The latest from IllFonic, the studio that has carved out a niche for itself as the ultimate authority on multiplayer horror with Friday the 13th, Predator: Hunting Grounds, and Killer Klowns from Outer Space, is perhaps their most enviable IP get to date. Securing the blessing and creative involvement of John Carpenter, as well as wooing current franchise rights-holder Malek Akkad, they’ve been entrusted with the holy grail of horror licenses: Halloween.
The developers’ take on this pioneering slasher is more or less what you’d expect given their track record, utilizing a lot of the same mechanics, balancing systems, and item types that we’ve seen in their previous works (hello, trusty firecrackers!). However, Halloween: The Game is crucially more than a copy-and-paste job that merely relocates the action from Camp Crystal Lake to Haddonfield, Illinois and calls it a day. Instead, it finds a number of exciting ways to innovate and be uniquely Halloween.
The end result is by no means perfect, and is in dire need of refinement when it comes to the technical aspects (more on that later). Nevertheless, the core foundations are strong. With fresh twists on the tired killer-vs-survivor dynamic and a welcome emphasis on methodical stealth, it truly immerses you in “the night he came home” and feels like an authentic representation of its source material.
That’s what’ll hopefully give it an edge over its competitors and ensure it has legs beyond the coming spooky season.
Death Has Come to Haddonfield
Disregarding the knotted continuity and baggage of the wider franchise, Halloween: The Game is set on October 31, 1978, thus only dealing with the events of the very first movie. That means no Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, no Jamie Lloyd, no familial connection between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, and no sign of whatever that white horse was supposed to be in Rob Zombie’s version.
With it being just original recipe Halloween, and therefore a much cleaner canon, the game’s narrative framing couldn’t be simpler. Michael has broken out of Smith’s Grove Sanitarium and, compelled by sheer instinct, is drawn inexorably back to his hometown. There, he will attempt to satiate a (seemingly insatiable) biological imperative of his by prowling the suburbs and killing as many people as he can. There’s no greater motive at play. No detailed plan formulating behind his black, soulless eyes. No hint whatsoever of remorse. Only a single-minded compulsion to snuff out more lives.
If you’re the one roleplaying as the boogeyman in this scenario, then your objective is accordingly very straightforward. All you’ve got to do is rack up the largest possible body count and avoid getting detained by the authorities.
Conversely, if you’ve been cast as one of the four “civilian” players in the match, then you’ll be focused on preventing this senseless bloodshed and minimizing further casualties. That might sound like business as usual for this sort of thing, but — in a clever subversion that helps distinguish the experience from other asymmetrical titles out there — you’re discouraged from looking out for number one and number one only.
You see, while you’ll need to prioritize self-preservation to at least a certain extent, you’re also expected to protect the blissfully ignorant residents of Haddonfield and stop them from waltzing right into the pointy end of Michael’s kitchen knife, which is where things get a little more interesting.
Protecting Haddonfield Instead of Just Escaping
In addition to the four player-controlled survivors, each match here is populated by NPC fodder just going about their lives without a care in the world. They’re the babysitters nattering away on landlines, the minimum wage staff closing up shops, the athletes pumping iron in their garage-gyms, and the recluses who elect to spend Halloween night alone watching scary movies in the dark.
From Michael’s perspective, these sitting ducks won’t put up much of a fight and, when it comes to selecting his targets, he’s not going to discriminate between them and the wilier players who are likely to give him hassle. So, it’s your responsibility to increase the herd’s chances of survival and prepare everyone for what’s coming.
Doing so will require you to take on the mantle of de facto town crier and go from house to house alerting these oblivious members of the public to the terrible evil that is heading their way. Pending a successful QTE minigame, which determines how cogent your warnings are, they should eventually accept the dire situation, at which point they’ll put their fates entirely in your hands.
From there, you’ll be able to boss the NPCs around however you see fit. For instance, it might be prudent to arm them with weapons and have them join your immediate posse. Alternatively, you could urge them to call the police and help amplify your message, instruct them to secure their homes and wait until the cavalry arrives, or advise them to hide somewhere until you’ve managed to unlock an emergency exit.
