Housemarque's roguelike sci-fi shooter Returnal was a critical success when it first launched as a PlayStation 5 exclusive in 2021. With Returnal's positive reviews, it's no surprise that others would look to emulate the game's style. That's exactly what Scars Above seems to have done, but while the game looks like Returnal at a quick glance, it is nowhere near the quality of Housemarque's game.

Scars Above may have taken some inspiration from Returnal with its aesthetic and setup, but it plays much more like an extremely linear Dark Souls with guns. Players visit Scars Above's equivalent of Dark Souls bonfires to replenish their health and make all enemies respawn, and dodging attacks mainly consists of rolling around. The game lacks Dark Souls' deep gear system and trades melee weapons for guns, but otherwise, it's very clearly attempting to ape the Souls-like formula in a Returnal skin.

It may go without saying, but the most important thing in a shooter game is that the shooting is fun. Unfortunately, Scars Above botches the shooting completely, with the cursor flying wildly around the screen when first aiming down the sights and requiring players to either adjust the way they play accordingly or fiddle with the sensitivity to get it to a manageable state.

scars above alien technology

As players explore Scars Above's generic alien world, they will come across a small selection of enemy creatures to practice their shooting on. There are only a handful of different enemy types in the game, all driven by predictable AI that makes each encounter play out exactly the same. There are the acid-spitting enemies that burrow underground and always pop up behind protagonist Kate. There are gorilla-like creatures that protect the weak point on their chest, then rear up for an attack and expose it. There are monsters that look like a mix between the abominable snowman from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the creature from John Carpenter's The Thing that attack with an easily-dodged tongue and have bulbous, glowing weak points on their backs.

Scars Above has players fight these same enemies and a few others over and over again, offering little in the way of genuine challenge beyond that their attacks do a lot of damage when they land. However, Kate's arsenal of gadgets can trivialize nearly every enemy encounter in the game. Players gain access to a shield that lets them get hit multiple times without actually taking damage, as well as a grenade that slows down time and lets players make quick work of even the tankiest enemies.

Scars Above's combat is repetitive and dull, made worse by the fact that some of the enemy attack patterns are copied and pasted from one enemy type to the next. For example, the gorilla-like enemies with weak points on their chests have an attack pattern of swinging at Kate and then slamming their fists on the ground three times in a row. This exact same move set is found in one of the later bosses in the game, so not even the bosses present any kind of unique challenge.

scars above boss fight

Whereas most Soulslike games have a big focus on boss encounters, Scars Above treats them like afterthoughts. The bosses in the game can be easily cheesed with Kate's overpowered equipment and weapons, and the only standout is a fight against an armored scorpion-like creature. This battle takes place on a frozen lake, with players having to break the ice to freeze the scorpion and expose its weak points. This is easily Scars Above's most interesting boss fight, but it quickly becomes apparent that it can be cheesed too, which ruins the whole thing. Players can break the ice, shoot the scorpion's weak points, re-freeze the ice with their cryo gun, and then break the ice again before the scorpion can even move, making the fight pathetically easy.

Fighting bosses and enemies in Scars Above is not engaging in any way, and while part of the problem is how overpowered Kate's arsenal is, at least some of the gadgets are fun to use. As players progress through Scars Above, they will gain access to new equipment and weapon upgrades that expand Kate's capabilities in battle. This includes everything from the aforementioned shield to a grenade that douses enemies in a liquid that can then be set aflame using the pyro gun. There's some satisfaction to be had lighting a large group of enemies ablaze, and it can be fun figuring out which weapons and gadgets pair well together for each combat situation, but it's fleeting enjoyment that doesn't last long.

Players might have some fun chucking flammable liquid grenades at enemies, but they won't have fun with how the game image splits in two whenever they throw a grenade. Whenever players throw any kind of grenade in the game, the image gets blurry, with a transparent double of Kate on the screen. This isn't a one-off glitch either, it happens every single time Kate throws a grenade - to the point where one has to wonder if this was a deliberate design choice. If so, it was the wrong decision to make, as it's disorienting in motion and makes an already-ugly game look even worse.

scars above grenade

Scars Above has zero production value. The game's graphics feature a generic art style and wooden animations. The voice actors do a fine job for the most part, but it's unintentionally hilarious to see their emotionally-fueled delivery come out of characters who have the expressive range of marionettes. Players will also have to deal with stuttering cutscenes and other bizarre graphical mishaps. One of the most head-scratching is visible early in the game, when players walk up to a shiny wall and can see Kate's reflection, except instead of seeing her face, they are somehow staring at the reflective surface and seeing her back, which shouldn't be physically possible.

scars above reflection

Really the only good thing about Scars Above is that it's mercifully short. Depending on the difficulty setting and how often one gets lost in the game's more confusing areas (it desperately needs a map of some kind), it can easily be completed in five hours or so. Players should unlock the vast majority of Scars Above's achievements and trophies along the way, with the game dishing them out at a hilarious rate. Players should get the achievements for things like crafting all items, finding all upgrades, scanning all enemies, etc., without even really trying to do so. In this way, the game is good for achievement/trophy hunters that want an easy Platinum trophy, though be warned that the last few achievements never unlocked for us. It's also worth pointing out that Scars Above only lets players have a single save, so missing anything for an achievement means starting all the way back from the beginning and forfeiting the other save in the process.

Unless one is really desperate to unlock a bunch of easy achievements, there is no real reason to play Scars Above. It's like a video game rough draft. Some games have been accused of being half-baked, but Scars Above is like raw dough. It has some interesting concepts and weapons, but it never grows into anything resembling a full-fledged gaming experience. Its budget price of $40 is still asking way too much, even for the most diehard third-person shooter enthusiasts. Scars Above may mimic games like Returnal and Dark Souls, but it is highly unlikely to please fans of either game.

scars above
Scars Above

Developed by Mad Head Games, Scars Above is a third-person shooter set on The Metahedron, an alien structure that suddenly appears in Earth's orbit. As part of the response team, Kate investigates the structure, only to find herself in a desperate battle for survival.

Scars Above launches on February 28 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. Game Rant was provided with an Xbox Series X code for this review.