SCUM

As a seasoned community manager in the gaming industry, I've traversed countless virtual landscapes, but few experiences have resonated as profoundly as my journey with SCUM, particularly on the Echelon UA server.

SCUM distinguishes itself with its intricate survival mechanics and immersive gameplay, offering a depth that captivates both new and veteran players.

However, the true essence of this game unfolds within its community, and Echelon UA exemplifies this brilliantly.

Upon joining Echelon UA, I was immediately struck by the camaraderie and willingness of players to share their expertise.

This collaborative environment not only enhanced my gameplay but also honed my skills, transforming me into a formidable PvP contender.

The server's balanced approach to PvP and PvE zones ensures a dynamic and engaging experience, catering to diverse playstyles.

One memorable encounter involved a tense standoff with a rival player over a coveted loot stash.

Leveraging strategies and tips gleaned from fellow Echelon UA members, I navigated the confrontation with newfound confidence, culminating in a hard-earned victory.

Such experiences underscore the value of a supportive community in elevating individual player performance.

Echelon UA's commitment to fostering an inclusive and knowledgeable player base sets it apart in the SCUM ecosystem.

For those seeking not just to play, but to thrive and evolve within SCUM, Echelon UA offers an unparalleled platform.

Join us on Echelon UA, where every challenge is met with collective wisdom, and every victory is a shared celebration.

130hrs of trying this game.
Combat is worse than 2005 games, with terrible animations and hits not registering.
Resources almost non-existent except metal scraps, weapons rare except kitchen knife and crafting doesn't matter.
Empty world and cannot interact with 95% of it. Tons of stuff lying around but it's all scenery.
And then the zombies or puppets, again really bad animations, missing SFX, hits from out of nowhere and my hits don't connect, and 1 puppet can kill you easy if you forgot to equip a weapon. There's no out running them either, these puppets are fast af.
Also locked content behind timers, this can be ignored in SP.
So much SFX missing or not working.
Official and community servers constant disconnects.

In summary, just a terrible zombie game that makes little sense and unintuitive to play, horrible movement, combat, SFX and animations.

Devs have no clue game gets worse and once you've gone past your refund window they care even less. Just save your money.

In-depth, captivating.
Still has its issues, but it is being actively worked upon.

After 4.3 K hours I can state with certainity - they're ruining the game more and more with each new update.

Backing up game files DOES NOT backup save data. The game has now deleted my singleplayer data 5 times with the last save being around 60 hours of work.

This is the first time I feel ripped off in a game I have this many hours in. They continue to make the game worse and worse with each update, breaking more things than they fix and removing features that worked flawlessly. The only this this studio seems concerned with is washed up celebrity DLCs.

Save your money, do NOT buy this garbage.

Most recent update broke stamina system, an actual child can jump more then the grown ass adults in this game. Game is super broken now

seems like 1 out of 10 containers might have loot which is useless in the beginning if you find some and theres no cross hairs with the bow so aiming it is impossible. could be a good game in the future but you are pretty much playing dayz with more running and less loot. i know its still new and in the works but at this stage with lack of tutorials and useful loot id wait until a later date. has great potential though..

The game is good - it's the players that made it bad. Cheats everywhere, unfriendly players.

The SCUM community is AMAZING. The potential of SCUM is INSANE.

However, every recent update just gets worse and worse.

PUPPET SPAWNER is broken. It used to spawn puppets in a location before you got there so you would roll up on a location and clear the puppets and loot it. Now they spawn in around you randomly, literally appearing out of thin air. This is totally immersion breaking thus not fun.

BUNKERS used to be so much fun to loot. You had to sneak around the mechs to get in then you could go stealth or heavy to clear and loot. Most of them have been replaced by "abandoned bunkers" which I respectfully hate. Their only option is stealth and to get into any rooms with loot you must play a keypad guessing-game that will break your stealth 1/2 of the time, angering the immortal Brenner. Yup. A character in a realistic survival game, wearing minimal armor, that can't be killed by bullets. Right.

MODULAR VEHICLES are great for customisation but make it so much harder to get a working vehicle when starting out. I don't mind searching for a vehicle but its just too frustrating running around for tens of hours and every one you come across is missing a bunch of critical components that are difficult to find and take forever to transport on-foot. Admittedly this may be a skill issue but I still hate it.

There are more core issues but that's enough.