On that note, getting everyone safely out of dodge is going to be your primary goal, and so you’ll need to hatch some kind of escape plan, be it unlocking a storm shelter, prising open a padlocked gate or repairing a getaway vehicle. Veterans of Killer Klowns and Friday the 13th: The Game will immediately recognize what’s being asked of them here and ought to be familiar with many of the basic steps involved.
Like in those games, it’s on civilians to agree upon a mutual extraction strategy, to scavenge for the requisite items needed to facilitate it, to nail the skill checks associated with said objects, and to slip away before the killer notices anything is awry. Even the specific interactions you’ll be performing are liable to induce a sense of déjà vu, with you filling up car gas tanks and replacing fuses to power up doors. It’s all stuff you’ve done a million times before, and it doesn’t take very long to get back into the swing of it.
Where it’s complicated somewhat in this instance, though, is that you’ve got to juggle these maintenance tasks with escorting the NPC lemmings to safety. Because even if every player-controlled character manages to elude Michael’s clutches, it won’t matter if he’s still able to slaughter the rest of the neighborhood unimpeded. As long as more corpses are tallied during the end-of-match census than living, breathing people, he still wins.
It’s a smart twist on the asymmetrical premise that fundamentally changes how you approach civilian gameplay. After all, you could have an easy getaway opportunity staring you right in the face but, if no fellow citizens are making it out with you, then it’s going to be a hollow victory. You’ll only find yourself spectating afterwards as your more diligent companions try to pick up the slack (or worse, as Michael takes out defenseless bots without any resistance).
Should you fall in the line of duty, on the other hand, your rescue efforts aren’t necessarily going to be in vain, and you can still be invested in witnessing the outcome of the match. Indeed, it can be kind of thrilling to hang around after death and watch rounds unfold from beyond the grave; curious to know if your contributions will posthumously cinch it for the good guys.
In short, Halloween: The Game is more of a team game than your typical asymmetrical horror, with you being incentivized to actually play the objective for once. There’s a true endorphin rush, as well as a generous XP allowance, that comes whenever you aid a large group in escaping. Meanwhile, you’ll be rewarded vanishingly little for hightailing it out of the danger zone early on and leaving everyone else to fend for themselves.
Becoming the Boogeyman
Incorporating this PvPvE system is perhaps the shrewdest decision IllFonic made here, as it allows them to organically encourage behavior that is conducive to better, livelier matches for everybody. Civilians, for example, have to constantly put themselves in peril and can’t just cower from the sidelines. Likewise, it’s not advantageous for the killer to incessantly grief his opponents, and he has to give them a break every now and then to go pick off a few NPCs. It helps ensure that the cat-and-mouse dynamic has a natural ebb and flow.
On the topic of Myers and his nefarious goals, the developers give you ample chance to learn the ropes of his playstyle via a 2-hour story campaign. It’s technically an optional part of the package, but you are prompted to do it upon loading for the very first time, and it’s recommended as the ideal test environment to get up to speed with all the various mechanics before you then graduate to public matches.
Functioning as a blend of prequel for, retelling of, and eventual epilogue to Carpenter’s film, this solo mode charts Michael’s transformation from anonymous mental patient, whose face is slyly obscured by camera blur, to inhuman shape. It does this over the course of six missions, with each nudging you closer to the events of the game’s centerpiece multiplayer.
Its propulsive opening has you busting out of the asylum — snapping the necks of unwitting orderlies as you go — before then taking you to the outskirts of Haddonfield, where you can get some practice stabs in and eventually procure Michael’s iconic coveralls and mask. From there, we then segue into the narrative beats of Halloween proper, experiencing them afresh from the antagonist’s standpoint.
There are inevitably some great fan service moments to be appreciated along the way, and we’re reticent to spoil any of those. Suffice it to say, you’re often at the scene of the crime and get to enact atrocities that we’re only implied to have happened off-screen in the OG movie.
