Originally known as Scav Prototype, Casaulties: Unknown is a brutal survival game by Polish
solo developer Orsoniks. Initially published on Itch.io around March of 2025, the project has been getting steady updates before being picked up by publisher Oro Interactive for its official Steam
demo release in April 2026.

This review and game will contain themes of gore, self harm, violence, and general misery.

Layer 1: Animals Always Make For Good Hooks

If you ever heard the phrase “the indomitable human spirit” thrown around, that pretty much sums up how this game works. Instead of a human though, you play as an anthropomorphic genetic experiment made by humans, called simply The Experiment or “Expie” for short.

What Is An Expie?

The game doesn’t boast much lore. The most we get is a couple of paragraphs right at the beginning after a short but concise content warning of violence, self harm and general misery. Expies have black fur with an orange tipped tail. They are around 5-6 tiles tall which is around 1.5 meters or 5 feet. Along with fur and a tail they possess other animalistic traits such as digitigrade legs and paw pads on their hands and feet. Their eyes contain an orange bioluminescent sclera with black pupils. Their blood isn’t red like typical humans but yellow like sea cucumber or certain beetles. In addition, unlike other furred animals they do sweat as a cooling method like humans do.

A strong character design such as the “Expie” is what will be the main draw for most. I can say for certain that my first exposure to this game was seeing art of an Expie on my Twitter feed, then thinking to myself “Oh this is a cool design I wonder what game they’re from. I might check it out.”. My expectations of the game were much different then the reality of what the game ended up being like.

Layer 2: Uncharted Territory

My first run ended as quickly as it began. With me running a little quickly out of the doors of the pod you spawn in which resulted in me falling down a considerable distance onto a spike trap, which dislocated my right arm and cracked my skull, killing me almost instantly. That Expie became the unknown casualty the title of the game was describing. Many probably would have taken this as a sign they are simply not made for this game. I almost did until a good friend of mine reached out and offered to teach me how this game works.

The game does boast an unofficial multiplayer mod called Casualties Together that is a rather simple install. This was how he taught me the ropes of the game’s mechanics. So that option is open if you so prefer playing with friends rather than alone. I have around 20 hours in the demo at the time of review and I can state that I have a pretty decent grasp at how the game works. The game only has around 5 layers in its demo which upon cleaning layer 5 loops you back to layer 2.

Layer 3: Your Body

This game takes the rouge-lite approach to its gameplay loop which is to say death=progress. If the player takes the time to reflect on how their Expie became a statistic and what got them to the point they died at there is still some productivity to be gained. This game operates on an uber-realistic survival and medical system. Thankfully, since the medical system is so complex there is a tutorial in-game that explains the basics of how it works that unlocks upon clearing Layer 1 along with a tutorial of basic game mechanics which unlocks immediately. The medical tutorial goes over what every part of the health menu means, like blood pressure, heart rate etc. It also goes over some common injuries you may face like bleeding and how to patch yourself up.

In crisis scenarios where you royally fuck up, survival tends to simply boil down to fixing your bleeding. Making sure your blood pressure is a at stable level so your heart is able to still function. There are other mini game to fix other injuries as well. If you dislocate your arm or leg you play through a mini game where you pop the bone back into its socket, step into glass? time to individually remove those shards from your foot. Infection not going away and only getting worse? If you so happen to have a machete you can amputate the limb. Master this game’s medical system and you probably have enough knowledge of bodily functions to rival the average pre-med student.

Your Surroundings

Sure there is enough negative status effects in this game that a YouTube video compiling all of them is around 2 hours in length but not every little thing needs to be micromanaged. Around 80% of the statuses in this game either go away on their own or can be easily worked around. If you’re not bleeding or infected chances are you will not need to intervene to solve it. The good grace of time will get rid of it. There’s lots of trees scattered around that give you fruit to manage your hunger. Crouching near a body of water allows you to drink it if your thirst is low. Awareness to your environment is always rewarded. If you have keen eyes you might save yourself from demise by noticing beneficial things like traders or item crates or death traps such as spikes, turrets, barbed wire, and bugs.

Layer 4: Difficult Does Not Always Mean Unfun

Under its brutally difficult hood however, it boasts a surprisingly robust set of accessibility sliders. There are 5 standard difficulties by default. Normal, Relaxed, Paradise, Desolate and Unchipped. Unchipped is a unique mode that has the same difficulty as normal but removes the time limit that is in place in each layer in return for limited HUD visibility. Though the true accessibility comes in the game’s custom run settings. If you ever played Doom: The Dark Ages and how that game lets you fine tune gameplay settings, Casualties: Unknown does it in a similar vein. You choose a default difficulty and use the custom setting sliders to tweak aspects of the game to your liking.

There’s a slider for about every aspect of the game that you can make easier or harder on yourself but some notable options include, changing how much ambient light there is, whether or not you start with a starter kit of basic items, and the ability to turn on or off certain disorienting effects like the ones that occur when you get brain damage, cause this game does like to mess with your screen vision a lot when you suffer status effects. The more you mess around with these sliders, the more you learn what actually kills you. Turn down the trap density slider. You realize that your #1 obstacle in this game is traps and the game is a breeze without them. Turn up the amount of time your allowed per layer. You realize you can farm the first layer for 2 hours for an insane loadout with little to no risk at all. The freedom and customization is a very fun and welcoming addition. It gives a little demo like this insane replay value.

Layer 5: Empathy Debuff

When I mentioned that “Indomitable Human Spirit” is basically how this game works, I meant that. I didn’t want to clutter to start of this review with deep philosophical ramblings about that games realism and how it portrays certain human elements so accurately. So I saved all that talk for the end. This game mimics human survival to a T. It is mainly cause of Orsoniks fascination with human anatomy and the medical field as well as his general feelings towards life. Biology and psychology are inherently linked concepts to their core. A game with such a in-depth medical system such as this would fall flat on its face if there was no emotional weight or catastrophic injuries to pair with it.

The opposite holds true as well. There is no emotional weight for taking damage that you can just heal back to full health with a single item. When the player miscalculates a jump, in other games they simply take damage and their health is reduced. In this game when you take damage you see your Expie whimper and talk about how much pain its in while you panic and now have to spend precious resources to repair the wounds. Taking damage physically also effects the Expie mentally as well, and like everything else in this game slowly stacks until it gets out of hand. Its slow and draining just like a real life problem would be?

So Why Would Someone Want To Play A Game That So Perfectly Encapsulates Human Suffering?

Hope, that is the reason. It’s the reason many of us humans decide to still keep living in our real lives. That despite the many hardships, despite the insurmountable odds some issues might bring us, we move on. After all, the most realistic depictions of humanity are often the cruelest.

Final Verdict:

If any what I said about this game appeals to you I do highly recommend checking it on Steam. The demo is free so there is nothing to lose if you end up not liking it.