Each update also comes with really egregious bugs; things that should have been obvious with only minimal play-testing. The updates also routinely break existing systems. It's like they have never heard of regression testing. Which is quite sad for modern software devs. This level of buggery really makes me question what is going on in their studio ...

After the first few bad updates I thought that they would get back on track because they have such a solid foundation to build on. But at this point it is clear that the devs are not listening to ANY criticism from the community. They are head-down locked-in on some path and will not deviate.

My only hope for the future of this game is that it will be released with modding support so that the amazing SCUM community can realise its true potential.

Pretty fun. Lots of stuff to dive into.

Personally, a quick-tip or guide video will definitely help newbies. SCUM is pretty unique and getting better with each update. Overwhelming at first, but once you get your foot in the door, it really picks up. MP is better if you have a squad. Solo-ing in MP is a recipe for a bad time (unless you're lucky and find a cool squad to join up with).

My hours says it all doesn't it? Great game, yes it's been worked on for a long time but the content keeps coming and it keeps getting better

Best true survival game on steam still so much to come im still loving it after all these years and its still not finished so excited defo recommend to others

Solid single player survival experience. Continuously updated and supported by the devs, SCUM has grown a ton in the time since I first purchased it.

The map is large, even flying straight across it take a few minutes. MP and SP game parameters can be customized to adapt the gaming experience to your desires.

The biggest con that comes to mind is loading in to a naked character following a major update. Character skill and stat progress are retained, but everything else is gone.

honestly really fun, its like a dayZ on steroids and doesnt need to rely on mods to function

Game's audio in the car is a little buggy. As in car audio went in and out as well as the radio when played. Also the players inventory was a little confusing to get use to but after a small while kinda understand it.

More fun with another person/friend.

I've played for 7 hours, so just scratching the surface. I've enjoyed the current time spent but will need a squad to get anything major done. Two thumbs up so far.

If you want your sanity to be intact, stay away!!! Furthermore, there are many activities and possibilities to spend your time on, depending on the server you'll join. Driving / fixing a car or bike. Flying a plane. Building structures all around. Shooting bad zombies, random creatures, or just the newbie next doors... modify your weapons to your liking. Craft a raft and explore the seas (care of some sharp teeth underwater). Loot, and loot and loot!! Did i mention loot?!? Other than that, BEAUTIFUL graphics all around, runs pretty well on my 6600 gpu. Beware of glitches and random despawns of items from time to time. Friendly advice, when driving into a city wait for it to load first, or else you may turn your vehicle into a rocket ship... The devs are doing a very good job on fixing those things though with regular updates and patches. There is no pay to win (at the time writing this). Doesn't matter if you have 5 mins or 5k hours in the game, you can go down pretty much at the same speed... I had some fun in the game with my friends, also made some new ones! For me that's the game I love to hate!! <3

It's one of those games that you can play for hours and it's not hit full release yet. Huge potential with the constant updates, excited to see how it turns out.

Game is challenging and frustrating starting out. It can be even more frustrating the deeper you go because the losses represent larger chunks of time spent in game, but it is really fun. Official servers are ok but youll enjoy the game more if you find a private server with custom rules and settings. Overall 8/10, not much social aspect, even good servers are pretty much kos unless you play pve only.

If I could return this game and erase my memories of it I'd give all I am worth. Its not even a debate that this is the worst survival game in existence. It IS the worst survival game in existence. Running simulator 2024. Ben I regret ever buying this.

Just dont buy it, Developers make out an Update which was a total scam. Instead of fixing bugs and issue with the Puppets spawning which makes you hate this game, what they did was to bring back a Motorcycle which they removed some time ago , This is the biggest scam in History of Steam !!! they planned it all to call it a Update right in Black friday with 50% Offer just to make people buy this game which is full of Bugs and issues and it wont be fixed anytime soon i promis you all, Developers of Scum are Such Wolf of Wallstreet types of Salesman.

This game is so dreadful but I can't not play it its something about the you can die every 2 seconds but if you don't then you will in 5. w game 10/10

Every time I try to get into this game, I'm reminded why I never play it for more than a few hours and uninstall it again. I'm so sick of clearing POI's, only to have 2-4 puppets spawn basically next to me or in the areas I just cleared. It doesn't matter that you're in a room with no windows and not making any noise, they will aggro to you. If there's any geometry that has to be overcome (stairs, rails, etc.) to get into the building or room you're in, they will get stuck on it and scream ad nauseam, thereby spawning MORE puppets. Which is awesome.

