- Big Guns.
Bigger Demons.
It’s time to blast your way out of Hell.
Scathe is a 2022 First-Person Shooter developed by Damage State (a company based in Scotland) and is one of the many retraux-style action games from the 2020s, inspired by the mid-90s FPS Gornfest started by Quake, Doom and some bits of Hexen thrown in.
Scathe, an Enforcer of the legions of Hell, forged from the earth by the Divine Creator himself, has been given a job from the almighty for a task impossible for the gods; forces from the underworld controlled by the Divine Creator's brother, Sacrilegious, is running amok and threatening to reach the surface, and only the Hellstones can seal the mouth of hell back. As the Creator's top henchman, Scathe is tasked with retrieving the Hellstones in the underworld's bowels and massacre a path through various monster-infested labyrinths.
The game has a multiplayer mode allowing up to four players at once, though they share the same health pool.
I intend to strike first, Scathe. And you will be MY FIST.
- 1-Up: Extra lives are depicted as a glowing red metal crucifix.
- Arm Cannon: Thrash, the first boss, is a gigantic demon with dual cannons for arms. He can either fire gatling rounds, or exploding projectiles, usually both at once. He'll return degraded into a Mini-Boss later on, with the same weapons (but less health, plus you have more missiles).
- Big Good: The Divine Creator, who created Scathe and sent him on his task to the underworld. His actual form is a swirling mass of energy in a sphere, and it turns out the Big Bad is another one of these...
- Cain and Abel: The game's Big Bad? Sacriligeous, the brother of the Divine Creator. The latter is a sphere of holy light energy, while the latter is a Faceless Eye (and looks like a Sauron expy), both of them trying to tempt Scathe to their side. But from what the two alternate endings show, it remains questionable between the Creator and Sacriligeous, which is the Cain and which is the Abel.
- Camera Abuse: Expect plenty of moments where your POV gets smothered in blood from all the enemies you've slain. There's even a special button to insta-wipe the blood off (if you do nothing it'll dissappear on it's own, but you wouldn't want to fight monsters with all the red obscuring your vision).
- Dash Attack: Scathe can perform a charging tackle that increases his speed, grants him Mercy Invincibility, and even kill demons in his way. There's even an achievement called "Dash Kill".
- Dual Boss: The Winnowers attacks two at a time, and will try spamming their Macross Missile Massacre at you from both sides.
- Evil Wizard: A demon wizard called the Warlock serves as the third boss, who hovers all over the area via power float and spam attacking spells on you. He also have a bunch of demonic minions called "Mage" who have the same abilities.
- The Goomba: Hell's lowest-level demons, Razorbacks (humanoid creatures with spikes growing behind them) who hardly have any impressive attacks and can be easily killed by any weapon.
- Gotta Catch Them All: Scathe is required to collect as many runs and Hellstones as possible for the entire game's duration. Obtain more than 150 and he can unlock the Golden Ending where he... took over heaven?
- Guns Akimbo: Later stages grants you a second weapon to kick ass together with your first.
- Harmless Enemy: In-between killing entire legions of monsters, Scathe can occasionally bump into zombies who, for some reason, completely ignores him. They explode into a geyser of blood when shot at like every other enemy, but they can't harm the player no matter what happens. Have fun!
- Helicopter Pack: Spitters are demons with helicopter rotors grafted to their backs, alongside turrets protruding from their mouths. They serve as a recurring airborne mook in wide-open areas.
- High-Pressure Blood: Comes with every onscreen enemy killed.
- Kill Enemies to Open: In a few stages, instead of finding a way out you're required to kill all the demons (usually north of 50) in an area before the exit can be unlocked. There's even a handy counter on top of the screen ("38 Demons Remain"...) displaying your progress.
- Kill It with Ice: One of the ring power-ups unleashes a freezing aura that turns all nearby enemies into frozen ice blocks. You can shoot them to bits when that happens.
- Lava Pit: Shows up in more than one area in hell, and stepping into one kills you instantly. Bonuses and secret areas tends to be hidden behind these obstacles - get ready to jump and dash to get them.
- Living Lava: Lava jumpers are humanoid enemies who can hurt you through touch, and when killed explodes in a spray of lava than can cause additional damage to you. They tend to appear near areas with lava pits.
- Macross Missile Massacre:
- One of the weapon upgrades allows you to blast six missiles at a single designated target.
- The Winnowers spams her Projectile Webbing in this manner during their boss fight. Both of them.
- Be wary when Oxide is spinning; she's going to lob a wave of orange projectiles at you.
- Monster Compendium: There's one on the left side of the screen that records the different demon types encountered, their names and stats.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Winnower is a spider-scorpion hybrid monster with a Belly Mouth loaded with hundreds of teeth, alongside those already on her face. Oddly enough, she doesn't use them for attacking. The game even lampshades her appearance:"Quite the appetite, this one..."
- Multiple Endings: Two, in fact, when Scathe recovers all the Demonstones; either sit on Sacriligeous' throne as the demon suggested, or keep the Divine Creator's staff.
- Choosing to sit on Sacriligeous' throne will lead to the Bad Ending where Scathe gets possessed by Sacriligeous. Cue the camera panning upwards at Scathe with Glowing Eyes of Doom, and the game ends.
- Taking the staff leads to two further alternate endings, where Scathe can present the staff to the Creator, or keep it for himself (the latter can only be chosen if Scathe had collected enough runes, otherwise the game pulls a But Thou Must! making only one option selectable).
- Give the staff back and the Creator will... let out a series of laughs that sounds suspiciously like Evil Gloating. It remains ambiguous if the Creator is actually as evil as Sacriligeous, or not; the game simply ends at that point.
- Scathe instead decides to use the Creator's staff against him, and... destroys the Creator. Then the game ends without explaining what even happened.
- Ribcage Ridge: One of the last areas when Scathe crosses a shaft has him walking under the ribcage of some gargantuan monster. Oddly enough the game doesn't have anything that huige, not even bosses.
- Skull for a Head: Reapers, the second enemy type, are humanoid demons whose bodies still have flesh, but their heads are skulls.
- Space Whale: Oxide, a giant space-leviathan that appears to be an expy of the creatures of the same name from The Avengers (2012) (save for it's undersides being glowing orange instead of colourless).
- Stationary Boss:
- Chaos the octopus demonspawn, due to being confined in a pool where you can easily stay out of reach from it's tentacles. But it will use it's Combat Tentacles for performing a Shockwave Stomp covering the whole arena.
- Scourge, the Final Boss, being a demon tethered to the ceiling, is stuck in a fixed position above you, but his Death from Above via Beam Spam makes him quite the challenge.
- Suicide Attack: Invisiballs are spiked, bouncing, fleshy lumps who explodes when touched. They have a stronger, faster variant called Pinballs.
- Turned Against Their Masters: If you've collected enough runes and chose NOT to return the Creator's staff, you can unlock an ending where you destroy the Supreme Creator. It's somehow the Golden Ending of the game.
