Scanner Sombre is a 2017 walking simulator from Introversion Software, developed as they were taking time off from updating Prison Architect. As you’d expect from the genre, this 2017 game invites you to explore a world, ponder its history, and piece together the story from so many scattered fragments of environmental storytelling.

I started off at the bottom of a large cave in pitch blackness, save for the glow of a lantern illuminating the tent around me. In the inky blackness some distance away was the first tool – a geological scanner, and a visor to view its scans. This tool was the means by which I could make sense of the darkness, sending out a continuous spread of lidar beams. As the beams bounced off my surroundings, the darkness lit up in an ocean of lights; nearby dots glowed red, fading to green and then a dim blue as their distance from me increased. It’s certainly a clever way of adding depth perception to a field of stars since terrain doesn’t obscure vision. Even as I reached the end of the game, I could look back and see the dots representing the cavern I first started in. Over the course of its two hour duration, the scanner acquired a few miscellaneous upgrades. The final upgrade was a materials scanner which trades the distance-based coloring for materials-based coloring. This was a bit of a game changer for exploration as some details that previously blended into the background now stood out clearly.

As I explored the cave, I learnt about its history and observed the many deaths here. In the first caverns were statues of demons, carved by the cultists that called this cave home in centuries gone by. Further up were the living areas and prisons of the cultists, eerily quiet as I walked through their empty halls. The cave opened up into an underground lake with cages of drowned witches strewn about, and the supernatural elements of the game took a new turn. The ponderous sense of dread that had been building for the first two acts came to a head here. I stepped in the water for a moment, heard some howls, and fearfully stepped back on land, resolving to stay out of the water at all costs – even though I was adamant that a walking simulator wasn’t going to present any actual threats. This makes Scanner Sombre the third game I’ve ever played that well and truly provoked a sense of fear in me, so I guess that has to count for something. The last major section was a defunct mining operation, and it came with a clear sense of tragedy.

Throughout the game, there is a clear thread of the supernatural running through all this, and it all works together to create a sense of latent fear. I entered the final scene, as the game told me about my avatar’s guilt and regret about what was left behind. I looked back at the path I traced through the caverns. You may have noticed earlier that I used astronomical phrases – an ocean of lights, a field of stars. That’s no mistake. The scale of God’s Creation is too enormous to consider without inspiring a sense of awe at its magnitude – or existential dread at how tiny and insignificant we are. This dichotomous shock and awe is what I felt as I watched the game’s final sequence play out, taking me back along the path I had traversed. The cave network was laid bare like a digital Pillars of Creation in all its majesty and splendor.

You’d be forgiven for thinking the dotted landscape would be a light load on your graphics card - it’s not. As any graphics engineer or Minecraft player can tell you, appearances can be deceiving in terms of how much graphical power is needed. You don’t need a high-end graphics card, but depending how thoroughly you try to scan the caverns, even the most powerful cards could potentially be brought low. It is what it is, and it’s also a fascinating way to explore a dark environment without using a torch. Music is non-existent save for a few seemingly out-of-place scripted pieces, hammering home the loneliness of your explorations. In lieu of a soundtrack, the game has a gently immersive soundscape as footsteps echo gently, as water drips off stalactites, and as your equipment malfunctions in the water.

As mentioned above, supernatural themes run throughout the game, even if there is no real-world occult material. Demon-worshipping cultists made their home in this cave, human sacrifices were offered, witches were strangled in the waters, and miners fell to their deaths. It all sounds quite gruesome, but details are not shown so much as heavily implied or hinted at. The cave is implied to be well and truly alive, and spirits of the dead are trapped here. There is also a single use of “b**t**ds.” These themes are the limit of any moral concerns though.

Scanner Sombre is certainly an interesting take on the walking simulator genre. If you enjoy horror games, tragic stories, or starry skies, there’s something to enjoy here. At $6, it’s an easy recommend.