Evil Trilogy

When it comes to Conscript‘s gameplay, the influence of the original three Resident Evil games on PS1 is front and center. Players control the game’s protagonist, André, from a fixed overhead third-person perspective, navigating maze-like maps to solve puzzles and eliminate enemies. Of course, inventory management and careful allocation of limited resources factor heavily into Conscript‘s core gameplay loop, as does collecting various items and clues to solve the game’s head-scratching puzzles. One area where Conscript even goes above and beyond Resident Evil is with its randomization of numbers used for combination locks, meaning players can’t rely on online walkthroughs or previous playthroughs to devise solutions.

Combat and traversal are especially similar to the 5th-generation Resident Evil games, with movement being somewhat sluggish and cumbersome as an intentional design decision. Players have to juggle a continually dwindling stamina meter and only have a single defensive maneuver in the form of a combat roll, making positioning and aiming crucial. Combined with limited ammunition and a wide variety of firearms that all operate differently, Conscript‘s moment-to-moment gameplay will feel right at home to fans of the classic Resident Evil games.

How Conscript’s Narrative Elements Pivot Its Survival Horror Influences

With its narrative, though, Conscript flips the script from its Resident Evil gameplay influence to clearly owe a debt of gratitude to Silent Hill. Conscript utilizes psychological horror to continually unnerve players and lay bare the real-world horrors of the First World War. There are no supernatural elements to speak of in Conscript. Instead, the game examines the human cost of war and the psychological effect it has on those fortunate enough to survive while surrounded by so much death.

In a clever twist on the standard survival horror gameplay loop, Conscript even goes so far as to cause players to question their actions in the game. Killing enemies and looting their bodies is standard practice for the survival horror genre, where constant acquisition of resources is necessary for pushing forward. Except in the case of Conscript, players will increasingly pick up photos from the German soldiers they take out as the game progresses, reiterating the fact that the enemies players dispatch aren’t just faceless goons but instead humans with lives and families. Conscript upends player expectations by balancing how the game plays, and the story it tells, between two competing classic survival horror influences.

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Released

2024-00-00

Developer(s)

Catchweight Studio

OpenCritic Rating

Strong

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