Halloween: The Game

Halloween was basically my introduction to horror movies. I was a teenager when I first started watching them and Michael Myers was one of the characters that got me hooked on the genre in the first place. There was something different about him compared with a lot of horror villains. He was not constantly talking or trying to be funny. Most of the time he was just standing somewhere he absolutely should not be standing and staring at somebody. So I had one main thing I wanted from this game: make me feel like I am inside that original movie. It does. Haddonfield is easily my favorite part of the whole package. The houses, streets, lighting, Halloween decorations, and little 1978 details all feel like IllFonic actually cared about recreating the place instead of throwing Michael Myers into a generic multiplayer map. The soundtrack and sound design take that even further. Hearing those familiar musical cues while somebody is walking around a house looking for Michael works on me every time because so much of Halloween's identity has always come from what you hear before anything actually happens. Playing Michael is probably where the game feels most natural. He is not supposed to sprint around like some cracked-out multiplayer killer chasing people in circles. The fun is stalking somebody, using darkness, disappearing from view, and making the other players nervous because they know you are somewhere nearby. There are still plenty of moments where normal multiplayer nonsense takes over and suddenly Michael Myers is involved in something that looks considerably less intimidating than the movie, but when the game slows down and lets him actually stalk people it can be really good. I also like what they did with Haddonfield's NPC residents. Survivors are not just repairing five identical machines while Michael chases them. You are warning families, finding ways to defend yourself, trying to contact the police, and helping people escape. Having normal residents wandering around gives the town more life and fits Halloween much better than four players existing in an empty arena waiting to be murdered. Of course, four actual players trying to coordinate any of this can turn serious horror into complete stupidity pretty quickly. That is part of the fun too. The biggest problem right now is that it clearly needed more time before launch. There are bugs. A lot of them. Animations break. NPC behavior gets weird. Matches can have networking problems. Crashes have already been common enough that IllFonic started pushing hotfixes during the early-access period. Performance seems to vary quite a bit depending on where you are playing. Balance needs work as well. Michael can feel terrifying in one match and strangely ineffective in another depending on the group and what everybody understands about the systems. Survivors have enough tools that experienced teams can make his life considerably harder than I think the fantasy really intends. I am not somebody who needs asymmetrical horror games balanced like an esport, but matches still need to feel fair enough that both sides are enjoying themselves. Then there is the single-player mode. I was actually really excited that this existed because the idea of playing through the events surrounding the original Halloween from Michael's perspective sounds awesome. There are some great moments in it and plenty of fan service, but it is much closer to an extended introduction to Michael than a full standalone horror game. You can get through it in a couple hours. For somebody like me who has a strong connection to the movies, I wanted more. A proper ten-hour single-player Halloween game where you slowly stalk your way through Haddonfield could have been incredible. That is just not what this is. The multiplayer is the actual game and the campaign is something cool sitting beside it. At $39.99, I am more forgiving of that than I would be at seventy bucks. There are four multiplayer maps, multiple civilians, progression systems, cosmetics, different ways to build survivors, and enough variety that I can see myself coming back regularly if IllFonic keeps supporting it. I also know my attachment to Halloween is helping here. If this exact game had completely original characters and some random masked killer called Steve, I probably would not be nearly as interested in dealing with the bugs. But it isn't Steve. It is Michael Myers walking through Haddonfield while that music starts playing, and unfortunately that works extremely well on me. There is a genuinely good asymmetrical horror game hiding inside this launch version. IllFonic just needs to clean it up before the technical problems and balance frustrations chase away the audience the same way we have watched happen to other licensed horror multiplayer games. As a Halloween fan, I am having enough fun that I want this one to survive. More importantly, it actually feels like the people who made it understand why Halloween became special in the first place.