Chris InglisScars Above is a sci-fi third-person action-adventure shooter developed by Mad Head Games and published by Prime Matter. It released on February 28, 2023, on PC, Xbox and PlayStation and felt like playing a mix of Mass Effect and Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order with sprawling sci-fi landscapes that had offshoot areas to explore mixed with the souls-like combat where if you die, you can respawn, but mobs will have respawned too. The story is fantastic with lots of lore objects and voice recordings to discover that will add even more depth to the overall engaging experience.
Dr Kate Ward is an astronaut and scientist, sent to explore a colossal and enigmatic alien structure – The Metahedron – that appears in Earth’s orbit. Things don’t go as planned and the Metahedron hauls Kate and her team across space onto a mysterious extrasolar planet where she wakes up alone on a strange and hostile world; determined to survive, she sets out to find her crew and unravel the mystery behind what’s happened. We need to explore the surroundings, scan and analyse alien fauna and flora of the dangerous extrasolar planet, then use the gained knowledge to create various elemental weapons, gadgets, and consumables.
We are given our weapon VERA – vectorized energy rail accelerator- that starts off with electrically charged ammunition. Down on the planet’s surface we come across creatures that burst out of the murky swamp water or will attack you when it’s raining. Above their heads is a water drop icon that means they’re vulnerable to wet damage, and given your weapon is electric, it provides shocking results. Pun totally intended. Some of the plants will produce ammo depending on the plant type, or fabric used for crafting healing stimulants. There are also energy crates to find that can power your personal shield once you unlock it, and we can also shoot environment bubbles which cause explosive area damage.
As we continue exploring and finding clues as to the whereabouts of the ship and our crew, we come across three more ammo types that do fire, freeze and acid damage. There are environmental puzzles to explore, some of which require finding parts to put together, or scanning an object for internal mechanisms. They were clever and a good change of pace to the combat. Monsters get tougher too with our first boss, The Alpha, exposing his orange glowing chest right before he does powerful attacks. Using the fire ammo causes large burst fire damage and burning over time. We can dodge but we have limited stamina. These big fights usually took me a few goes to learn the fight mechanics and I admit I did have to drop it down to easy difficulty in chapter 2.
Sometimes the save points were close enough that if you do die, it’s not that long a run back to the boss, though monsters respawn when you resurrect so remember those. Other times they were quite a distance apart where I lost a fair chunk of play time on a number of occasions. There are shortcuts you can unlock once you explore the area, and the save pillars were a good opportunity to take a break. The story was a gripping one though, so I was right back into it the next play session and really enjoyed the gunplay, but also exploring every possible pathway. I came across some amazing vistas and long-distance scenes that I just had to stop and take a screenshot, so it’s a credit to the environment and level designers.
Bosses get tougher where we need to use multiple ammo types to take them down, so your tactics will slightly change but generally once you have learned the basics of all four damage types, the boss fights are simple to work out. In saying that, I struggled often on the first fight or two, especially with dodging if I was on the edges of the fighting area, but subsequent fights got easier. We make Kate stronger by scanning enemies we kill for the first time as well as exploring off the beaten path to find little black cubes with a purple icon that give ability knowledge. Upgrades don’t come often but you do get a good variety of abilities split between engineering (weapon upgrades) and xenobiology (Kate’s upgrades like health boosts).
Overall, Scars Above is a great sci-fi story backed up by decent third person shooter gameplay with souls-like elements. Once you obtain all the ammo types, you are able to explore more of the amazingly detailed environments and solve puzzles to find knowledge, ammo and other collectibles to add more to the fantastic and engaging story.
This review utilised a Steam key provided by Plaion ANZ and Scars Above is out now on PC, Xbox and PlayStation.
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