SCUM is an immersive open-world survival game where players are prisoners, trapped in an island for the entertainment of the wealthy and famous. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
SCUM Review Overview
What is SCUM?
SCUM is an immersive, open-world survival game where players take on the role of a prisoner sent to the titular SCUM Island as a means for entertainment under the TEC1 Corporation ala The Truman Show. With its tagline "Survival at its hardest," SCUM aims to give its players a deeply engaging and real simulation of survival with its set of extensive gameplay mechanics, extensive crafting techniques, and a full-fledged health and metabolism system.
Developed and published by Gamepires, the game has been out on Early Access since August of 2018 and is now released in its 1.0 full release build on June 17th, 2025.
SCUM features:
⚫︎ Complex and Intricate Crafting Mechanics
⚫︎ A Massive 225sqkm Island To Explore
⚫︎ Realistic Graphics
⚫︎ Challenging Survival Gameplay
⚫︎ Survival of the Fittest
| Digital Storefronts | |
|---|---|
 Steam |
|
| $39.99 | |
SCUM Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Extensive Crafting Mechanics Challenging Survival Gameplay Base-Building |
Steep Learning Curve Melee Combat Can Feel Clunky Sometimes Jump Scare-Inducing |
SCUM Overall Score - 78/100
SCUM is a solid immersive open-world survival game that definitely takes the survival up a notch with its complex systems and engaging gameplay, with combat, resource management, base-building, and more. It definitely poses a challenge to even the most seasoned of survival game enthusiasts, but casual gamers may need to call a friend or avoid playing solo to really make sense of the game in its entirety. Despite its rather punishing mechanics, it’s immersive and fun, if you can get past its steep learning curve.
SCUM Story - 7/10
The game’s story is pretty clear and straightforward—you’re a lowly pawn in a The Truman Show-like entertainment show, left to their own devices on a dangerous island where death lurks in every corner. The only goal? To survive for as long as you can. It’s a solid plot, a motivation to keep going. The game seems to open up even more as you progress through the story, but it felt like it took forever to get to that point, provided that you haven’t fallen dead to the nearest Puppet Zombie or Mech yet. Hence, more average players might find it difficult to get to a point in the story where you’re not just some random prisoner among the many others.
SCUM Gameplay - 9/10
In SCUM, the wide variety of gameplay is everything. It has all the familiar mechanics of survival games, upped up to be more intricate and complex. There is an extensive crafting menu, with weight, inventory space, and more all factored into the mix, which makes you think a little more critically on what to bring around and what to leave behind. Players must also think of their metabolism and health meters, as well as their needs and injuries, which can quickly spiral into infection and death if not dealt with properly. Melee combat does feel a little clunky at some parts, but then again it adds to the realism—you’re not Superman, you’re just some poor human prisoner.
SCUM Visuals - 8/10
SCUM’s visuals are quite realistic, with well-rendered textures present even on Medium settings, from the walls on the buildings, to the foliage, to even the individual appearances of the items you pick up all around the island. It runs great performance-wise as well, with little to no stuttering present in my gameplay.
SCUM Audio - 7/10
Seeing as you’re airdropped in the middle of nowhere, tasked to fight to your survival, there’s not much going in terms of audio—but that’s alright. The game has little to no extra background music, which highlights the sound design of everything else. Your footsteps, the crackling of the fire, the hammering of materials against materials, the whittling down of sticks—everything is amplified. It lends itself to a good survival experience, making it all the more frightening when you hear a zombie or a mech lurking nearby.
SCUM Value for Money - 8/10
For $40 and hours upon hours of content to go through with the sense of unpredictability that an open multiplayer server gives, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth for the thousands of hours you’ll find yourself spending on this game—if it’s your cup of tea, that is. While there are DLCs available for the game, they’re mostly cosmetic items and do not lock any QoL features behind a paywall, which means you get the entire experience for $40.
SCUM Review: A Challenging Survival For The Damned
SCUM was a zombie survival game I’ve heard of long before, especially during the boom of the survival game genre during the worldwide lockdown and pandemic. Gamers all over the globe clung onto the internet for some semblance of a physical connection with their friends and family, and survival games seemed like the best manifestation of that—open worlds, multiplayer, voice chat, and more.
While that age of humans has long passed, survival games are still a strong genre in gaming, and SCUM is ready to prove itself and solidify a spot with their 1.0 release. First launched in 2018, it’s been seven years since it has graced the Steam store shelves, now bringing in a new era to its world.
Now, if you’ve seen the most recent trailer for the game announcing its full release, you’d think it’s some quirky and funny zombie survival game—which is exactly what I thought it was, even telling myself "Hey, looks fun!"—and upon stepping into its world, I was quickly humbled. It’s anything but quirky at the beginning, and you’re immediately introduced to the grim reality of it all.
Challenging and Punishing Survival At Its Best
I’ve had my hand in a number of survival games such as Once Human, Project Zomboid, and Don’t Starve Together, as well as a short-lived tryst with 7 Days to Die and the most recent massive survival game Dune: Awakening. While they were all challenging in their own ways, SCUM takes it up a notch with an extensive crafting menu paired with a crazy health and metabolism system which requires you to actually keep not only your hunger, thirst, and health up, but the need to rid yourself of all the food you digested—willingly or not. It reminds me a little of Project Zomboid, though more detailed.
