Coming next month from Saber Interactive, Evil Dead: The Game is primarily a multiplayer experience, pitting four survivors from the franchise up against the forces of evil. Of course, you’ll be able to play solo with computer bots if you prefer, and you’ll also be given the option to play single-player side missions that will expand upon the lore of the Evil Dead world.

Speaking with Slasher Radio this week, Saber developers Tim Willits and Craig Sherman explained how the single-player missions will work, and what they’ll allow you to unlock.

They explain, “You can play the game by yourself in two different ways. The first is the main core game loop, which is four survivors versus the demon. You can play that by yourself. You can jump in as a survivor, the computer takes care of your buddies, and then play against the computer as the demon. If you want to just experience more of the world, we have these side missions. We only have a handful. It’s not a single-player campaign, it’s not like that. But it is single-player missions that allow you to dive deeper into the lore.”

“When you complete those, you unlock some characters and some skins. And you get access to… something that we call the Knowby Recordings,” the duo continues. “Professor Knowby is a very important character in the franchise because he… found the Necronomicon and he brought it back to the cabin to translate. So as in the movies, he records himself doing these things. So we thought, what a great way to continue the story. You will be rewarded when you do these missions with a Knowby Recording… and there are lots of them. If you listen to it… in some cases it’s Professor Knowby talking on his own. One of them is with Annie, his daughter. She’s explaining sort of what’s going on. We were able to fit these recordings, I think as a fan, in a really cool way so that you’ll recognize some dialogue in them from the films. And it keeps going… and a little bit more of the scene [you hear] was NOT in the movie… but this is kind of like we’re saying, ‘This is what happened after the scene. Or right before.’ These Knowby Recordings, we’ve used them as a way to bring the game into the Evil Dead Universe.”

They add, “The story goes that Professor Knowby accidentally summons the demon… Henrietta, his wife, is possessed. And he’s recording this. And what he does is he looks at the Necronomicon and he sees Ash… he sees the Hero from the Sky. So he tries all these incantations to try and summon Ash, and he ends up getting all these other characters who are friends of Ash. Who have fought alongside Ash in all these different stories. And they’re showing up in the cabin. And they go off and help to fight the demons. So this is how we explain why we have characters from three movies and a TV show [in the game].”

Evil Dead: The Game (read our review) will release on May 13, 2022!