There are server settings for stuff like this, in single player anyways. But good luck figuring it out what any of it actually means. "Encounter spawn character weight multiplier", sure, yeah, sounds great. It doesn't feel like any of the cryptic server settings actually change anything anyways. "Set the spawn chance to 0.1", by God, you just opened a drawer, here's 3 puppets pre-aggro'd on the other side of the wall. "Quadruple the loot spawn chance", open 50 containers, find some wool gloves or some rags.

There's a game in here somewhere. There are tons of things I could bitch about, but the above is the nail in the metaphorical coffin, every time. It basically plays just like the DayZ mod from Arma 2, if you were around during that time. Though, I hear the standalone is "faithful" in it's adaptation, if you've played it. It's not a bad game and I see updates for it almost weekly, so you can't say they're not working on it. If you're cool with having puppets spawn on top of you every where you go, might be for you.

Most recent update 0.96 and the movement change is absolutely terrible. Game was already borderline before but this movement change has killed the game for me, devs need to work on actual problems with the game rather than trying to balance things that don't need to be balanced.

This game could be fun and it was at the beginning but honestly with every update it's getting worse.
I always played it with my friend on a rented server PvE and we enjoy beeing creative and the apocalyptic aspects of the game are really cool. The looting for me is fun when you have the right settings. I enjoyed the map and roaming around very much. And don't forget the health system of the character is really cool and interesting and honestly the best and only thoroughly thought about thing in the game.
There are many things that are really not good yet. (It will be a long list)
Especially when you consider we had to buy a server to play.
-First the inventory is really annoying bc I have to drag every single item into a storage box for example or click on every little thing to navigate. Why not press a key to make it easier? Like in Ark or something? Or selecting multiple items with a mouse drag?
-Then the puppet spawns. They are not there when i travel somewhere. They spawn in random bushes when i stay in one spot for a minute or so and then a short while later they respawn. In bunkers we cleared them and then we turn around there are even more. Respawned.
-A BIG thing: the building system is really weird and horrible. There are tons of cool houses and ruins you could potentially life in and around and it would make sense: I land on an island and have nothing - I see a bunch of cities and cool houses with inventory - i would stay in there. Maybe build a base around it to have more space but no its not possible to put anything other than a storage box in there and a lousy bed. But when i want to cook something like cake and pizza i need to have an oven which is only available in these buildings because they have a kitchen. Either give me more items for base building or let me build where i want. Also the gras always comes through a foundation and bushes respawn in it and you have to chop them everythíme when you build on one. You don't even have many base building items in the game and everything looks the same. Some of the things are not even usable. I cant place a fire on a table. I cant put anything on a table.
I understand that for PvP using the houses could be an issue but then let me enable or disable it for my own server. This honestly ruined the game for us bc we wanted to build something cool for ourselves.
Give us some options!
-More things could make so much more sense and fun. Like with the horde. I imagined a big group of zombies roaming around and when you encounter them it would be really dangerous. But we got a horde of zombies spawning in close proximity to us only when we shot something and were a bit loud. Thats only annoying.
-The server settings on default are horrible.
-And farmng is bad. I cant place more than one garden bed and the things die so fast and get so many pests and weeds and it takes so long.
-There are generators but i dont have a nice light for my house. Only torches which can burn me.
-Tthe perfomance of the game in general is also not good. I've got lagging all the time even tho my PC is good and i set it on the lowest settings. Graphics on the map are not the best and trees, gras and bushes pop up when you come near them even on highest settings. Its like the game only just startet in early access.
-Also hunting. The animal encounter is so low and the hunting system is not really fun.
-The sounds of the vehicles are not the greatest.
-For the love of god why cant i see on the map which directions i am facing? Thats annoying af.
-And the newest addition: I jump two times and my stamina is completely gone. They say no more bunnyhopping but when i run from a zombie i'm basically dead after i need to jump one time.

I really dont know how people play this game in PvP but in PvE its more frustrating than fun right now.
Everything feels halfassed or not thought about enough. Its like putting in an idea but its not testet enough. Many things are really annoying and new updates mostly bring more bugs.
Its a game i often ask myself if the developers played it maybe once themselves bc it doesnt feel like it.

If you’re into survival games, SCUM is the kind of game that’ll chew you up, spit you out, and somehow still have you begging for more. I’ve been playing it for a while now, and I can confidently say I’ve died in ways I didn’t even know were possible.

Is it perfect? Nope. It’s still in early access. But the devs? Absolute legends. They’re always rolling out updates, adding new features, and fixing bugs like clockwork.

