If you didn’t know, SCUM, an upcoming open world survival PVP game, will be dropping on August 29.
Last Friday, the SCUM developers live streamed the game, showcasing the longest unedited sequence of gameplay we’ve seen so far.
Here is a look at the highlights from the stream and an overview of what SCUM actually is. I’ve also provided the time that the highlights took place so that you don’t have to trawl through the live stream vod to find them yourselves.
What Is SCUM? Is It Worth Buying?
Firstly, I just want to explain what SCUM is. Whilst I’ve been patiently waiting for SCUM to drop for some time, it’s gone under the radar for many people.
The gameplay concept for SCUM places you on an island with other players. The island is actually the setting for a popular TV show in the SCUM universe.
Every player is a convict. Their punishment is to be placed on this island to provide entertainment for everybody else at their own expense. Drones will travel across the island, capturing footage as you survive and fight other players.
You have two choices – fight for your life and gain the love of the audience, or try to escape the island to go survive on the mainland.
On both the island and the mainland, there are a number of gameplay mechanics and lifelike systems to make it stand out from the crowds of other games in the survival genre.
For example, SCUM has a detailed metabolism system where the food you eat makes a difference on your energy and stamina. You can see the metabolism and player status page from the live stream below.
There’s also an in-depth movement system that has realistic momentum, vaulting, and climbing.
One of my favorite systems is the awareness skill. With better awareness, you’ll have a higher player render distance and the things you see that your character isn’t looking at will be slightly clearer. The concept is that you can see clearer and use your memory to remember where objects and buildings are located.
There are plenty more mechanics like this that all come together to create a gameplay system that’s quite unlike anything else.
SCUM live stream Gameplay Footage
Now that I’ve briefly explained what SCUM is, let’s take a look at the gameplay. If you want to watch the whole thing, you can find it on the Gamepires’ Twitch channel.
The stream is one hour and thirteen minutes long, so I thought I’d break it up for you to showcase the most important moments.
At 1 hour 7 minutes, you get to see footage of a sentry. In SCUM, sentries are essentially large AI walkers that make sure the contestants on the island are sticking to the rules. Generally, these guys don’t like it when you throw things at them. It’s basically a death sentence if you get on their bad side.
I’m not sure if there’s the potential to take one of these things down, but it’d certainly open up some interesting scenarios if it were possible.
At 1 hour 10 minutes, you get to witness a hand to hand brawl. Last year, the SCUM developers showcased a video that featured some incredible hand to hand combat mechanics. This is the first time we get to see them outside of that scripted gameplay video.
The different combat options such as kicks, jabs, undercuts, and the such do seem to be in the game, but I did notice the combat felt a little janky due to desync issues. Let’s hope this isn’t a major problem once the game launches.
At 1 hour 2 minutes, the developers explain how the grouping system will work. Players must progress their intelligence stat to be able to invite more people into a group.
Nothing was explained about what powers a group leader would be given, but apparently you can challenge your current leader to a fist fight to gain control of the group.
At 48 minutes, the developers touch on what happens when you log out. You also get to see two of humanity’s finest traits being put on display – puking and peeing. Yep, they’re both in the game too.
You won’t be locked to a server in SCUM, but there will be a short lockout period before you can change server. I’d imagine this would be just a few minutes. If you do join a new server, you’ll be spawned randomly – this is to stop griefing and ghosting.
At the 41 minute mark, the developers explained how death would work in SCUM. When you die, you have the option to spawn at three different locations.
Either you spawn randomly, spawn at your sleeping bag, or spawn on your team mate. The options you have depend on your fame points.
Fame points are gained by impressing the audience by killing other players and doing other visually impressive things in front of the camera.
When you leave the mainland and are no longer under the control of the TV station, I’d assume that death will be permanent.
At 33 minutes in, the developers briefly discuss character creation. When you first create your character, you’re given the option to get more skill points by adding certain negative traits.
The example they used in the live stream is that if you choose to be an alcoholic, you’ll have to find alcohol to function properly. Without it, your aim may be unsteady and there may be other negative aspects.
Finally, the map in SCUM will include a 12×12 kilometer play area. This is 9 times larger than PUBG’s latest map, Sanhok, and about 5 times larger than the Fortnite map. It’s smaller than both of PUBG’s other maps, however.
There are another 30 minutes of gameplay where the developers answer chat questions and show general survival mechanics at the beginning of the game. Typical things like collecting stones and sticks to build primitive tools are shown.
Summary
I hope that this summary of the recent SCUM developer live stream has been an interesting read. Is anybody else as excited about SCUM as I am?