Halloween: The Game is the latest asymmetric horror game from the combination of Illfonic and Gun. Lets be upfront here, this is a refined take on their previous Friday The 13th game (one which is sadly missed by myself). But this isn’t a bad thing. Oh no. The core gameplay loop has been refined and expanded upon. The graphics have been somewhat improved. And the gameplay? Well, lets see…
Halloween: the game?
Yes, Halloween as a videogame property may strike some as odd. Certainly, the original film is a slow, methodical exercise in scares and claustrophobic terror. It doesn’t feel like it would lend itself to an action oriented videogame. Yte, taking the Friday The 13th game as it’s basic blueprint, it translates really rather well. Yes, the violence and gore present in the game are more inline with the later franchise entries than Carpenters original, but that “suburban claustrophobia” is present and correct. The shadows feel oppressive. You find yourself looking to the edges of the games field of view to see if Michael is there (or if one of the victims is).
To play the game you have 2 choices: play as Michael and try to basically kill everyone. Or play as one of the “civilians” and try to escape or help others do so without being killed. You can be respawned into the game after being killed by Michael should you complete enough button mashing minigames and draw the right card. At this point you will re enter as either a police officer or Dr Loomis. This minigame adds a dynamic not found in the Friday The 13th Game, and serves to keep players engaged even after being killed.
Beyond that the biggest difference to Friday The 13th is that instead of just trying to escape yourself, you can lead NPCs to safety. Some of these are “important” characters who Michael is tasked with killing, others are just random civilians who are caught up in the nightmare. This does add a bit more depth to the core gameplay loop. And I like it. Mush as I loved the Friday The 13th Game, I did find the core loop very repetitive and simple. The help NPCs escape loop keeps things a touch more interesting.
Much of the core loop is the same though. Find items & weapons. Repair cars, use radios & telephones to call for help. Hide in various locations from Michael. It’s like slipping a familiar pair of shoes on.
Graphically, the game is pretty good. Yes, there are a few janky animations, and being an Unreal 5 game, performance is very spotty. On my PC I broke the character models at one point by being too aggressive with my resolution scaling for DLSS. Audio is excellent, with a lot of the films original music being used to great effect.
Summary:
Halloween: The Game is well worth your time. It has a solid gameplay loop, decent graphics, excellent sound, and manages to capture the atmosphere of the films really well indeed.
4.5/5
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