It’s easy to draw a straight line between last year’s Amnesia: The Bunker and Conscript (available now on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Steam, GOG, and EGS). Both are horror games, and both are set on the Western Front in France during World War I. The difference is that in Conscript, just being a soldier on the ground during World War I is considered horrific enough.
You play as a young French draftee in 1915 Verdun who only wants to get himself and his brother home in one piece. Unfortunately, you’re caught between the Germans and the maniacs in your own command element, who think nothing of ordering you into certain death. After a lost battle, you end up alone behind what’s now the German lines, and must find your way back through the trenches.
Conscript uses a lot of the mechanics and touchstones of classic survival horror, including some truly awkward combat, but doesn’t have any of the science fiction or horror elements that usually characterize the genre. You aren’t up against zombies or mutants in Conscript. It’s just other people, who are all a lot like you. That’s most of what makes it a horror story.
