Halloween: The Game Review (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 & PC)

If you can hear the ominous stroke of an F# and the faint ruffling of twigs and leaves, then it’s likely that you have just invited John Carpenter’s Halloween into your home. Michael Myers is back, as is Gun Interactive—a studio that is, at least at this stage, a bit of an advocate for fostering the poster children of cult classic slasher flicks. Yesterday, it was Friday the 13th, followed by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. But today, the world pulsates to an institutionalized world—to the “personification of evil” and to an interlude of rubber and metal. IllFonic’s Halloween: The Game has finally arrived, and it is bringing out the best of an all-time favorite in an all-new asymmetrical horror slasher.

Halloween: The Game takes a lot of the same basic ingredients from the asymmetrical blood bag to carve out its own slice-of-death sandbox—a world in which players can either simulate the dreary-eyed persona of Michael Myers or fill the skittish shoes of a victim as both parties aim to either slaughter or to preserve order in the sleepy hollow of Haddonfield. However you choose to slice it (a kitchen knife works wonders here, surprisingly), IllFonic keeps ahold of a familiar heart and retains a format that is both tailorable and universally applicable. This bleak neighborhood just happens to harbor more rubber and cloth than, well, flesh suits.

Clearly, IllFonic aims push the proverbial boat out with Halloween, not with the intent of repurposing the existing PvPvE blueprint, but to add a fresh pinch of salt to an otherwise stale formula. Alongside its core multiplayer mode—a session in which you either don the mask and utilize various stalking abilities, or bulk out the boots of an in-over-their-head victim and embark on noble quests to prevent a bloody massacre—Halloween also features a couple of well-overdue modes. For example, we finally have a single-player campaign to sink our teeth into. That’s right, after several years of treading waters with light challenge-based sequences, we finally have a fully-fledged Story Mode. And yes, it does pay homage to the original movie.

Halloween’s Story Mode is broken down into six fully playable chapters, with each one having its own plot beats, cinematic sequences, original killings, and voiceovers. Framed by Dr. Loomis, players embark on a gruesome quest across Haddonfield as none other than Michael Myers, to stalk, slaughter, and effectively petrify the community, all whilst taking full advantage of various techniques, creative executions, and a palm-sized open-world environment that offers numerous synergies and otherworldly advantages. Granted, it’s a rather short campaign that doesn’t provide much more than a handful of meticulously crafted gore-soaked massacres, though it does service the fan base with some excellent material that harkens back to the John Carpenter era.

Of course, the heart of Halloween resides deep within its signature multiplayer mode. Like Friday the 13th, IllFonic’s take on the asymmetrical format comes with a classic 4v1 mode—a mode in which two factions allocate their roles, and then either collaborate in an effort to quell Michael Myers’ vigorous onslaught, or fill the sadistic boots of the all-star villain to stalk, manipulate, and ultimately eradicate the folks of Haddonfield. In any case, you could argue that it feels like a familiar piece of work that looks like Texas Chain Saw Massacre, as well as one that plays like it, too. Fortunately, though, there is a lot more to the underbelly of Haddonfield.

Unlike Texas Chain Saw Massacre (or just about any other asymmetrical horror, for that matter), Halloween opts to alter the rulebook ever so slightly. Say, rather than having you repair generators, secure industrial doors, or evade various traps en route to that ever-elusive escape point, Halloween gives you something that’s a little more hands-on. The victims, at least in this case, must converse with various NPCs around the neighborhood, secure weapons to fortify the streets, and collaborate with other characters to ensure that frequent police patrols are able to quell any looming threats. All in all it makes for a nice change of pace, even though its use of multi-genre gameplay elements doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel.

Paired with a rich 1970s aesthetic and a vibrant locale that captures the essence of an old-school slasher flick, Halloween finds a good place to cast its shadow. With some time-appropriate attire, vehicles, housing, and troves of fine details to flesh out its neighborhood and the surrounding areas, it certainly highlights the beauty of the original architecture. It also makes for a pleasant sandbox, too, given that it features numerous buildings to explore, characters to interact with, and a variety of missions to carve through.

As with any good old-fashioned asymmetrical horror, Halloween comes fully equipped with a dominant foe who is, while frustratingly tough to confront from a victim’s point of view, ridiculously fun to play as. With thanks to the in-game abilities—Shape Jump, for example—and several stalker-oriented skills to lean on, Michael Myers is, in all honesty, an excellent character to romp around as. While not as robust or as charismatic as a lot of old-school slasher villains, the masked sadist quite clearly bodes well in this field. And frankly, even filling the role of Michael is a great deal of fun. Because let’s face it, who doesn’t want to stand in the window during the eleventh hour and switch off the power at the worst possible moment?

Of course, Halloween does come with just as many bad-tasting treats as it does well-orchestrated tricks. As it currently stands, the game does suffer from the odd technical hiccup. An example here would be the save system; the campaign, for instance, often loses track of your progress, as does it fail to compliment your efforts with the usual achievements or trophies. In other areas, a graphical error can cause Michael to vanish into thin air, or the game to lock up altogether and prevent you from continuing your session. And that’s a shame, really, as most of the game is pretty airtight.

Halloween clearly has all of its cards in the right place, as does it have the potential to dethrone the likes of Dead by Daylight with its original take on the asymmetrical blueprint. Although it does currently harbor a handful of technical problems that sadly hinder your progress, the game itself is an absolute blast to play both online and offline via the campaign.

Verdict

Halloween: The Game proves that Gun Interactive is one of the select few publishers that can truly pull a cult classic slasher franchise out of the bag and give it that special candy-coated treatment. Thanks to its use of an original blueprint, a greater world, as well as a solid variety of mission elements, abilities, and minor 1970s influences, IllFonic delivers an all-round crowd pleaser that will definitely give fans of John Carpenter something to write home about.

Although it houses a few loose screws, Halloween is a real treat to play through. Even with a campaign that is significantly shorter than your average horror IP, its adoption of a broader mission structure and an open-world approach adds a lot to the overall experience. In time, there’s a good chance that it will dethrone its counterparts. But of course, only time will tell on that one.