The SCP Foundation is an impressive thing. For those that might not know, it is basically a fan-created wiki of sorts that tracks strange, bizarre and (often) dangerous beings, coming up with entire stories through listing how these beings are contained, and a vague description that offers just enough to light up a readers imagination, but never enough to give the reader a clear picture of what exactly it is they might be reading about. As such, the SCP Foundation website has become a wonderful source of not only creepy horror stories, but also of inspiration for horror games.In the past, weve largely seen games adapting the fiction of the SCP Foundation through more generic horror mechanics. These titles tend to feature one or two of the iconic creatures from the SCP website, with SCP-173 being an especially popular subject since it tends to make for an appropriately spooky experience with the thing chasing you can only do so if it is not being observed. SCP: Fragmented Minds, however, manages to carve out its own identity from the sea of SCP adaptations by leaning more heavily into the idea of being an action game.Make no mistake, however, SCP: Fragmented Minds still has aspirations of being a horror title. In fact, much like its predecessors, you wont find much in the way of combat here either. You do, however, get ways to fight back against some of the strange creatures that youll find roaming around as you explore a Mars outpost after some sort of cataclysm happened. But before we get ahead of ourselves, lets first understand the setup."SCP: Fragmented Minds still has aspirations of being a horror title."You are Agent Kovich, a member of the SCP Foundations security team, currently setting out on your first posting to Mars Site-113. While the purposes of the site arent quite clear yet, you do know that youll have to deal with some level of combat, since you were put through a rather rigorous training regime. Other than that, however, this mission to Mars seems like a relatively cozy gig. Little do you know that things are about to go horribly wrong.A series of subterranean earthquakes have managed to mess up Mars Site-113 quite a bit, and by the time youre awoken in your cryopod, the whole Martian settlement is seemingly deserted. Slowly exploring through some wreckage and even the surface of Mars ultimately leads you into finding one other survivor, who is then able to let you get deeper into the SCP facility to try and reconnect with your team. All in all, the story and general setup of SCP: Fragmented Minds is relatively simple and acts pretty well as an excuse to throw you into the thick of it.The only real complaint I have with the game is that the start is just a bit too slow. While the general visuals and atmosphere are pretty good in the games opening hour, things start getting a bit boring when all youre doing is walking around and trying to find the way forward. Theres literally zero tension until you get around an hour into the game. Sure, there are some tutorials you get in the opening minutes, the pacing in general could be handled much better than what we ultimately got. Good thing its still an Early Access title."The only real complaint I have with the game is that the start is just a bit too slow."The same pacing issues also apply to the gameplay. For a game with aspirations of being an action horror title rather than a stealth horror one, you dont even get access to a weapon until youre a couple of hours in. By then, youve faced plenty of instances of SCP-3199 that youve had to sneak your way around, and even when you finally do get a weapon to try and fight them off, youre going to be able to, at most, take on one at a time. This doesnt even feel like a case of forcing you to conserve your resources as much as it feels like poor pacing.Speaking of which, there isnt really much in the way of enemy variety in SCP: Fragmented Minds. Youre largely going to be sneaking around or fighting off various instances of SCP-3199. While this does mean that you get to experience creatures in an SCP title that arent just what youve seen before, the lack of just about any other kind of enemy to fight against does more harm than good to the general sense of poor pacing throughout the game. This is an issue that, once again, looks like it will get fixed down the line as the title gets more chapters through future updates.One key area where SCP: Fragmented Minds absolutely excels is in its visuals. Mars Site-113 has been beautifully realised, with just about every dark crevice, nook and cranny being rife with the potential for hidden terrors lurking around. The atmosphere is also top-notch, with a lot of work being done by the games excellent use of lighting and volumetric fog effects to ramp up the tension. Being an Early Access title, however, does bring with it some clear technical issues. For instance, I often found myself needing to shut down and restart the entire game because it would refuse to load a room behind a locked door. I also had a lot of trouble grabbing footage for the game, with constant crashes happening whenever I started recording gameplay."There isnt really much in the way of enemy variety in SCP: Fragmented Minds."Whether these issues are intrinsic to the game, or if it was an issue related specifically to my hardware setup is currently unknown. Generally speaking, SCP: Fragmented Minds definitely has its fair share of issues, be it the poor pacing or technical problems. Aside from that, however, the game feels like its a solid foundation for what could one day be an excellent action horror title. The atmosphere is wonderful, and the fact that the title will be making use of some of the lesser-known beings from the SCP wiki means that were in for some wonderfully weird and unique encounters in future updates.As it currently stands, however, SCP: Fragmented Minds is a difficult game to recommend. The pacing issues alone means that youre going to be spending the vast majority of your time with the game just running around and hiding from goofy looking creatures. The roadmap, however, makes me think that there is a lot of promise in the games future, and multiplayer is an especially interesting feature to keep an eye on down the line.This game was reviewed on PC.