(This was originally written as a Steam review because I want more people to play this- edited it just a teensy bit for Backloggd. Still, on Steam most people are looking at a review for the purpose of making a purchasing decision, and this game has been largely thrashed in Steam reviews for being pretty expensive for a game with this many glitches- that's why there's a whole paragraph on its pricing and value.)

I'm not going to pretend that this game isn't held together by dreams and prayers; it will almost certainly crash on you multiple times throughout each playthrough. The experience of playing Wrought Flesh resembles the experience of someone with lethally high blood pressure that has just downed a few 5 hour energy; a feeling that at any moment you'll feel reality stutter, before everything suddenly ceases to be.

That said, I think there's an insane amount of imagination and fresh ideas here, and I think Wrought Flesh executes them very, very well. It makes me sad that this game has had a kind of lukewarm reception; if it weren't for the innumerable bugs or the fact that most gamers cannot resist comparing any weird indie game made after 2021 to Cruelty Squad (which the game absolutely takes inspiration from, in the same way a ton of survival horror games made in the early 00's took inspiration from Resident Evil and Silent Hill) I think this would have been received way, way better.

Gunplay is simplistic but I do think that the mobility options that you're given and the pretty good enemy variety (especially in the second area) keep combat engaging and intense. KillFuck, a drug that allows you to slow down time, is a surprisingly useful resource, especially if you need to focus on taking down a single enemy or dashing in to grab a body for healing while under gunfire. There's not a ton of build variety that I observed during my first playthrough, but I also largely ignored the elemental damage that can be modified into your secondary weapon; I could easily see myself getting a kick out of seeing how far I could take that on a repeat playthrough.

The environment and worldbuilding feels like it's drawing from a lot of inspirations to make something unique and interesting, and I think the low-poly visuals contribute to the grotesque, alien flavor of the setting. If you're a fan of the kind of bizarre terrain and "feel" of games like Morrowind, but are looking for something way more grotesque, this might really click for you. There are even a few locales that are quite pretty and feel cozy! Towns generally offer a break from the intense hostility that you'll be facing from the rest of the environment. I think it would have been pretty easy for the dev to make the game the constantly offputting, but the little areas where it feels like you can breathe easier are a really nice change of pace.

Pretty much all the Steam reviews for this game mention price and seem pretty hung up on it. I am absolutely of the philosophy that price shouldn't come into play in an analysis of a game, but this is also clearly a huge sticking point for people, especially since games are ultimately still commodities and- In This Economy?! Given how many people cite this as the primary reason for not recommending the game, I think it's at least worth mentioning here. I can understand why someone might find the price a bit steep, especially given the insane number of bugs and glitches, but I do think there's enough game here due to a plethora of side quests. Most of them are fetch quests, but ones that I think are still worth completing. They often take you off the beaten path or require you pay more attention to the world around you, and give you more opportunities to enjoy the combat and find some fun, novel upgrades. Still, if you enjoy indie games and don't mind the frustrations that are going to come with a game made with a shoestring budget, I think this is more worth the pretty small amount of time it takes to complete than a lot of longer, higher production value games I've played recently.

Part of the reason I'm writing this review, even though I know it's probably not going to have this kind of impact, is because I want more people to give games like Wrought Flesh a chance, and I really want to see what the dev makes next. Games like this are often a big risk for one or a few people to make, and I think passion projects like this can be really exciting. I do wish some of the game was more polished, and I do wish that some of these bugs got squashed, but I'd also love to see the developer of Wrought Flesh make more games. Whether that be an expansion for this, or something completely new, there's clearly a vision and a lot of good design sensibilities here.

A great game but sadly there isnt enought of it.

I had a couple of time when it crashed on me but the save points are generous enought so its not a big issue.

I wish the world and lore could be exlored more in the future.

Wrought Flesh is held together by rotting sinew and prayer. It is mechanically and aesthetically grotesque. It tears itself apart with ambition and harbours more bugs than maggot-ridden offal. It is wholly unique despite being comprised of incongruous parts sewn into a Frankensteinian mass. It is a casu martzu, off-putting in nearly every regard but a delicacy for a select few.

The core of Wrought Flesh is simple. Pursue your prey and assimilate viscera into your body cavity along the way. Organs function like gear in a typical RPG but rather than be assigned slots, they take up a certain number of spaces within your body like Resident Evil. Further complicating matters is the fact your organs deteriorate through use; imbibing corpses wears down your intestines, healing over time breaks your heart, taking bullets fills your fat with holes. Some items lack durability but these are typically unique and come with some other caveat which will more likely than not make your other organs rot even faster. For example, a literal iron lung bestows massive agility but tanks your HP regen, making your heart(s) work harder and wither quicker. The player is constantly on the hunt for new organs to replace aging ones. This weaves a rapid gameplay loop where caution is typically thrown to the wind to kill enemies before your body fails. Parts can even be swapped in combat, but good luck playing inventory Tetris with bugs flying at your face. An option to quickly replace organs could have made the process of mending oneself mid-fight a smoother experience, but the current system of risk-reward works well enough. Organs can also be eschewed to leave space in your body cavity to hold more ammo and Killfuck. I, however, saw the cons of not having those stats to heavily outweigh doubling my reserves.

Organs are central to Wrought Flesh's Bio system. Some guns use blood instead of bullets for ammunition. As such, higher health pools mean a greater supply of shots, higher regen rates ensure leeched vitality is recuperated faster. Organs can also have elemental attributes like Fire, Electricity, Acid, or Explosive. While those impart resistance to their respective damage types, they also imbue Bio weapons with damage of that type. Bio weapons are greatly customisable as a result, able to exploit the weaknesses of some foes should the player have the appropriate organs. Even without picking up Bio weapons, the player always has their Finger Gun available should they throw their weapon to the floor, so in a pinch those elements still come into play, and this is in fact critical to defeating enemies which resist bullet damage. Elemental organs invariably occupy an inconvenient amount of space in your body cavity, which helps keep Bio in relative lockstep with weapon upgrades, neither becoming greatly stronger than the other.

Aiding the blistering pace of Wrought Flesh is a skiing system straight out of Tribes, though it leaves something to be desired. Without the jets of Tribes, momentum vanishes when hitting an upward slope. A high agility stat helps by giving you a greater jump and speed to simply leap over hills, but without enough agility you're going to be walking uphill a lot. One quirk of the engine is that your falling speed is taken into account when you start skiing, so jumping from a monstrous height onto flat terrain leads to ludicrous speeds.

The map design is effectively a series of spiderwebs, a central town stretching into small areas every which way for encounters and quest objectives. The lack of a map screen and repetitious environments would ordinarily cause navigational confusion. However, since there is invariably a separate objective in each of the cardinal and ordinal directions, and quest destinations are expressed as belonging to those directions, it is difficult to get lost. Those quests are also pretty damn simple for the most part, being in the vein of kill these enemies, get these key items. Some break the mould by offering a choice or requiring the player to carry certain organs in one piece to a destination.

Wrought Flesh's world is no masterwork of worldbuilding and lore, but the snippets of exposition gleaned from dialogue are engrossing enough and paint a portrait of disturbing dystopian surrealism in the tradition of H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński. In this land it is not only the bleeding flesh which is worshipped, but the euphemistic as well, the player character often rewarded for their efforts with a satiation of carnal appetites.

These constituent parts are rather incongruous at times, but Wrought Flesh is a perfect melange of grotesquerie for me, a Cruelty Squad I can gel with, a Brigand: Oaxaca of a different flavour.

Regrettably I am presently softlocked due to crashing on load, a shame since I loved what I was able to play.