Keep calm and Carrion they said…

Welcome to the facility, where nowhere is safe and death has never been so well drawn! Ready to step into the… uh, tentacles of a nightmarish beast and tear people limb from limb? Of course you are! Let me break it down for you…

For those new to this little slice of hell, Carrion is a horror title, a retro MetroidVania in which the titular creature escapes containment and begins wreaking havoc in it’s efforts to escape to the outside world. To do so it’ll need to make full use of the environment and collect new powers to become an unstoppable force of doom.

There are of course other horror-themed experiences that let you control the bad guy, but the major difference here is that the mechanics are ENTIRELY in your favour. No competitive nature, no keeping things fair; the facility is your playground, and the opposition doesn’t have a prayer!

Everything starts out quite nicely, with the outdoor areas in particular really showing dedication to the pixel-art direction. That is until you’ve killed something, in which case you become the Picasso of viscera, which really serves to heighten the sense of dread you provide and handily mark where you’ve been.

Then of course there’s the terraforming. As you progress, taking control of various areas, your creature will actually warp and replace parts of the buildings, creating new pathways and allowing you to save your progress at the same time. It’s a great way to incentivise you to keep moving forward, as you can see your efforts paying off with each bloody hole you make your own.

Now when it comes to controlling the beast, there’s a bit of a learning curve. You control the entire body but mostly around the center of mass, which takes getting used to, especially when you begin to reach larger sizes. This plays well into the mechanics thankfully, as being smaller makes navigating and sneaking easier, while having more girth means you need to take greater care of your movements, lest you give yourself away with an errant chunk of meat.

In addition to the creature you also have Another World style sections in which you get to play as a human, slowly unravelling the mostly silent storytelling as you piece together your origins. Playing as a human can be rather jarring, but it works well mechanically and has it’s own styles of puzzle to solve, always driving the game forward and leaving enough intrigue to make you want to see what’s going to happen next.

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Speaking of humans, they really are a stand-out for the environment and the sense of power the game gives you. Making your presence known to the hapless staff on-site will lead to all sorts of crying and gnashing of teeth, and for the ones who are unarmed you’re free to get creative with just how you end them. The potential for cruelty may be a bit too much for some; the first time I possessed a soldier and began unloading into a room of helpless civilians, I began to feel just a teensy bit dirty.

As for the facility itself, while you’re able to roam around and unlock new areas along the way, getting through every room is hardly a walk in the park. You’ll need to deal with various traps and puzzles that may require clever thinking and/or a nearby new power, forcing you to get creative with your abilities in order to reach the next area. To the game’s credit, none of these puzzles took what I would call too long or were overly-tedious; once I got a feel for what was needed, the execution made perfect sense to me.

If you feel like being the horror in a horror game for a change, then I can’t recommend this game enough; otherwise, stick to something cleaner and stay away from any vents!