Every update feels like Christmas morning. So if you’re up for a tough challenge, plenty of laughs, and the occasional moment of sheer frustration, SCUM is 100% worth it. Trust me—it’s a wild ride, and you’ll have a blast discovering just how ridiculous your next death will be.

DO NOT BUY - corrupt developer will ban you from the game (not an EAC ban) without explanation or appeal process. Dont waste your money, this game developer is a scam. Google it - you get banned when you experience the very bugs that have been in the game for awhile now (not exploits, just bugs).

By Far the best Zombie game out, Just really Wish we could host our own servers. Been in Dev for YEARS and YEARS. Its about time we can host our own servers.

I Really hate when a Dev Corners you to pay for a server when its just 3 or 4 ppl. Then to make it worse u can only rent a 20 SLOT Server. SO you gotta PAY alot just for a few ppl to play.

UNTIL WE GET DEDICATED I CANNOT RECOMMEND GAME | ITS BEEN 6 YEARS | GIVE US DEDICATED SERVER FILES ALREADY !

very realistic managing vitamins and everything else perfect for the survival enthusiasts.

Once again I get excited about getting a game on my wish list. And once again I notice, after purchase, that game doesn't offer controller support. Never fails. If anyone hears a loud "THUD" that's from me rolling me eyes, too hard, and my head popping off.

Gave it a few shots on pvp servers and waited a while to review. This review was hard for me because i do like the game and very opinionated considering i love pvp with my pve. This game has a lot of potential and the building/survival aspect is on point. Unfortunately pvp servers are broken. Every official server regardless of its region is Infested by Cheating Chinese players make it unplayable. Even tried solo official and the cheating was still insane without going into detail. Was also teamed as well while not being able to understand anything in chat. Hope they can fix pvp servers because Strictly PVE is not for me. Servers Need IP locked AND Ping Locked.

Will definitely stay in touch with this game now and again and keep my review updated.

The game itself has a lot of potential and can have its fun moments outside of the vast boring emptiness of the map with copy and paste tree and bush along with lacking wildlife or anything to interact with in the wilderness and zombies that are practically a coded bug. The game has always run terribly bad with players always rubber banding and pvp usually being a disgusting lag fest of what may the be worst registration system ive ever seen.
The trader absolutely butchered the game because it made most items not worth looting and created a diluted system of priority items that feels completely out of whack.
Most importantly the saddest thing about this game is the servers. After playing on a few servers ive realized the community is a bunch of immature egotistical grown men all accusing each other of cheating with a majority of them actually cheating, admin abusing, and hiding behind alt accounts. Lots of people lying through their teeth in their own fabricated reality and if u cant laugh it off you'll drown in a toxic cesspool.
I always really enjoyed this game with my friens and i hope it can be fished out from the bottom of the deep dumpster its in one day. Just a shame how we dont have a lot of options for survival games in 2024. Might return in 1.0 in hopes for a better direction of the game.

fun and emmersive gameplay

Building is terrible and time consuming for little gain. Cities and towns are always devoid of any life and very little to scavenge if it at all. Scummy practice of releasing DLC for an Early Access game before the 1.0 release. If you value your time and money ignore this game.

Scum is one of my fav survival games. I've been playing this game for 2-3 years. The old male muscle model was amazing and gave a perfect look and strong play style to male characters. I hope you bring back this muscle model in the next planned major update.

One great survival game with a great team that continues to update and improve.

I really want to like this game but it just doesn't make sense. 23 hours playing the game and I didn't even find a gun. It took me 20 hours to find a backpack and I found it in a coffee vending machine, what? The crafting system is well, I don't know, I couldn't figure it out. I could not for the love of me figure out how to make a bandage or even find it in the crafting menu. I couldn't and did not find a medical kit at all in 23 hours. I also, thought, well, let's go into the military camps and take our chances with the Mech's (I thought, high risk, high reward, NOPE!!). I got gassed and shot up but no loot. Disappointing really. This was on a solo play through, so no other players taking anything. The combat just SUCKS. I mean, it take 30-60 seconds to stab something in this game. You have to actually start the swing before they get to you and hope you hit them. Maybe a skill issue...lol...but crap..if I fought like that in the real world I would die to. I spent more time walking around looking for stuff then I did survive honestly. 90% of the containers I opened had NOTHING in them. I would rather you not put them there than waste my time. Also, no animals? Where are all the animals? I heard some birds but not even a field mouse?

