PLATFORM: PC, SWITCH (REVIEWED), XBOX ONE | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Pitched as a “reverse horror game,” Carrion casts players as a Lovecraft-esque creature of unknown origin. All teeth and tentacles, it slithers around a mysterious industrial facility, snacking on soldiers and scientists as it slowly takes over the entire building for reasons that never quite become any clearer or more justified than simply “just because.”

This lack of narrative makes Carrion a tricky game to fully get on board with, hindered further by almost completely non-existent gameplay direction. You’re never told where to go or what to do next, instead being left to your own devices as you creep around the sparsely-populated building. Designed in the same vein as many other Metroidvania games, you’ll frequently hit dead ends that later open up when you find the appropriate upgrades – small areas that can only be accessed when you’re able to split your body into a pack of worms, switches that can only be activated with a web-slinging ability, that sort of thing. Except here, there’s no map (which sort of makes sense because how would a monster read a map?), making exploring the fairly similar-looking interconnected rooms and corridors and finding that one exit you haven’t previously visited more difficult than it probably should be.

Importantly, controlling the monster is great fun and squeezing through vents and under floorboards to take down (and chow down on) unaware humans is really enjoyable, even though combat never gets any more involved than “grab him with your tentacle and eat him.” The ideas are all great in theory but, in practise, a relatively short runtime and little reason for multiple playthroughs mean that Carrion sadly doesn’t provide much to sink your own teeth into.