Scar-Lead Salvation is Far From Perfect

Scar-Lead Salvation is a new action rogue-like that has entered the gaming space. It aims to provide players with a new experience akin to something like Returnal, where you’ll go through multiple runs to gain better perks and knowledge of your enemies while going deeper into the world the game has to offer. You have to fight your way through multiple floors as you learn more about Willow, her trusty AI companion and the facility that she’s seemingly trapped within.

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A Strange Tale About a New World

When you first load into Scar-Lead Salvation

, you are met with Willow, the playable character that you immediately take control of. You’ll go through and encounter your first cutscenes that will provide you with the stakes of what’s going on in this military facility after Willow wakes up. With these few sequences, you can already see parallels with a prior game in the same genre, Returnal, where our main protagonist went through something similar right away. It’s a compelling loop for many players, learning more about the world as you battle your way through hordes of enemies.

You’re given little information when you first start progressing through the mysterious facility, with Willow and the AI that answers her call having brief back-and-forth conversations. When resetting runs, it would be nice to receive more information, but that just isn’t the case here. If you die, you’ll be brought back to the start with Willow providing brief dialogue before getting back into taking down robots. The only thing that you end up being informed about right away is that humanity has been supposedly backed into a corner, forced to fight for survival against an unknown alien race. Fighting for survival is a tried and true plot point, and if done right, it can usually be entertaining. There’s little proof of it here, however, which does raise questions about what Willow is going through.

What should be world-building conversations about what happened while Willow was out of commission are supposed to be interesting, but they don’t provide much information about the current state of affairs. This does seem intended, but it can also take you out of what the game is trying to tell you. Wanting to know more but being purposefully vague with every single conversation almost wears a player down to thinking the plot and lore aren’t important. Most of the conversations between Willow and the AI end up boiling down to her not remembering her past and who she was, aliens, robots and how she’s annoyed at the AI for not giving her straight answers to her questions.

Familiar Rogue-Like Combat

It’s somewhat hard not to compare Scar-Lead Salvation to Returnal. Both games are a part of the same genre and do share similarities in terms of gameplay and overall combat, although one of these is made by a smaller studio and lacks the same flair as the other. This isn’t a blockbuster game and does have slight issues with how things are conveyed. Environments are bland and interactions only take place in a military testing facility. Each area is a new hazard-themed version of the original one you start in, from blank metal rooms, to iced over and even molten metal. The visuals of each section, and enemies for that matter, leave a lot to be desired.

In terms of general gameplay, there’s a system in place to gain upgrades during runs. These are provided by picking up Exo Upgrades while going through each floor. These Exo Upgrades will provide passive abilities that you can make use of while you battle your way through this experimental military facility. Willow can gain upgrades such as greater health, increased evade windows, specific weapon type damage boosts and bigger crosshairs. There’s a decent variety in the passives that you can equip, and the further you progress, the more you can have equipped at once, with four being the max you can have on Willow at once. When you pick up a duplicate version of these, they will also increase in rank. With the max rank being 10, allowing greater boosts in the stats you’ve picked up. It’s a neat system that allows you to experiment during runs to see what works best with your playstyle.

After progressing and completing areas, you can return to the most recent floor you’ve unlocked, even after death. You’ll retain your exo upgrades, but lose the weapons that you died with. Once you have progressed through enough floors, you’ll reach a boss room where you’ll have to fight a powerful boss with multiple phases. There are warp rooms, which are used to provide extra weapons to pick up, as well as healing, on your journey. Each warp room will either contain enemies that will lead to more weapons or energy for your Exo abilities, weapons, health restoration nodes, weapon upgrade terminals or revival towers. The bones for a good game are there, but everything combined just doesn’t add up to something fun to play. You’ll do the same loop, over and over, with the same enemies and variants of these enemies that don’t change up the game in any meaningful way.

Closing Comments:

Scar-Lead Salvation has a lot going for it, but it’s far from perfect. It features a bland story, mediocre enemies and passable passive abilities for your character. Many of the in-game animations are floaty, and at times, stiff. Combat animations in particular, such as shooting while moving, look jarringly odd when in motion. Losing clothing while you take damage during your run is unnecessary and doesn’t add anything to the overall gameplay; if anything, it takes away any charm the game could have. There’s a lack of enemy variety, making each run through the facility bland and uneventful. What could have been a challenging and interesting new game in the genre falls apart as it becomes a mix of all the wrong mechanics in a singular game.

Scar-Lead Salvation

Version Reviewed: PlayStation 5

1.5/5

Released

May 29, 2025

Developer(s)

Idea Factory, Compile Heart

Pros & Cons

• Variety of guns and upgrades.

• Lack of enemy variety.
• Predictable and dull story.
• Bland environments.