Not to mention, there are meticulous recreations of famous scenes to admire, with the developers nailing shot compositions, character animations, musical stings and the textured feel of Dean Cundy’s cinematography. One bit, wherein the camera suddenly switches to a different POV, is an especially cool tribute to the original, and a nice surprise that Carpenter devotees will be pleased to discover for themselves.
A Campaign That Doubles as a Tutorial
Aside from offering a new perspective on the classic story, Halloween’s campaign mainly serves as a quasi-tutorial to better acquaint you with the boogeyman’s skillset. Those craving a meatier single-player experience might be disappointed to learn that it amounts to little more than a training ground for the multiplayer headline attraction. Yet this can still be enjoyed on its own terms, as you do get a more controlled and directed scenario than you would in a standard public match.
Owing to an ingenious conceit that has Michael gradually recovering from the effects of a Thorazine injection, administered to him at Smith’s Grove, the mechanics are introduced to you one at a time. As such, you get a dedicated period to experiment with each of them, figuring out their various uses and limitations, so that you can learn to slice and dice with the utmost precision.
Of these unique abilities, the one that you’ll come to rely on most is “Shape Jump”. A traversal power that allows you to literally disappear into the shadows (as long as you’re not in an illuminated area or somebody’s line of sight), this has you shifting into a kind of spectral wraith form that can move faster, remain completely invisible, and even phase through locked doors. It’s a clever in-universe explanation for Michael’s ability to seemingly teleport at will, and also compensates for the fact that the best he can otherwise muster is an unhurried stride at roughly the same pace of continental drift. You’ll be using it all the time to get from A to B, to keep up with fleeing victims and to orchestrate your own devious jump scares.
In addition to this, there’s “Detection Pulse” (a radial ping that highlights people in the immediate vicinity), “Blackout” (a kind of EMP that interferes with light sources and disables other nearby electronics), and “Killer Sense”. The latter is another absolutely vital ability that you’ll want to get to grips with as soon as possible. In a nutshell, it takes you into a first-person view and enables the “stalking” of targets from afar. Maintaining this creepy glare for long enough will build up a meter that, in turn, sees the object of your surveillance getting progressively easier to locate, more susceptible to ambushes, and vulnerable to incoming attacks.
Again, as with “Shape Jump”, it’s an elegant feature that makes you feel like you’re truly embodying the calm, patient adversary that lurked in the background of Carpenter’s frame. You know, as opposed to just some random blunt-force slasher.
Elsewhere, the story mode also gives you a comprehensive rundown of other important mechanics like executions, body disposals, and the game’s escalation system (which can bring heat down on Michael if he’s not suitably discreet). As you can probably tell, there’s an awful lot to wrap your head around, and this review isn’t the appropriate place to cover it all.
The point is that the tutorial does an excellent job of conveying all this information in digestible chunks, making you feel adequately prepared for your big debut online. In fact, we found ourselves wishing that there was an equivalent dress rehearsal for the civilian side of things. As it stands, you’re just thrown into the deep end when you cluelessly step into that survivor role for the first time, leading to all sorts of confusion and frustration arising amongst newbie teammates.
Playing as The Shape is a Satisfying Dream
The addition of extra objectives — similar to those featured in this year’s 007 First Light — gives you an excuse to play through the game’s story multiple times as well, so that you can explore all the different possibilities for terrorizing Haddonfield.
Some of these optional feats will have you coming back to unlock hidden kill animations, while others might challenge you to get through sections undetected or to fastidiously reenact scenes exactly as they occurred in the 1978 flick, rewarding both your cinephile knowledge and your stealth capabilities. For what it’s worth, it makes the campaign seem more like a collection of mini-sandboxes and less like a dry onboarding exercise for the multiplayer component. With that said, we certainly intend to revisit it at a later date and see what else we missed.
