Carrion

Every piece of Carrion is polished and near-flawless. From the amazing visuals, heart-pounding sound design, to the organic gameplay, everything in this game serves a unified purpose. In our current market oversaturated media, there is something invaluable in a game that doesn’t waste your time.

Carrion is a relatively short, positively memorable experience. Our odyssey as the monster attempting to flee from the mysterious installations shines with a formidable audiovisual design and fully original gameplay. It's cool to be the bad guy of the tale, sometimes.

Many factors make Carrion exceptionally fun to play, and hardly any that don't make it a gorily great way to spend eight hours. It's atmospheric in presentation and sound production, creating a complete package that feels like you're playing the origin story of a creature like The Thing.

Creepy, lusciously grotesque and most importantly, enjoyable, Carrion is one of the most refreshing games we've played in recent years and proves yet again that indie game development usually goes hand in hand with creativity.

Carrion is a unique game and one that is refreshing and fun to play. The gameplay is smooth, and the arcadelike aspect of hastily crawling around eating scientists is both humorous and satisfying. While there are portions of it that I found confusing and slow, the core gameplay was enjoyable enough to where I didn’t mind the negatives. Carrion has a little bit of everything, and I would recommend it to anyone who is tired of being the protagonist in distress.

Carrion reverses the roles of the horror genre beautifully, and playing as a monster has never been so disgustingly enjoyable.

Games can have messages, but they can also be a venue in which we act out our most twisted fantasies free of judgment and consequence.

Acting as a monster and hunting human beings are exciting. Carrion definitely worth trying if you are interested in the reverse-horror games.

Inspired by Carpenter and the 80s body horror, Carrion reverses the roles and puts us in the shoes of a formless and lethal creature, in a fluid, fast and extremely choreographic metroidvania. Some AI problems and a not always inspired artistic direction do not compromise the result of one of the surprises of this 2020.

Rampaging your way through Carrion as a tentacle monster makes playing this violent metroidvania feel unique, and the grotesque and harsh visuals greatly contribute to that feeling. But flaws like having no map and a lack of gameplay variety cannot be overlooked.

Carrion is simply a great time. The metroidvania gameplay loop is addictive, while its sound design and highly detailed pixel-art look makes it a joy to hear and look at. An average story and lack of an in-game map sap some of the enjoyment, but Carrion's ability to have you play as an unstoppable monster is gory grandeur.

Because there is so much to explore, so much back tracking to be done across multiple, confined locations, the player will have to travel across many, many rooms before significantly progressing. This experience breaks up, however small, what is otherwise a seamless experience of movement and momentum. And to a larger extent, these faults break up what is likewise a fantastic gameplay experience. If you ever wanted to play Alien: Isolation from the perspective of the creature, this is the game.

CARRION mixes familiar and alien elements to produce a memorably brutal inversion of the horror genre.

If you love movies like The Thing and have enjoyed the games of Devolver Digital before then you should definitely give this a go. Carrion may not have the good looks of a Nathan Drake or a Lara Croft, but it has the kind of gooey, tentacle-y charm that you just can't find anywhere else.

Carrion excels at creating realistic tentacle locomotion in the shape of a bloodthirsty nightmare. It falls behind when it requests precision from a monster only capable of blunt violence. As mad science grants sentience to raw brutality, articulation must be sacrificed for overwhelming power. It leaves Carrion as a mesmerizing concept overcommitted to its code.

Although Carrion is a relatively short game with little replayability, its quirky theme and ravenous flesh monster make for a fun feeding frenzy.

Yes, the game lacks readability when there are too many enemies. Yes, its level design sometimes loses the player. But Carrion is a successful game that takes being a monster to the extreme.

Easy to pick up and play, CARRION is original, absorbing and entertaining.It also has an excellent soundtrack – it’s cinematic horror vibe is the perfect accompaniment for the bloodbath that ensues.

Carrion is a bloody, intricate experience with a consistency problem that breaks the momentum that's central to a game like Carrion.

Carrion turns the horror genre on its head by letting you be the monster this time in a Metroidvania style game, which serves as the perfect type game to pick up and play between many of the other larger scale releases that have released this year.

Carrion is the most wonderfully writhing Metroid-like game we've seen yet, one that's filled with blood and puzzles. The game could benefit from a map, but it's still a fun title in which you control a vengeful monster.

Carrion is undoubtedly a unique take on the survival horror genre. There are a couple of misses, but for the most part it works well for those with a few hours to kill.

Carrion is a lean but undeniably fun reverse horror with plenty of clever ideas that will have you second-guessing meatballs.

