Incision

About Incision

Incision is a retro-styled first-person shooter developed by SmoothBrainDev and published by Hyperstrange. Released on PC in August 2025, it blends ultraviolent action with surreal environments. You play as a rogue healer navigating industrial nightmares and alien labyrinths to destroy the Growth, a living threat consuming cities. The game thrives on fast-paced combat and oppressive atmosphere. With a single-player focus, it prioritizes relentless action over narrative depth. The retro aesthetic and chaotic level design make it a standout for fans of punishing FPS experiences. Short but intense, it’s a 6, 8 hour gauntlet of shooting and dodging through shifting, biomechanical landscapes.

Gameplay

Incision’s core loop is about surviving shifting mazes while battling grotesque enemies. Controls prioritize speed: quick dodge, rapid fire, and limited health force you to stay mobile. Levels morph constantly, with walls warping and paths collapsing, demanding constant vigilance. Combat is aggressive, your scalpel weapon doubles as a melee tool, while grenades and shotguns handle crowds. The camera shakes violently during gunplay, adding to the chaos. Missions force you to backtrack through redesigned environments, hunting for resources. Ammo is scarce, so conserving shots is key. Each session feels like a sprint through a nightmare, with no respawns, death resets you to checkpoints, punishing hesitation. The retro pixel-art style sharpens the tension, turning every corridor into a potential death trap.

What Players Think

PlayPile users rate Incision 4.3/5, with 78% completing the campaign. Average playtime is 7 hours, but 41% of players report over 10 hours due to retries. The game’s chaotic, aggressive, and uneasy moods each hit 34%, 29%, and 22% respectively. Community reviews praise its intensity: “Addictive but punishing” and “Fascinating yet exhausting.” Achievements (11 total) skew toward completionist challenges, like defeating enemies without dying. 63% of players unlocked all achievements. Critics note its brevity and steep difficulty, 35% of reviews mention “unfair level design.” At $39.99, it’s cheaper than AAA titles, but its retro visuals split opinions. The 42% “Hardcore” mood tag suggests it’s not for casual players.

PlayPile's Take

Incision is a high-risk, high-reward pick for FPS fans who thrive on challenge. Its retro visuals and chaotic combat make it memorable, but the short runtime and punishing difficulty might frustrate. At $39.99, the price matches its length, though 43% of players say it’s “overpriced for what it is.” The 11 achievements (50% of which require flawless runs) add replay value for completionists. If you want a retro-styled, brutal shooter with shifting environments and no hand-holding, this fits. Skip if you prefer slower pacing or detailed stories. It’s a niche gem, best played with a high tolerance for frustration and a love of speed-focused action.

Storyline

The world has been thoroughly devastated as a nightmarish growth suddenly emerged from the middle of a great city of technological marvels, absorbing its people for sustenance and spitting out what remains of its victims as twisted creatures that now serve its ruthless will to subjugate, sacrifice and slaughter all living things to satiate its ravenous hunger. The unknown threat has sucked the world nearly dry of resources, pulling everything it touches slowly into its fleshy mass and replacing them with its chaotic labyrinthian and living machinery only built to serve its own needs. You take the role of a nameless man, a sort of wandering healer. The kind of healer who dabbles in his own medicines way too often and burns down entire towns to stop infections from spreading. Exactly what a situation like this needs. He has now entered the great city, making the first INCISION, and entering the heart of the spreading sickness.