Needless to say, I was scavenging the hell out of every piece of clothing I could find, turning them into clean rags to patch up my wounds. It was pretty cool too that injuries don’t immediately take effect and kill you—instead, you’re given the option to fix up the wound with bandages, rags, disinfectants, even aloe vera for burns. It adds an extra layer of realism to the whole thing, where contamination doesn’t happen within the first few minutes and instead you’d actually need to treat it.
With that said, resource management is definitely a must here, especially if you’re playing on a public multiplayer server where you’d be fighting with other players for those precious metals and food. Depending on the world (although easily modified if you’re playing on solo sandbox), looting may feel like a frustrating chore with how scarce items are, but I suppose that just adds to the whole dystopian entertainment thing.
I also appreciated the fact that the game had help text and stats everywhere, easily looked up with the press of the Ctrl button. Holding the button while hovering an item will immediately give you a glance of what it can be used for, what its stats are, and more. You can even directly click on an item and examine it to see what it's used for and in what crafting recipes—no more accidentally chucking an important item to the ground, never to be seen again.
Building, Fishing, and Even Farming
While it has slowly become the norm in survival games, I think it’s still a nice thing to point out. Even in a high-stakes deathmatch environment that the game is trying to portray, having a bit of solace in the form of your home or base is comforting in a sense, having a base of operations to work with and such. SCUM Island, past its bloody history, is visually stunning (especially if you can run it on High or Epic settings), and having a base where you can fish and farm lets you relax, even for a little bit.
Getting to sit on the shore and bringing out your fishing rod brings in a calm that I didn’t think would be possible in a survival game like this, which is oddly nice in a way. Seeing your catch in real-time and realistically—holding a flapping tuna fish is satisfying—is a nice addition too.
Steep Learning Curve
While not exactly a con, I’m putting this out there for everyone wanting to get into the survival genre or even have dabbled into other survival games as well. Take everything that you learned from other games and dial it up to a tad bit—that’s quite about how much you’d need to familiarize yourself with, even with prior knowledge of survival mechanics. Maybe you’d even need to turn to tutorials on the internet should it get too complicated to understand.
The learning curve is immensely steep, and while there is a (somehow) helpful tutorial robot that teaches you the bare basics, but the tutorial quests are far and few, and you’re soon left to your devices with…a wooden spear, a flimsy backpack, and a crappy campfire. Good luck out there…you’ll need a lot of it.
There’s also a crap-ton of menus, numbers, and objects to keep track of, which can overwhelm some players especially at the beginning. Of course, all these can be learned in due time and with a chunkload of sweat and elbow grease, but that’s only if said player can even get past the first few hours without tearing their hair strands apart. SCUM is not for the faint of heart or the weak-willed—it’s literally survival of the fittest in a can.
Melee Combat Can Feel Clunky
I did note this as a bid to realism since most human beings don’t know how to wield a weapon or fight properly, but nevertheless, it feels clunky at times. My baseball bat is swinging in a pretty wide range, yet the game tells me I barely just missed its face—it was right there. Animations feel a little stiff, funny even that I can’t help but chuckle when the Puppet does its giant upperhand swing onto my head.
Sometimes, it doesn’t help that the zombies can actually pack a punch, sending you bleeding to death with as little as four hits. Combat can feel like you barely have a chance against these overpowered former humans if your weapon and the combat system keeps failing you.
A Little Jumpscares Here and There
Okay, I knew there were zombies, but it would have been a little helpful if they didn’t…just come out of nowhere. You are able to hear them, but there are times they’re so cleverly hidden or camouflaged against the walls (?!) that they seemingly poof in out of thin air. This happened to me in a hospital-like place, and I swear I heard that darn Puppet before I saw him, barrelling at me through the door—even if I’ve previously checked the rooms beforehand.
This happens to those not in buildings too, for some reason. I was just minding my own business, and the game didn’t even bother to notify me that a zombie was chasing me on the road until it bashed me on the head with its powerful punch.
Not exactly a con, maybe, but a helpful warning out there to be more aware of your surroundings too when playing this game.
Is SCUM Worth It?
Difficult, But Definitely Fun If You Like Challenges
SCUM is well-worth its $40 price tag for its immersive gameplay and hours of content to go through, as well as providing a challenge to even the most seasoned of survival title gamers. If you can forgive or look past the minimal jank, it’s an immensely solid game that delivers its promise of being a challenging survival open-world game, complete with engaging mechanics that keep you grinding and gunning to have better items, and a better base.
| Digital Storefronts | |
|---|---|
| Steam |
|
| $39.99 | |
SCUM FAQ
Will SCUM come on consoles?
SCUM will eventually find its way to PlayStation and Xbox in the future, but developers Gamepires have stated that they will focus on the PC release’s quality first before moving to console ports.
Game8 Reviews
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SCUM Product Information
 |
|
| Title | SCUM |
|---|---|
| Release Date | June 17, 2025 (Full Release) August 29, 2018 (Early Access) |
| Developer | Gamepires |
| Publisher | Gamepires |
| Supported Platforms | PC |
| Genre | Survival, Action, Adventure, MMO |
| Number of Players | 1+ |
| ESRB Rating | M / PEGI 18 |
| Official Website | SCUM Official Website |
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