Scars Above

Scars Above is a science-fiction third-person action-adventure shooter developed by Mad Head Games and published by Prime Matter. It presents an intriguing alien mystery and occasionally looks like it could have been adapted from a science-fiction film, but its striking environments cannot compensate for shallow combat, limited enemy variety, and some remarkably lifeless character presentation. The gameplay resembles a barebones soulslike, complete with stamina management, dodge-based combat, checkpoints, and enemies that respawn after resting. There is a small amount of melee combat, but this is primarily a third-person shooter built around exploiting enemies with different elemental weapons. The closest comparison I have played would be Remnant, though Remnant handles nearly every comparable element significantly better. Combat is not necessarily broken, but it rarely becomes exciting. Switching between elements and targeting enemy weaknesses keeps the loop slightly fresh, though the game does not provide a large enough selection of enemies to support it. Instead, the same handful of creatures repeatedly return with different variations. An enemy that originally had no protection might later appear covered in rock, ice, or metal armor, but these variations rarely feel distinct enough to disguise how small the actual roster is. Character progression is also handled strangely. You do not earn experience by defeating enemies. Instead, perk points are obtained by finding Knowledge Cubes and scanning unfamiliar creatures, objects, and environmental discoveries. Because the cubes initially feel like optional collectibles, I spent much of the game wondering whether missing too many of them could prevent me from completing the perk trees. That concern turned out to be unnecessary because I finished the game with six unused perk points despite unlocking everything available to me. Unfortunately, the abundance of points does not make the progression system more satisfying. Most perks provide modest improvements rather than meaningful changes to how you approach combat. Considering that the game is not particularly demanding, very few upgrades feel like major accomplishments or essential additions to your build. Boss encounters do little to correct the combat’s lack of variety. There are only five bosses across the entire game, and I would consider just two of them genuinely well designed. Neither of those was the final boss. Ending the game with one of its weaker encounters left the finale feeling anticlimactic and put a bad taste in my mouth after an otherwise interesting final stretch. The story follows scientist Dr. Kate Ward and the rest of the SCAR team as they investigate the Metahedron, an enormous alien structure that suddenly appears in Earth’s orbit. The mission goes wrong, leaving Kate separated from her crew on a hostile extrasolar planet, where she must search for the others and uncover what happened to them. I enjoyed the overarching plot. There were several moments when its mysterious alien setting and cinematic presentation made me think it could work as a science-fiction film. The voice actors also deliver their lines well, giving the story more credibility than some of the visual presentation surrounding them. Before discussing that visual presentation, the art direction deserves considerable praise. The environmental design is easily the game’s greatest strength. Mad Head Games did a phenomenal job making the planet feel like a beautiful but devastated alien world. Its varied landscapes, ruined structures, research facilities, and hostile ecosystems create a convincing sense that something catastrophic happened long before Kate arrived. The creature designs are similarly effective and fit naturally within the environments. The human character models are a different matter entirely. They are so generic that I occasionally found myself wondering whether they had come from a premade asset collection. The animations are even worse. Characters display almost no emotion through their eyes, creating an uncanny effect during conversations. Serious or dramatic lines are delivered by faces that barely react, frequently pulling me out of the story to an almost laughable degree. Whether this was caused by limited experience, budget restrictions, or development constraints, the result makes it seem as though the project was slightly more ambitious than the team could comfortably support. It is particularly unfortunate because the voice acting and overall plot are good enough to deserve stronger visual performances. The sound design is mostly serviceable, although I encountered one recurring directional-audio problem. Certain enemies burrow underground and produce a sound shortly before resurfacing. That sound would occasionally appear to come from directly behind me, only for the enemy to emerge more than ten feet ahead. I cannot say whether this was a bug or an oversight, but it made the audio cue unreliable. Outside of that issue, the technical performance was solid. I did not encounter any game-breaking bugs, noticeable frame drops, or crashes during my playthrough. Once the story ends, there is very little reason to return. Scars Above has no substantial endgame content or New Game Plus mode, and every achievement can potentially be earned during a single thorough playthrough. I missed only one because I chose not to backtrack and fully explore a previous area. Unless you want to clean up collectibles or missed achievements, a second run offers almost nothing new. This is best suited to players who want a relatively short, straightforward science-fiction shooter and are willing to overlook repetitive combat, limited enemy variety, weak character animation, and minimal replay value for the sake of its alien environments and central mystery. At its standard asking price of $29.99, however, I cannot recommend it based on the quality and amount of content provided. There are worthwhile ideas here, particularly in the environmental design and story, but they are trapped inside a game that rarely develops beyond being merely functional. Anyone genuinely interested should wait for a sale of at least 30% off. Scars Above is not a disaster, but it feels more like the foundation for a stronger game than a fully realized experience of its own.