CONSCRIPT Review — War Is Hell

The definition of the word Conscript is “A person enlisted compulsory, usually into the Armed Forces.” The idea of compulsory military service has some pretty horrific implications that I think not many people often think about. The thought of being in war alone is terrifying enough, but the idea of being sent there unwillingly, plucked away from your everyday life and sent into a hellscape of near unimaginable carnage and horrors of man’s own making entirely against your will is completely and utterly chilling to think about.

I don’t think CONSCRIPT could have had any fitting of a name.

CONSCRIPT is an atmospheric survival horror game set in the trenches of the First World War. More specifically, it takes place during the battle of Verdun, the longest and perhaps bloodiest battle of the entire war, which I shouldn’t have to point out is saying something. The game uses the aesthetics and terrifying reality of the conflict to create a great atmosphere and makes use of familiar genre mechanics that work surprisingly well with the setting. It all comes together to make a game that works incredibly well, though I feel there are areas where it could improve.

The story of CONSCRIPT is told through the perspective of our player character, a young French conscripted soldier deployed to the frontlines during the battle of Verdun. The game opens with our protagonist writing a letter home to his mother, explaining his situation and informing her that his brother is deployed in the fort not far from him. Our protagonist seems hopeful until an attack on the fort sees the brothers separated and the trenches overrun by the German army. Now alone and deep within enemy territory, the player must find their missing brother and somehow escape the dire situation they’ve found themselves in before being found and killed by the enemy army.

One of the things I think CONSCRIPT does best with its setting is present some incredibly striking visuals. It gorgeously uses the look of turn-of-the-century technology and the grittiness of a trench on the frontlines to paint scenes that will make you gasp. The dim and dark color palette most certainly helps, too.

I will say that the first chapter of CONSCRIPT is not going to sell you on the game’s experience.

This opening chapter is incredibly action-packed, and if I’m being honest, it highlights the part of the game I enjoy the least, which is the combat, but I’ll expand on that some more later. This first chapter plays as sort of a wave survival game, as you fight back the German assault on the trenches. Rather than feeling tense, this section makes you feel like a badass supersoldier who single-handedly fought back an entire assault on your own.

While this introduction fights the game’s atmosphere, it does serve to challenge your expectations as you enter chapter two, which is where the game truly begins.

From here, CONSCRIPT becomes a game of survival as the trenches have been overrun, and you must now find your way back to your people. The game has an excellent feeling of claustrophobia, with the tight passages of the trenches making for naturally hostile terrain to navigate, especially when you’re trying to avoid detection. It’s as if you’re playing Resident Evil, but the map is mode mostly of those tense hallway segments you always hate to walk down.

Resident Evil is very clearly the main inspiration for CONSCRIPT. Particularly, the older Resident Evil games have much of their feel and formula poured lovingly into every aspect of CONSCRIPT. The game features the familiar formula: “navigate map, backtrack to collect tools to solve obstacle puzzles, and open up new doorways.” You’ll clear areas, collect keys, and solve puzzles with not-incredibly-obvious solutions, with your knowledge of familiar places challenged as the map evolves and fills with new enemies over time. Ammo and other resources are scarce, as are your inventory spaces, forcing you to manage your supplies and key components throughout the game carefully.

CONSCRIPT even features a familiar merchant system, with an achievement not-so-subtly named WHAT’RE YA BUYIN? when you interact with him.

CONSCRIPT is a Resident Evil fan down to its very DNA, and it works incredibly well. Even the combat in the game is very Resident Evil, which I feel both works for the game and challenges it.

CONSCRIPT takes place during the First World War. You are on a battlefield. The collection and use of scarce weapons and ammo resources is a very fitting way, considering the setting, to give the game a combat system. However, I will say that your ability to fight back against your enemies fights the game’s tension quite a bit.

You are not killing zombies, mutated monsters, or anything of the sort in CONSCRIPT. You’re fighting people, and as tense as the situation should be, your ability to take a hit and throw one back makes the situation feel less scary than it should.

After realizing just how generous my health bar was and just how easily I could kill enemies, I stopped feeling afraid of the German soldiers in CONSCRIPT and didn’t bother to sneak anymore. Granted, I wasn’t on the hardest difficulty, but the one just before it, and didn’t find taking out enemies to be a particularly dangerous or challenging thing to do.

The humanization of enemies makes them too easy to discount as just people. Not only can you kill most of them, but you can more or less see their faces, hear them talk, and understand that it’s just people you’re up against. CONSCRIPT begins to feel less like a horror and more like a tragedy, especially when the enemies charging you just a moment ago lay on the floor, shrieking in pain.

This isn’t the case for some of the special enemies, of course, but they felt more like a nuisance than something to fear. Try as the game might, I just couldn’t find the hordes of just guys terrifying… Maybe if fighting them had more of a consequence. Maybe, if firing my weapon alerted enemies from off-screen, inviting me to quickly leave an area if things had to get loud. Maybe if taking a rifle shot didn’t do a small amount of my health. I don’t know, but I felt as if how frequently I was dispatching German soldiers just tanked the tension. There’s a rule in horror about not over-exposing the audience to a monster, and CONSCRIPT, unfortunately, does it pretty early on.

CONSCRIPT is a great idea. The setting and idea are phenomenal for horror, albeit admittedly almost too real to pull off incredibly well. While there is certainly a wealth of atmosphere, well-designed mechanics, and incredibly striking visuals, the game felt more like a thriller than a survival horror to me. This is not an opinion everyone is going to share, and I’m sure there are people out there who will feel the tension in this well-done title more than I did.

Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! CONSCRIPT is available on Steam, GoG, Epic Games, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.