During the five narrative Acts that make up developer Ebb Software's survival horror FPS next-gen exclusive Scorn features a breathtakingly horrifying world filled with biomechanical architecture and body horror contraptions. During the second Act of the game, players find one such contraption that they can tinker with to unlock the next segments of Scorn's grotesque atmosphere.
Upon entering Act 2 of Scorn, players are able to find a large Skeleton Key on a nearby corpse. Throughout the level there are four upgrades to the Skeleton Key players must find before initiating the puzzle later on. There are various enemies that guard sections of the area that players must either engage or avoid before unlocking the machine that presents the intellectual challenge. Traversing through the violence similar to Doom: Eternal in Scorn's persistent horror balances the calm moments of solving the puzzle with tense action.
The machine that players insert the completed Skeleton Key into reveals the internal systems that must be navigated for it to function. Two sections separate into a shell with asymmetric red nodes, and a tube with white nodes that can be adjusted before the player inserts them into the shell. Akin to a combination lock, all the white nodes must be paired with the red nodes at the same time in order to solve the puzzle. The shell has three primary ages that the nodes from the tube are capable of entering, with two red nodes located in the bottom of Scorn's truly Gigeresque device.
Solving the Skeleton Key Puzzle in Act 2 of Scorn
Unfortunately, the four white nodes in the Skeleton Key Puzzle of Scorn are arranged horizontally, and rotating one rotates them together at the same time. The universal movement makes it difficult for players to insert the nodes from the tube into the shell without making it impossible to adjust the other nodes properly. Every notch moved when controlling the contraption's tube nodes should be precise, and follow these steps:
- Move the tube's white nodes down 2 times
- Insert the tube into the shell by moving it left 1 time
- Click the white nodes up 4 instances
- Insert the tube into the shell left 1 time
- Adjust the tube nodes down 4 times
- Insert the tube into the shell left 1 time
- Keep the white nodes from Scorn on track by moving them up 2 times
- Insert the tube into the shell left 1 time
- Place the final white node in the red node 2 spaces up
Interacting with the control after players have seen every red and white node line up on the machine ends the puzzle. A little less complicated than the previous Crane Puzzle in Act 1, the Skeleton Key Puzzle still presents players with a fair challenge masked in simplicity through how the nodes of the tube act in unison. The strict rules players should anticipate while playing Scorn are in full force during its puzzle segments, adding to its unorthodox gameplay compared to other survival horror titles such as Resident Evil Village and its hardcore modes.
