Horror games tend to be pretty predictable. The player is usually chased by some terrifying creature and given limited resources to help them survive. It then becomes a game of hide and seek where you're constantly ducking into rooms and cowering under tables hoping that the boogeyman won't find you.

Carrion, on the other hand, does things differently. Instead of making you some pathetic, defenseless human, you're actually the evil entity who's dedicated their life to utterly destroying everything in your path. You're the monster. You're the villain. And it's just so damn delightful. If you've ever played Alien: Isolation and thought to yourself, "I wish I was the xenomorph," then Carrion might be the game for you.

Feeling A Little Peckish

Carrion doesn't have much of a story, but the plot can be inferred pretty easily based on the carnage you create. You play as some sort of alien flesh monster with multiple gaping maws that only lives to consume. After escaping from whatever containment unit you were being held in, your creature protagonist travels around a secret underground lab devouring every foolish scientist or security guard that stands in your way. The goal seems to be to find a way to escape this lab so you can make it to the surface, eat even more humans, and presumably take over/destroy the world.

A game as strange as this one doesn't necessarily require a gripping plot. There are some flashbacks about the scientists that originally discovered you, but that only seems to be there for some slight foreshadowing. Otherwise, the story is pretty cut and dry: you're a monster, eat some people, grow big and strong. What more could you want?

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I'm not sure I would classify Carrion as a horror game since there's not much to actually be afraid of, but the thing that you control is pretty horrific. You'll often enter a room that's pristine and leave it covered in blood, body parts, and green slime. I suppose in a way it is a horror game, except that it's you causing the horror.

Graphically, the game features some lovely, yet grisly pixel art. I thought the various parts of the lab were detailed and atmospheric, although there were definitely a few times where I got turned around because of some areas looking somewhat similar to each other. The human designs aren't all that exciting, but that's probably because more time was spent on making the titular monster as grotesque and nightmare-inducing as possible.

My, What Big Tentacles You Have!

Carrion is a 2D side-scroller action-platformer Metroidvania. That genre description sounds pretty generic, but you need to keep in mind that this is a game coming from Devolver Digital, which means it gets insane right from the start.

The creature that the player controls - which is for the sake of brevity we'll just call Carrion - is essentially a ball of sticky tentacles that can freely roll around each level in an unnerving fashion. You grab humans and suck them into one of your many teeth-filled mouths. Doing so increases your body mass making you grow bigger. This is important since you'll acquire several abilities along your journey by breaking into special containment units.

Your size determines which powers your Carrion has. Being smaller gives you an invisibility cloak and the ability to fire off a spider web to grab levers and scientists. Being bigger lets you grow spikes and break things by charging into them. Certain parts of the lab have distinctive security measures put in place to prevent you from getting in or out. Sometimes it will be lasers that when tripped will cause a metal door to close or barricades that block off entrances. That's why there are pools of water around so you can drop off portions of your body weight into disgusting flesh clumps. This allows you to switch between your powers in order to figure out how to get through that portion of the lab. However, being smaller does make it easier for guards and turrets to gun you down, as even though you're an ever-growing, hellish monstrosity, bullets are still pretty dangerous.

When I first saw trailers for Carrion, I don't think I would have guessed that it would have puzzle elements. It's never especially hard to work out how to get through a room, but there were some moments that required a bit of thought. This even applies to combat situations as sometimes you need to fight through a bunch of guards to move on. The game seems to let you decide how to proceed when it comes to these segments because you could choose to stealth your way through with your invisibility cloak or just roll over them in your behemoth form. You could even use your tentacles to take control of a guard and have them shoot their own men, which is horrible, but also sadistically fun.

Where's MacReady When You Need Him?

For the most part, the controls of Carrion are solid. Your lovely flesh-boy moves fluidly across the map and it can go pretty dang fast. My only problem was that as it grows larger the Carrion can become a little clumsy to move as it appears to have a hard time figuring out which part is the front and which is the end. If you're playing with a controller some of the abilities could be a bit awkward to aim, but besides those small nitpicks, being a gooey blob-beast was highly entertaining.

I also wished that there some sort of map system. Carrion isn't that big of a game, so I was rarely lost for long, but there were a few times where I exited a stage and found myself confused about where to go next. There is a mechanic where you can roar to find the nearest hole to insert yourself in to save and regain body mass, but this wou,ld tell you about holes you've been to as well as holes that have yet to be discovered so it wasn't always a big help in finding your next objective.

Speaking of size, Carrion isn't that long as it only took me about four hours to beat it. However, I actually would list that as a positive feature as I felt that was the perfect length for a title like this. It seemed like the right amount of time to experience everything the game wanted to show you without dragging on or getting repetitive. $20 may seem like a steep price for those who want their games to be 90-hour odysseys, but I appreciate a game that knows when to wrap things up at the perfect time.

A Blood-Soaked Success

Devolver Digital has been hyping up Carrion for some time now, even going as far as to create a bizarre, slimy puppet for their last two E3 press conferences. It even had a Zoom call with Phil Spencer! They put a lot of faith into this project and I was gladly not disappointed. There's just something so morbidly enjoyable about being some nearly all-powerful horror-movie monster spreading its tentacles around like a disease and gobbling up scientists like Tic-Tacs. I had a smile on my face during the entire game, which says a lot about the quality of this title and my questionable sanity.

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.

A PC copy of Carrion was provided to TheGamer for this review. Carrion is available on PC, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Carrion

Carrion flips the horror genre on its head, This time, you're the big bad, an unknown creature, tasked with hunting down the occupants of a prison that held you captive. 

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