CONSCRIPT (Nintendo Switch) Review

CONSCRIPT is a gruelling reminder that war is hell and being too committed to old-school design is always a risk. Even as a fan of classic survival-horror, playing through CONSCRIPT on the default settings – the third of four difficulties, no checkpoint saves, no infinite saves – made me realise just how meticulously balanced the best games in the genre are, and how fine a line there is between challenge and frustration. That said, if you stick with it (or use the assists and abandon the unlikely prospect of an initial S-rank run), you’ll find CONSCRIPT a worthy and terrifying addition to the genre; one that combines elements of classic Resident Evil and Silent Hill with the more recent Signalis and Amnesia: The Bunker.

You could be cynical and accuse CONSCRIPT of being too derivative, but it’s well-designed, polished, and almost shows reverence for games it draws inspiration from – rather than blatantly highlighting those connections to make up for the lack of a unique identity. With a lot of emphasis placed on the sombre tone, your actions when faced with a seemingly futile situation, and multiple endings, it’s a surprisingly low-key but relentless game that felt most similar to Silent Hill 2. A brooding atmosphere, gorgeously gruesome pixel art, unsettling ambience, and minimal spectacle all ensure the focus remains on a vulnerable protagonist trying to survive a hellish situation, while enduring trauma that forces them to question their own values, courage, and sanity.

Over the course of six chapters – with brief interludes that reveal events leading up to his conscription – French soldier André finds himself part off one of the last major German offensives during the infamous Battle of Verdun; a 10-month period during which border forts, trench lines, and towns were changing hands almost daily, with staggering losses on both sides. His overarching goal is to find his injured brother Pierre, but video game logic dictates nothing can be straightforward, even less so in the survival-horror genre where every task is a succession of contrivances. Over the course of several days, he’ll witness the French frontline collapse; he’ll serve as a runner to gather reinforcements; he’ll retake a fort and storm no-man’s land to capture German lines; and explore a ruined town to try find a way into another besieged fort his brother was assigned to.

Intentional or not, CONSCRIPT is a timely reminder of the innumerable lives destroyed through warmongering, with fallen Germans as likely to drop a family photo as they are ammunition. From a purely gameplay perspective, it’s mechanically familiar and rewarding. You explore room by room for key items and supplies, with little direct guidance, praying that you stumble upon a save room and item box to manage your limited inventory. You decide on whether to expend ammunition to clear safe routes, leg it or roll past enemies while hoping not to take too much damage, or engage in some rudimentary stealth that’ll test your patience and likely double your playtime. There’s a mysterious merchant that’ll trade cigarettes and upgrade your weapons with gun parts, and you can assist rare NPCs who reward you with consumables to boost health and stamina. Aside from the fluid twin-stick style controls and light progression elements, it all feels incredibly old-school and your first playthrough is going to be dominated by blind exploration and excessive backtracking. However, the longer you play, the easier it is to appreciate the depth of the mechanics and how they both reward and punish different playstyles.

As an example, upgrading basic weapons and scavenging, crafting, or trading for ammunition will usually keep you ahead of the curve if you want to dispatch every German soldier you find; however, without patching damaged sections of barbed wire, more German troops can appear. More problematic is how fresh corpses results in rat swarms that can inflict a poison status that reduces your total health. For aggressive players, this makes it all but mandatory to burn bodies and toss grenades into rat nests in your most frequented areas. On the other hand, crude stealth, running like hell, and using rare opportunities to sit out battles make it easier to preserve supplies and avoid the rat threat, but it becomes a lot harder to complete several objectives and avoid taking damage – especially when dealing with firearm-wielding foes. Naturally, how you play, who you help, and how thoroughly you explore for clues and collectible items can dictate which of four endings you receive (with more hopeful and depressing variants available too).

It all makes for a familiar but satisfying take on the genre – but CONSCRIPT has one notable flaw: questionable map layouts that makes backtracking frustrating, even if you’ve cleared a safe path through them. You traverse dozens of interconnected maps that encompass the ruined outskirts of St. Michel in the south, the frontline trenches and a fort near Souville, and the besieged Fort Vaux and adjacent town to the north. Each chapter tends to focus on thoroughly exploring one area – often above and below ground – and, initially, there’s a satisfying rhythm to finding key items and opening new routes back to rare safe rooms. However, from the third chapter onwards, you encounter more maps with winding routes between exits, large areas with few shortcuts, and no obvious reason why it should be that way other than to drag out the experience.

Of course, this has always been a potential issue in classic survival-horror games, but CONSCRIPT features larger outdoor spaces that take far longer to traverse. It makes that contrived structure of key hunts and convoluted puzzles that much more obvious, illogical, and just annoying at times. As a consequence, even fans of the genre might find parts of CONSCRIPT tedious – but I would recommend you stick with it as it gets far more right than wrong. Also, despite the serious content matter and oppressively grim tone, it’s a rare treat to play a survival horror games devoid of zombies and secret laboratories.

CONSCRIPT was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One/Series S|X, and PS4/5.