Carrion review: The best kill-‘em-all monster-movie game in years

Enlarge / Tentacles, mouths, spikes, and glowing eye-like things: Carrion's lead monster looks pretty beastly in promotional art, but I think it's even cooler in pixelated format. (credit: Devolver Digital)

I love the honesty of a video game where you play the villain. So many games revolve around killing everything in sight, and at some point, we should admit that turtle-slaying plumbers and mass-murdering treasure hunters aren't as "good" as we're led to believe.

With their murderous intent laid bare, the best "monster" games lean into sheer power. Classics like Rampage World Tour and Destroy All Monsters let you wreak explosive, hilarious havoc, then pile on the ramped-up efforts by humanity to stop your villainy.

Devolver Digital's new game Carrion, out this week on PC and consoles, follows that tyrannical tradition, albeit with a different tack. Instead of resembling a schlocky monster movie, Carrion goes full H.R. Giger with its slinking, wall-clinging, tentacles-and-teeth monstrosity. Its mix of atmosphere, mechanics, and darkly hilarious traversal makes it one of the freshest 2D games we've seen in years.

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