Conscript manages to capture the feel of the old PS1 era survival horror games, porting it over to a context even scarier than being trapped in a zombie outbreak : Being a poor random sod in a WW1 trench. It also feels vaguely like a Windows 3.1 / Window 95 era non-console game. Character movements remind me of games like Hunter Hunted or Cell Block A.
Actual play involves you running around, expanding your map over the course of six chapters, acquirings various keys (some literal, some figurative) that let you into new areas or access new shortcuts. Lots of bouncing around and backtracking, but in a way that doesn't often cross the line over to feeling like it's wasting your time.
There is an item economy that the player has to dial in to. Saves are a limited resource, as is ammo, as are melee weapons. In my playthrough my supply chest is bulging at the seams with in 'just in case' materials, but I find myself playing like a ninja, assassinating individual soldiers and then slipping away until the bosche forget I'm lurking around. I suspect you could be a bit more overt, shooting down enemies left and right but being constantly strapped for ammo and having to fall back on trench knives and entrenching tools to take out the last enemy or two.
It's certainly not a one-session game. Each of the six chapters take up a reasonable sitting in and of themselves. Is feeling like a bit of a slog a positive or negative in a game set on the front of World War One?
It did make me grumpy quite a few times. The save limitations meant losing 45 minutes or an hour of play when I got taken down. There are a few instant-kill situations that, while fairly advertised and not overly mean, stung pretty hard when I messed them up. This is probably more of a feature than a bug, a callback to the era of gaming being emulated. Can a good game make you upset? I'd say "Yes", but if you disagree it might be a factor to consider.
There's also an issue with enemy strength escalation - with a minimum of fancy footwork you can take out the bog standard gasmask guy with a trench shovel and lose maybe a fifth of it's edurance. By chapter four you can sneak up and shank him unaware with a trench knife, chop half the endurance of a fighting axe (stronger than the shovel) away, and empty eight rounds of machine gun ammo into him and he'll still be standing. There's a weapon-leveling system at play, using limited resources, so the power creep can level out or you can end up with one or two overpowered weapons and a handful of near-useless ones.
While playing I never felt lost, often choosing between two or three things that seemed prudent to pursue next. Fights lean in the player's favor - I think if the save limitations weren't present the game would be hovering around the line of mud soaked power fantasy, as your kill count gets pretty darn high by the end. It feels a bit 'gamey' at times - I just picked up a key or major item, so I know some random enemies have probably spawned in safe spaces I've already cleared, so I should walk to my next objective instead of running carefree.
The repeated use of the same areas meant that they could really focus on making each one feel at least a little distinct. While one muddy trench is a lot like another, you quickly get a feel for where exactly you are within the network through subtle clues and unique background assets scattered thoughfully around.
The last hour or so has some 'unreliable narrator' / shell-shock fueled living nightmare imagery. I think it slips the line into Magical Realism, which compromises the mud-and-blood horror of the trenches, but reasonable folk could disagree. What's in my books beyond the pale is one optional puzzle that affects which ending you get, the answer of which is so reliant on "Game Logic" and a bit of quasi-time-traveling dream logic that impossibly manifests itself into the war. Luckily it's optional, but it's decisively outside the realm of 'shell shocked veteran is seeing things' and in 'WW1 but with magic' territory.
It's pretty good, overall! I'd generally recommend it. If you were only going to play maybe 20 video games in your life, give it a pass, but if you are a game lover looking for an oppressive atmosphere and a reasonably long runtime in an environment not often depicted in video games, give it a go.