Carrion is a beautifully orchestrated symphony of blood, guts, and dismembered limbs.

Despite its flaws, Carrion is immensely enjoyable, though I would imagine its grotesque nature will turn some away. If you can stomach the gore, it’s well, well worth the play.

Carrion is a great pick for horror game fans, and will make players want more horror-themed Metroidvanias. It can be completed in just a few hours and it loses its momentum at the end, but it's a fun reverse-horror game experience while it lasts.

Carrion is another hit from a publisher that has built its name on delivering to us unconventional and unexpected experiences. Devolver’s seal of approval is more than ever evidence of a classic as Carrion’s credentials as an incredible Metroidvania title as well as an inverse horror experience will never be in question.

Other than a few finicky control issues with grabbing the wrong object in a cluttered room or getting momentarily caught up in tight passages when playing as the beast's largest form, I had a breezy time. If you're looking for a cathartic pick-up-and-play game with little to no fat that you can slip in between this summer's massive story-driven titles, that's Carrion all the way. It's a devilish snack.

An anomalous metroidvania in the intent as traditional in the realization. The creature's alien and brutal beauty is only partially supported by an equally good world to explore. It remains a fascinating title, made with care, that really lacks that extra flicker to excel.

Carrion has a handful of annoying shortcomings, but it perfectly depicts everyday life of a scary alien creature from a horror movie, and that’s a monumental achievement by itself.

The joy of watching this wild tangle of pixel art tentacles, organs, and flesh (and listening to the sounds of humans being devoured) alone makes this game worthwhile. If, just like me, you always root for the bad guy, Carrion’s gameplay can be immensely satisfying. [10/2020, p.54]

Carrion has its problems, especially in its level design and lack of a map for the player, but it succeeds in what it sets out to accomplish: creating a horror game, proper horror game, in which you are the monster.

Carrion is a fun one-and-done game and not much more than that. The concept of playing as the monster in the vents is a cool one, and Carrion executes the fantasy fairly masterfully. Unfortunately, it runs out of tricks before too long and is only saved from tedium by the short game length. It's worth a playthrough if you like the concept, but don't expect anything genre-defining. There's a lot of potential in the concept, and perhaps a Carrion 2 will give us something with more meat on its … amorphous horrifying frame.

Carrion is brilliant take on the metroidvania genre, a game where you control a creature that feasts on human bodies and grows as it develops new and deadly skills. It is another incredible and crazy Devolver Digital game.

In spite of being quite short, and having an over-complicated system to switch between powers, Carrion is a very good game that offers something different from the mainstay. We specially like the animations of the monster and the fact that we play as a huge beast.

Carrion perfectly achieves his purpose of making us feel like a powerful creature of unknown origin, wiping out the poor humans in our path.

Carrion is ultimately fascinating, engaging, and short and sweet. By putting you in the role of the alien threat it imbues you with a strange supervillain-like sense of playing in an insect farm. A playground where your prey often moves around sans limbs. If you’re a fan of sci-fi horror sub-genre then Carrion is worth seeking out.

With no real story to follow or info given on what the alien is or even what building it is trapped in, Carrion lives and dies by what happens in the moment. The focus on opening up new areas using the same ideas grows stale quick, and robs a fascinating premise of its true potential. I enjoyed playing as an enraged blob, but didn’t find much fun in the process of escaping the facility.

While I might disagree with the notion that Carrion is a truly great Metroidvania, a genre that has buckets of both older and modern classics, it is at very least a refreshing take on it. It controls like a dream with an analog stick, and there's a fluidity to the monster’s movements that I honestly feel like I will be searching for in other games for years. It just falls short of greatness, settling quickly into its comfort zone as a series of interconnected puzzles, and then failing to surprise me much after that.

Carrion is remarkably successful in so far that its visuals, sound design and interaction come together to create something truly horrifying, beautiful and engrossing, but its novelty wanes, and what you are left with is surprisingly superficial. It smoothly passes through your system the same way its goopy anti-protagonist passes through corridors, and if its sole intent was to let you play the monster in an otherwise familiar scenario, with little effort required to slither across the finish line, I am honestly unsure of what its lasting appeal was supposed to be.

Carrion sticks to its guns and nails the landing when it comes to its simple premise as a reverse horror game. It falls short on its lack of intuitive direction and inconsistencies with its puzzles. At times it can be tedious, but overall it is fun. If you need a smaller experience that has a unique perspective to the genre for an interesting experience then look no further to Phobia Game Studio's latest release.

