2) Carrion (2020)

Development on this game began in 2017. Billed as a "reverse horror" game, the player takes on the role of an amorphous blob that escapes from containment in a government facility and proceeds to wreak havoc as you try to escape. The gameplay is similar to a typical Metroidvania, with a bigger emphasis on puzzle solving than combat. In keeping with the theme, combat can barely be called that, as you either completely obliterate the people in your way, or use the environment and your abilities to neutralize enemies.

The story is pretty bare bones and mostly told via flashbacks. "The Creature", as the player is referred to, was originally discovered within an egg-like sack by three scientists. Once awakened, The Creature promptly killed two of the scientists while possessing the third. Relith security forces arrive and killed the infected scientist, capturing and containing the creature. You know, your typical nameless horror of nightmares origin story.

You begin the game as a small, relatively fragile and weak blob, only able to extend a gross, meaty tentacle to interact with the world. As you progress, you grow in size and durability while also picking up a few new tricks along the way. Some of the abilities are dependent upon your size, which is tied to your health. You'll encounter pools of water which allow you to break off pieces of yourself, allowing you to become smaller and giving you a nice, meaty sac of health you can reabsorb later. It's a fun bit of puzzle design, forcing you to enter certain sections with less health in order to use specific abilities while also locking off others.

Among the abilities that you gain, the single most fun is the ability to use your gross tentacle to assume control of a humans body. This is especially fun when you allow an enemy to see you, then slip through a vent to get behind them. You can then walk your little human puppet around, fire their weapon to kill others, activate switches, or, if you like, simply explode them. As I said, combat very much takes a backseat, and most encounters can be approached with a puzzle solving mindset.

Other abilities include being able to bash through obstacles, eating humans (alive or dead) to regain health, putting up a barrier to give yourself limited invulnerability, and the ability to project a sonar like call to lead you to an objective. Speaking of, I feel I must mention my biggest criticism and the most baffling design choice, which is the absence of a map. The environments aren't terribly hard to navigate, and individual sections are labeled along with completion totals, but the lack of an actual map makes things a bit confusing, especially since a lot of the environments are similar in design. The only reason I can think of for this is that, as an amorphous blob, you wouldn't exactly have a place to store a map, and you are trying to escape a facility that's as alien to you as you are to the disgusting meat sacks that stand in your way. Still, I'd be remiss not to mention this as it is the single biggest flaw the game has.

I should also mention the incredible music the game features. The entire soundtrack was composed by Chris Velasco, an industry veteran who worked on the original God of War games, Mass Effect, and Bloodbourne, among others. After seeing early animation of the game on Twitter, he reached out to the team at Phobia, as he was fascinated by the idea of writing a score from the monster's perspective.

Carrion is a delightfully twisted take on a classic genre that, unfortunately, released at a time when the idea of some terrible, deadly thing escaping from a government facility seemed less like a fun narrative and more like a terrible reality. Indeed, while I remember hearing about the game in 2019, certain events in 2020 pushed it out of my mind completely. It wasn't until early this year, when the game was added to Game Pass, that I remembered and finally got around to playing it. It's not a terribly long game, and I highly recommend it for anyone who's ever wanted to play the role of the monster in a horror movie. There's even Christmas themed DLC to extend your time as The Creature while also giving you a reason to play again during the holidays, giving new meaning to the term "blood sausage".