I watch Halloween movies every October with my brother and have done so for ages, so it was a no-brainer that I’d check out the upcoming Halloween game at PAX East. I’ve played a couple of these asymmetrical horror multiplayer games, like Friday the 13th: The Game and Evil Dead: The Game, but they’ve never been my go-tos. Michael Myers seems like the perfect fit for this sort of game, though, so I was pretty stoked to play as him at the demo station. The fact that a giant replica of the Strode house from the original movie stood in the middle of the showfloor’s Halloween area was a nice touch and certainly set the mood for my session.
As is often the case with asymmetrical multiplayer titles, one person is the slow and all-powerful killer while the rest are the quicker but more fragile survivors. I was dropped into Haddonfield as Michael, while several other players in the demo area were the survivors. Admittedly, I found it a little bit difficult to find survivors in the Haddonfield suburb, as the houses blended together a bit due to how accurately they adapt the ‘70s-style suburban layout. That being said, I was also just learning how to play and in the middle of a busy, highly distracting expo, so I’m not willing to fault the game too much for that at the moment.
Credit: Illfonic
The experience of playing Halloween as Michael is both exciting and chilling, as you can stalk players and NPCs just like he does in the films. Slashing at panicking citizens and grabbing them in the dark is hauntingly fun and truly gets at the essence of being a movie slasher villain. Even though survivors can hit you, you feel pretty invincible and monstrous as you wander the streets and houses to hunt down prey.
The coolest thing about Halloween has got to be Michael’s main method of mobility – an ability that allows Michael to become a mostly formless shape (fitting of his nickname, The Shape) that can quickly scoot around invisibly and reappear in dark areas and out of survivors’ sights. I think this is an incredibly cool way to tie the meta way that Michael always magically appears in the scariest place possible into the gameplay itself, as this allows him to be extra mobile while also feeling totally in line with the films themselves. Plus, it’s hard to picture Michael running while still looking imposing, so this solves that potential image problem, too.
Credit: Illfonic
Halloween sports some absolutely brutal kills.
As you’d hope for from a horror franchise-based game, the kills in Halloween are fantastically gruesome. As Michael, you can methodically and coldly cut people to shreds in gory and nasty ways, and I saw a wide variety of kills throughout my demo session – including some gnarly environmental ones. I’m sure I only saw a fraction of the available ones in my 15-or-so minutes with the game, especially since I wasn’t quite good enough to kill all the survivors. (I’m blaming it on expo-related performance anxiety rather than my own lack of ability).
Halloween is shape-ing (I’ll stop) up to be a violently accurate game adaptation of one of horror cinema’s most enduring series. It certainly appears to be going the extra mile to nail the look and tone of the original film, and playing as Michael feels exactly like it should. It’s set to release on September 8 for the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, and I’d say to keep a close eye on it if you’re equally fond of Michael Myers.