Carrion is like a totally decompensated beat 'em up. Not because of its metroidvania-like level design, but because we advance destroying everything and everyone in this game. It is a power fantasy full of gore in which the protagonist can become a giant eater of men or a small and elusive mass. Simple and direct; the perfect entertainment for an afternoon.

Carrion nails the power fantasy of being a horror movie monster, but makes exploration a chore that pads the adventure.

Carrion has a refreshing — if consuming squirming helpless human lab rats can be called refreshing — and not often-enough explored premise but it’s not quite enough to elevate it to greatness.

When it's letting you live out its proposed reverse-horror fantasy, Carrion is at its best. It excels at making you feel empowered as an evolving lab experiment gone wrong, giving you ample opportunities to flex your death-dealing tentacles and tear enemies limb from limb. While giving you numerous tools to wreak havoc, it also uses them in smart ways to find a good balance between its gory combat and problem-solving. Carrion falters when it requires too much fine precision from you with a control scheme that doesn't allow for it, and is at its lowest when you're not playing as its headlining monster at all. These are disappointing distractions, but Carrion's main event is still a bloody great time.

Carrion abounds with the thrills of being the monster, then, but, less common and more cosy, with the kick of being in a monster movie—of slithering in celebration over the tropes of the genre. The good news is that, for a while, it works.

Carrion is, for the most part, a bloody good game. It’s a real treat for horror fans and one of the most original games I’ve come across. There were so many moments that left me with a grin a mile wide, from pulling a string of victims up into the ceiling to turning a soldier against their former friends. But if you choose to wreak your own brand of horror upon Carrion‘s hapless humans, just be prepared to step away when there’s no-one left to torment.

Carrion is an entertaining and visceral experience, with a lot more going for it than simply running around and killing things, like many of the game’s trailers led me to believe...A few questionable design decisions make me hesitate on calling this an excellent title, though. Tying parts of the creature’s moveset to its current health level is frustrating. The lack of any kind of world map, while not game breaking in the slightest, got annoying while navigating the hub area. The repetitive art design in the levels isn’t doing the game any favors either...However, frustrations aside, Carrion was still an entertaining playthrough.

Despite the short length and minor replayability factor, Phobia Game’s debut is still a cleverly-concentrated experience. One that wastes little time on padding, even if it means its more repetitive segments are more visible to spot. It may not be firing on all cylinders, but Carrion‘s frantic, do-or-die action mixed with pleasant strides in its aesthetic make for an odd yet entertaining few hours.

All the blood and gore and screaming and gnashing of teeth turn into an aggravating set of puzzles. The chaos grinds to a halt, waiting for you to parse some this-then-that-next puzzle logic. Do you even know where to go next? This tunnel looks like every other tunnel. There’s nothing left to eat. The roiling protoplasm is restless and impatient. It’s tempted to grow a foot just so it can tap it peevishly, but that would be too cheeky. It’s beneath a shoggoth’s dignity. So it waits while you lead it around and try to figure out how to open that door. Such an amazing monster, trapped in such a middling game.

As much as Carrion's moment-to-moment feel might benefit from the uniquely wobbly shape it gives you, the game as a whole wears its own amorphousness a little less elegantly. [Issue#349, p.98]

An impressive, creative, and inventive game on paper. In practice, it ends up being a rather middle-of-the-road experience, with unfulfilled promised of potential greatness. If you’re looking for an inventive new take on the Metroidvania genre, Carrion might be what you’re looking for –but don’t go into it expecting it to be Super Meat-troid.

Carrion is a great concept that becomes repetitive in practice. Taking control of a terrifying monster and mowing down a bunch of humans is fun at first, but it shows its hand far too quickly and gets stuck in a rut of giving the player the same tasks to perform over and over again. With simplistic movement and easy combat, Carrion is a straightforward Metroidvania game with few frills aside from its unique protagonist. With that being said, its climax does set it up for a sequel that could elaborate on what Phobia Game Studio has set up in its debut, so I’m still interested to see where this awful blob will go next.

Carrion starts strong with a solid premise but fails to fully capitalize on its ideas. The novelty of eating faceless humans wears thin as the sole motivation to escape isn’t expanded upon in any meaningful way. The environments fail to encourage rewarding exploration while the puzzles and combat encounters quickly become routine. It's hard to write Carrion off entirely because the novel concept has its charm, but without more depth and variety, it’s easy to lose your appetite for consuming flesh.

Carrion has all the potential to become really interesting, but right now it feels like a technical demonstration of an incomplete concept.