Of course, the solo campaign is only meant to be an appetizer for the main course that is Halloween’s online matchmaking. That’s where IllFonic expects you to put the real hours in, and we’re glad to report that it should be well worth your time once the kinks are ironed out (more on that in a moment).
Playing as Michael is every bit the intoxicating power trip you dream it will be. You feel like a legitimately menacing presence whenever you come face to face with another player, and sadistically toying with the NPCs is as enjoyable as in any traditional open-world title.
Staging your own little horror vignettes by exploiting all the game’s systems is an improvisational joy too. If you’re anything like us, you’ll squeal with uncontainable glee (make sure to turn off that proximity chat in such an eventuality) as you build anticipation for the kill: first cutting the power, then dispassionately watching your mark through a blackened window, leisurely pacing around the house, and finally closing the gap on them as they dial 911 in a flustered panic.
On one occasion, we used Shape Jump to startle another player with a jolt so well-choreographed that an outside observer might assume it was scripted. Relishing our victim’s subsequent freak out, we then decided to let them go so that we could savor the chase a while longer. Don’t judge us, it’d be out of character for Mikey to simply get the bloodshed over and done with!
On that note, we really appreciated how differently the shape is portrayed when compared to his most obvious IllFonic counterpart: Jason Voorhees. While the latter was an impulsive wrecking ball fuelled by white-hot rage, the developers understand that Michael requires a more measured and intentional approach. He’s not merely Jason with the hockey mask swapped out for a William Shatner cosplay. He’s more deliberate than that. His playstyle is all about biding your time, drawing out the hunt, silently loitering in the distance, and the illicit thrill of breathing down your victim’s neck without them ever knowing you were there.
Just because he’s a more sophisticated slasher doesn’t mean that there’s no room for Grand Guignol violence, though. On the contrary, there’s excessive brutality to dish out, with some kills that are tied to specific weapons and others that are more context-dependent. We’ve drowned people in toilets, throttled them with phone cords, pressed their faces up against kitchen stoves, dropped jack-lifted vehicles on their heads, and roasted them alive on cozy fireplaces. All in the name of good clean fun.
Killer Tokens Solve a Familiar Multiplayer Problem
We’ve been on the receiving end of our fair share of barbarism as well, getting humbled whenever it’s our turn to adopt the role of prey. Speaking of which, these asymmetrical titles can only run smoothly if people are willing to pay their dues as survivors.
To encourage this in Halloween: The Game, IllFonic has introduced a novel “Killer Tokens” system. In short, Killer Tokens are a resource that can be spent to advance in matchmaking queues whenever you’re itching to play as Michael. Think of them sort of like theme park fast passes, only instead of skipping the line for The Haunted Mansion, you’re skipping the line to commit murder.
The catch is that, in order to accrue this currency in the first place, you must complete several matches as a civilian; thereby guaranteeing that there’s a reasonable rotation of people taking on both roles at any given time. It’s a savvy concept that should hopefully prevent unsportsmanlike conduct from occurring (after all, it would always suck when cry-babies left the lobby in F13 as soon as they realized they weren’t gonna be Jason).
Honestly, we don’t predict that’ll be too much of an issue here, given that survivor gameplay is exhilarating in its own right. In our short time with the game, we’ve had many unbearably narrow escapes, nail-biting stealth situations, and desperate, scrappy showdowns after becoming the effective final girl of the match.
Yet the encounters that linger in our mind most are the quieter ones. There’s nothing comparable in Dead by Daylight or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to the eerie sensation you get here when you’re quivering under a streetlamp, tormented by the knowledge that Michael is hiding somewhere nearby and watching you. There’s utter silence, save for the sound of raspy, muffled breathing that you can’t quite pinpoint. It’s enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
In emergent moments like these, Halloween: The Game conjures a subtle creepiness that you don’t get from the more chaotic asymmetrical horror releases on the market. It’s befitting of the source material.
