SCUM Review

Is it just me, or are there fewer survival games on the market than there used to be? Maybe I’m out of touch, but it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago when Steam was filled with post-apocalyptic craft-em-ups. Rust, DayZ, Seven Days to Die, Ark: Survival Evolved and Project Zomboid were all staples of the industry when I was in high school. The only memorable two that have released in recent memory are Palworld and Valheim, however. Perhaps players finally got bored of the genre, developers realised there are only so many ways to code zombies and crafting menus, or I just missed the latest Twitch sensation. Whatever the reason, SCUM is the last of the survival games I played in early beta that’s finally made it to a full 1.0 release. And even though it isn’t the objectively best title with a hunger meter in it, it is the most enjoyable.

SCUM’s premise, like most of the titles in its genre, is simple. You play as a convict who is dropped into a giant open world island with the goal of surviving as long as possible. You start with only the clothes on your back and a crafting book full of recipes, and can die with less than that if you aren’t careful. If you are, though, you can loot everything from assault rifles to alcohol, which you can store in a base you create or a vehicle you find. Along your journey to become the king of the island, you’ll have to contend with the undead, wild animals, AI bandits, mechs, and if you choose to play on an online server, other players. You’ll also have to avoid starving to death, dying of dehydration, succumbing to illness, and every other mundane way of biting the figurative bullet you can think of, all of which is done in first and/or third person.

All that’s true in almost every survival game. Whether you’re killing mobs in Minecraft or trying not to get head-eyes’d in Escape from Tarkov, the core gameplay loop of most Early Access (or previously Early Access) titles is always the same. What sets SCUM apart is the depth of its systems. Whereas in Minecraft, every food item offers you the same benefit, SCUM’s nutrition system accounts for the individual calories and vitamins in everything you eat. Rust’s injury system is simple, but a gunshot wound and a broken leg in SCUM require vastly different treatments. You can’t consume drugs in unmodded DayZ, but you can get drunk, high, and very hungover in SCUM. Very few titles force you to contend with your in-game weight or bowels, but you can get fat, suffer constipation, or even soil yourself — and yes, it’s all simulated. Ultimately, you still do the same things in the game as you do in its competitors. You start by looting isolated locations, then you find better gear that allows you to sneak around towns or take on hordes of the undead, and eventually end up using planes or cars to get to military bunkers.

In SCUM, though, you have to be extraordinarily careful about every action you take. That’s what makes the title unique. It does have other gimmicks, like the ability to strip naked and go for a swim after getting shitfaced and the fact that you don’t have to rely on mods for features like traders or basic quests. However, even though its first- and third-person combat is only okay, SCUM is an actual survival simulator. If you wonder how any of its mechanics work, all you need to do is think about how they would work in the real world. Guns, even suppressed ones, are loud and heavy and will attract enemies in the game. You need to consume healthy food if you don’t want to become overweight and consequently unable to sprint. If your character does develop a gut, though, they’ll be able to withstand more physical abuse. Not everything in SCUM works perfectly, and elements like how its enemy NPCs spawn can be annoying. But the mere act of living through a day in SCUM is satisfying, and once you learn to thrive, you’ll feel like you earned that right.

Of course, that’s only possible because SCUM is technically polished. It isn’t without its bugs, but none of them are game-breaking. The game’s visuals and audio, on the other hand, are absolutely excellent. Although SCUM isn’t going to blow your in-game socks off, much like with its gameplay, it’s detailed. Small things, like how your character appears visually wet after crossing a lake or the different sounds enemies make help ensure the entire experience feels about as lifelike as a video game can. Bigger things, such as the excellent view you get if you scale a mountain or how creepy the title’s radiation zones look, ensure the title doesn’t fall into the same category of conflicting art styles as, say, 7 Days to Die.

So, unlike with many titles, the question isn’t whether or not SCUM is a good game that’s worth playing. The answer to that is, assuming you enjoy the genre, yes. Its core gameplay loop isn’t really different from its competitors, but the depth of its systems gives it an extra layer of enjoyability. The question is whether or not that depth justifies you switching over from your preferred craft-em-up. The answer to that is yes, too. Even though the game ultimately doesn’t play much differently than the long list of titles that spent a handful of years in Steam Early Access, it does play better. You need to be more careful in SCUM, it's easier to immerse yourself in its world, and you don’t need to change its server settings or add expansions for features that make for a smooth experience. SCUM isn’t just a zombie game with tacked-on survival mechanics — it’s a hardcore survival simulator that just happens to have zombies in it. And it’s one of the best.