Screenshots & trailers
What players say
Why the number is what it is: aspect mentions counted across 325 sampled Steam reviews (304 positive / 21 negative), recent and most-helpful. Plain keyword counting, fully reproducible; nothing here is written by a machine.
What positive reviews talk about
- Story & writing14% mention it
- Visuals & art8% mention it
- Controls & UI8% mention it
- Music & audio7% mention it
- World & exploration7% mention it
What negative reviews complain about
- Controls & UI14% mention it
- Bugs & crashes14% mention it
Satisfaction by hours played
Same score, different games: see how sentiment holds up the longer people play.
Under 5h
86%
111 reviews
5-15h
97%
194 reviews
15-40h
94%
18 reviews
Review sentiment over time
Weekly positive-review rate (green) and review volume (bars). Dashed lines mark significant patches; the amber line is the start of the current scoring window. Hover the dots to see what drove a dip or a jump.
How this score was computed
The VGC Score is a weighted blend on a press-comparable 0-100 quality scale. Steam approval rates are first calibrated (95% positive on Steam ≈ 89.5 quality, since Steam approval skews high). Press and tracked creator reviews each count ~2x a player review and share one cap against player evidence (creator buy/skip calls pool into an approval rate, calibrated like Steam approval); all-time sentiment is capped and halved (it's context, not verdict); reviews of the current build carry the most weight when a fresh patch anchors the window; and a 'typical game' prior keeps small samples from pegging the scale. Because press reviews and Metacritic user aggregates describe the launch build, their weight decays as the game ages (3-year half-life after a 1-year grace). That's how a game that launched rough can outgrow its old reception once updates win players over. Reviews under 2h playtime (the refund window), non-Steam activations, and free copies are downweighted.
| Component | Positive | Quality (0-100) | Weight (pseudo-reviews) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Press reviews (OpenCritic) | – | 76 | 61 |
| Creator reviews (2 tracked) | – | 70 | 1 |
| All-time Steam reviews | 94% | 89 | 1000 |
| Metacritic user ratings | – | 77 | 67 |
| Post-patch Steam reviews (trust-weighted) | 94% | 88 | 278 |
| Calibration prior (typical game) | – | 72 | 50 |
Scoring window: last 30 days (no significant patch detected) · 300 reviews sampled · 795 total reviews in window · weighted 173.1 up / 11.4 down · computed 1h ago · full methodology →
Press & Creators reviews (134)
Individual verdicts from outlets we track: scored reviews first, most trusted outlets first among them. The small badge is each outlet's trust score: how well its scoring history aligns with players.
- 100
“Definitely worthy of recommendation. It looks great, has some nice combat and exploration balancing, and, most importantly, is just fun to play. It never got old zipping around, eating dudes, and unlocking new abilities. Sure, it’s a shorter experience at just three hours, but those were some fun three hours and it’s still definitely worth a look.”
read full review ↗ - 50
“Carrion has all the potential to become really interesting, but right now it feels like a technical demonstration of an incomplete concept.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“Carrion's sickeningly animated protagonist and distinctive playstyle will sate the desires of any player who has ever imagined being a monster from a horror film. It is also a blast to torture faceless government workers with a buffet of slimy powers. Bland level design and a narrative that has the complexity of a paramecium keep Carrion from being something truly memorable.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“Carrion is a special thing in many ways, but its actual meat and potatoes structure is as formulaic as the genre gets. Thankfully, its core gameplay of tearing room after room of people into wet chunks of corpse never, ever gets old, and sustains the experience throughout. It looks superb, sounds great and is plenty of fun to play, despite some minor issues which just hold Carrion back from the upper echelons of the Switch library.”
read full review ↗ - 50
“Carrion struggles to depict the idea of “having power” as nothing else than a brainless venture. Something you inherited. Therefore, every action and every killing lose its meaning. Even though you are a monster, your actions are never questioned or given context. In the end, the gore is the only thing that really makes you feel something. Gross, at most.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“Carrion is the opposite of its titular character: slickly presented, polished to a shine and great fun to hang out with. The flashes of tedium and repetition are there, but some decent pacing and consistent progression, along with just how satisfying the carrion beast is to fling around a room, really drown out the minor complaints. It’s definitely worth a spin for a gory good time.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“With Carrion, I wondered how Phobia Game Studio would be able to keep me interested without that dynamic. They managed it through the careful balance of giving you enough agency to feel powerful, while still requiring you to plan and act with precision to use that power effectively. The result is a razor-sharp campaign that fully put me in the amorphous shoes of its terrifying beast.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“Carrion is an entertaining and visceral experience, with a lot more going for it than simply running around and killing things, like many of the game’s trailers led me to believe...A few questionable design decisions make me hesitate on calling this an excellent title, though. Tying parts of the creature’s moveset to its current health level is frustrating. The lack of any kind of world map, while not game breaking in the slightest, got annoying while navigating the hub area. The repetitive art design in the levels isn’t doing the game any favors either...However, frustrations aside, Carrion was still an entertaining playthrough.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“If you’re sick of playing victims in horror games, watching thrillers through the lens of a hapless protagonist, and instead just want to vent your frustrations on them, this role reversal of a game will sate your bloodthirst.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“Phobia taps into a very visceral sensibility with Carrion’s fluid, action-based mechanics, which are both simple and fun to execute.”
read full review ↗ - 60
“Carrion embraces its identity as a "reverse-horror" experience, offering some viscerally violent action that is not for the faint of heart. Presentation here is top-notch: this is a polished title that Phobia Game Studio has taken a lot of care in crafting. Sadly, it stumbles in its core gameplay. The combat is poorly balanced and navigation can be a frustrating chore, but when Carrion does transcend these trappings, it does so with a sadistic glee that makes it unmistakable amongst its peers.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“While it’s great to play games or watch movies cheering on the brave heroes who fight and persevere against horrible monstrosities, admit it: Given the chance it would be a ton of fun to spend some time on the other side of the equation...”
read full review ↗
cublikefoot
GameMAG
Jump Dash Roll
Nintendo Life
Hu3br
Doublejump
Paste Magazine
Gamer Escape
Kakuchopurei
VGChartz
Cubed3
Nindie Spotlight…and 122 more tracked reviews.
Patch history
- Illegally smol updateNov 6, 2022significant · resets scoring window
- Tiny Steam API updateFeb 22, 2022
- Crash fixesNov 10, 2021
- Small yet important save file patchAug 1, 2021
- Shotgun & rendering fixesJun 26, 2021
- Animation & tooltip fixesJun 21, 2021
- Minor clarity tweaksJun 15, 2021
- Quality-of-life UpdateJun 13, 2021significant · resets scoring window
- Minor Workshop UpdatesOct 23, 2020
- The First Post-Release UpdateAug 9, 2020significant · resets scoring window