Buggy Tricks Among the Treats
When firing on all cylinders, then, Halloween: The Game is an addictive blast and one of the most promising Dead by Daylight rivals we’ve had in quite some time. Alas, attentive readers may have noticed a rather big qualifier in that last sentence that is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
You see, Halloween is rarely “firing on all cylinders”. If we were to be uncharitable, we’d query if half its cylinders have even been installed yet! Plagued by softlocks, hardlocks and all manner of infuriating bugs that can unduly influence the outcome of matches, it’s an experience that invites unfavourable comparisons to the turbulent launch of Friday the 13th: The Game.
Rarely can the whole lobby get through a game without hitting some kind of snag. Visual blips like teenage characters who appear to have been stricken with premature baldness, residents gliding vampirically around as they perform domestic chores, and items hovering several feet in front of their respective users are forgivable while the title is still in its infancy. However, that same grace period won’t apply to the other malfunctions that impact play here in more direct and tangible ways.
Survivors getting stuck in looping animations is a rather common occurrence for a start. Almost as common as them getting caught in walls and beneath the map itself! They similarly have a bizarre tendency to start channeling Gabriel from Malignant and will insist on running backwards in a way that leaves them unable to interact with any objects that aren’t accessible from a 360-degree plane. Worse still, we’ve had instances where we haven’t been able to move at all (either in the conventional or reverse directions) and resorted to feebly propelling ourselves forward using the shove attack.
If it sounds like these glitches will give the Michael player the upper hand, rest assured that they don’t emerge unscathed either. One time we successfully opened every escape route and rescued all NPCs as a civilian (feeling pretty good about ourselves) only to discover that said flawless victory was achieved by our opponent having spawned in without any of their basic abilities working.
It cannot be overstated how regular these occurrences are. Bots become totally unresponsive, perk cards don’t activate when they’re supposed to, and gun wielders will suddenly become conscientious objectors and refuse to fire at the kill-crazed psychopath barrelling right towards them. Perhaps the idea is that they’re supposed to be paralyzed with fear, but somehow we doubt that’s the intention.
The jankiness even spreads to the game’s single player mode, where characters often don’t follow through on their scripted behaviors, rendering it impossible for you to complete all the optional challenges. In what felt like a philosophical question worthy of Plutarch, we found ourselves wondering aloud: “How can one kill Annie Brackett in the car if she never gets into the cockadoodie car to begin with?”
Admittedly, the developers have supplied a long list of fixes set to be implemented in a day-one patch that wasn’t available to us reviewers. But unless that download file is going to be the equivalent size of Microsoft Flight Simulator, it’s not going to have Halloween: The Game in anything close to resembling a finished state.
Final Verdict: Incredible Potential In Need of Polish
That gets to the heart of the problem: this is just not a product that’s ready to ship. Were it in a more reliable condition, we’d be complaining about balancing niggles that could do with tweaking and the fact that you can’t customize your loadout while waiting for lobbies to populate. Yet those feel like such small-fry issues when viewed in light of the essential maintenance this fundamentally needs in order to become a working game.
Releasing in early September, the title is pre-empting its namesake holiday by well over a month, and you have to wonder if maybe that launch could have been delayed a tad. Granted, a few more weeks of QA testing wouldn’t be enough to catch and address every technical hiccup, but it’d make some difference.
Teething issues can be excused with online titles like this. Yet, to put it bluntly, if Halloween doesn’t get its act together soon, we fear it could end up going the same way as many forgotten asymmetrical releases that have been abandoned in the past.
That would be a crying shame, because this one has real potential. When we could get a stable match running, it’s some of the most fun we’ve had all year, and we genuinely believe that it has the makings of a hit. The ideas are strong, it understands its source material, and it’s perfectly calibrated to generate those memorable watercooler moments that will have you geeking out with friends.
However, we can’t in good conscience overlook serious issues that are dampening our enthusiasm for it right now. Let’s hope they can sort it all out in time for October, because we’re rooting for this to be the definitive game of the Fall.
Review code provided by publisher. Halloween: The Game releases digitally on September 8 for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store. A physical version will launch for the PS5 and Xbox Series next month on October 6.