The graphics are great though. Better than Dayz but the loot game is horrible. The crafting and health system is NOT intuitive. Anyways. I did see where the developers were talking about putting in a tutorial system and quest system which would be nice in a solo play through. I just can't recommend it for gamers like myself who have limited time to play games.

I bought this game many years ago but never got into it. I gave it another shot last week on a chill official PvE server - thought it's be a good way to learn the mechanics and the map without being constantly killed by players. Just as I was starting to understand what to do and just as I started to like it, out of a blue comes a dropship and destroys my base and there is nothing I can do about it with my bow. wtf, not for me, too sweaty

the Game play is amazing the only problem i have had is in the bunkers on solo you cant admin destroy the flamethrower zombie and even when you have god mode on trying to figure stuff out for the new updates you can still die in the bunker.
i do recommend this game especially if you like in depth survival and zombie games

very detailed, a lot of fun, need to have patience as its not a quick play type of game

learning curve is quite steep - enjoy respawning frequently lol
The game is quite detailed in its mechanics, exactly what I am looking for in a survival game

Tedium, the game.

EDIT:
Since you asked. Let me elaborate a little. Don't expect an essay because I honestly don't feel attached to the game and don't care about the development anymore.
After all this time, the character models are still aesthetically unappealing, to say the least, and have wonky joints like it's 2014. The resources are way too scarce for what the game offers in terms of combat and... let's call it excitement, idk. Punching the same, lame zombies, over and over, for what, some flour or whatever. Then you finally find stuff and build a base. Yay. To do what? It's tedious, all of it. SOMETHING needs to compensate for this lack of entertainment. Nothing about the gameplay has any heft, aside from a fat turd you can drop, which is a nice touch. The whole metabolism system is cool. What else... I mean, you've probably heard tons of complaints about the spawning, I'm not gonna get into it. The game is like good, Italian, hand made pasta, with ketchup as sauce. It needs something, right now nothing about this grind is worth my time. Cheers.

The game won't go 3 minutes without crashing if you can even boot it past the splash screen, I recommend you buy it, test it out and if it crashes on you that's a sign that it's not worth it, refund it immediately afterwards.

Awesome Score: 9/10
TLDR: Great survival Loot and Shoot game with lots of fun and awesome features to make game play entertaining and challenging!
Slight learning curve to this game, and the UI needs some QoL work (being worked on according to dev posts) but all in all is worth getting and giving it a try if nothing else.


Whats in the box?
Base building, Crafting, Cooking, Fishing, Farming, Looting and Shooting, PVE/PVP, Survival game!

Bit more detail:
Realistic Survival elements along with a plethora of food and medicines to help keep you alive.

Realistic weapons with many different ammo types, a large selection of attachments (including sights, scopes, and other attachments), paint customization's (after finding the spray paint cans), and the ability to find rare versions of some weapons. Not to mention the amount of weapons you can find/buy is quite a list.

Intuitive healing and health system. Your body needs to be kept healthy if you want to strive in your survival

Extensive base building options to make a nice place to live, OR you can just commandeer one of the many buildings you can find throughout the world.

Farming, Fishing, and Cooking so you can have many ways to keep yourself from dying (from starving or dying of thirst anyway) Be careful what you use for your ingredients though, as some things may contain natural poisons or hallucinogens (or you know, feed them to someone you hate or want to prank?)

POI's can be dangerous, sometimes holding hordes of Puppets (zombies) and/or may be guarded by Mechs and Drop ships like the many military bases and bunkers that are strewn about. But they are also the best places to get good loot, like weapons and military / police gear to help you survive even more.

The most dangerous thing in this game however are the players... depending on if your on a PVP server, not everyone is your friend, but anyone can be your enemy. Unless you play on a PVP server, in which case working together to survive and conquer is the name of the game.

Servers can also vary between different ones. Some being more official / default, and others being extreme survival games

I love the ide of the game but if the dev has more focused in the zombies element rather than other element like how annoying is healing yourself it would be much fun game to play. the zombies is not what you expet from a zombie game

I liked everything in general, but suddenly the ban from the anti-cheat arrived. I have never used software, there is no explanation for what I am banned for. The license currently costs 2,300. I don't want to buy this game twice for such things

A worthless game that if you want to play and find any loot you have to buy your own server, building mechanics are udderly garbage. i highly don't recommend wasting you money on this go buy Icarus, or Rust.

If you love poor server performance and dying to hackers this is the game for you.