Halloween: The Game Review — Death has come to your little town, Sheriff.

The first Halloween movie is one of my favorite films of all time. It’s safe to say the film made an impression on me, scaring the hell out of me as a kid and becoming an obsession as I got older, practically paving the way for me to become a horror-obsessed adult. As a horror-obsessed adult, I am also a huge fan of Dead by Daylight, Evil Dead: The Game, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre game, and other franchise-tie-in asymmetrical horror games, though I didn’t get the chance to play Friday the 13th before it shut down.

All of this is to say that I jumped at the chance to play Halloween: The Game, a new asymmetrical horror title starring one of the greatest slashers of all time, Michael Myers.

I think it should be obvious to anyone that Halloween: The Game is meant to be a multiplayer experience. There is historical precedent to tell us that the single-player experience in such a game isn’t going to be fantastic: any single-player content added to such a game is usually treated as a bonus, often used as a tutorial, and one that maybe only one in every three players will experience.

Because of this, I judged Halloween: The Game a little more leniently on some of its flaws and design choices, especially those that I think will only affect the single-player experience. Visual bugs, pacing issues, poor AI, and a shoddy campaign that, overall, felt like a glorified tutorial for the multiplayer experience, felt more like a fun, albeit imperfect, addition to the game than something I felt compelled to invest in. This made it all the easier to accept the occasional visual or rendering bug, and they were certainly there: the version I played had models or textures loading in late, leading to a few funny moments, such as Doctor Loomis rushing to call the police in nothing but his tighty-whities.

These bugs may or may not be present in the version of the game you play, and while they were noticeable, they honestly improved the experience more than they frustrated or annoyed me.

All that being said, yes, the single-player experience of Halloween: The Game isn’t perfect. The version I played, which may not reflect the launch version, had visual glitches (though it ran great), and the NPC AI was exceptionally bad, with survivors jumping out of windows to circle around and walk through a door directly into Michael. However, for what it was, it was surprisingly cinematic and served as a good introduction to the game’s mechanics.

Said mechanics offer an interesting interpretation of Michael Myers. In order to add some flavor to his gameplay beyond just walking toward people menacingly, Michael now has the ability to traverse quickly and move through doors when in the shadows. He can also activate EMP bursts that shut off lights, as well as use other abilities that, while not true to the character, definitely make the game much more fun, especially in a multiplayer setting.

The game then becomes a PvP battle where players attempt to escape, occasionally knocking Michael down and trying to alert the authorities, while the Michael player stalks and kills them, gaining bonus points for creeping on them with the stalking mechanics instead of just outright stabbing them. I wasn’t totally sure, to be honest, what benefits stalking gives you besides bonus points and access to more execution methods, but it was a fun mechanic, and overall I can say the multiplayer experience will probably be pretty fun.

Still, more effort could be put into the most exciting aspect of the game: executions. Each weapon has a few, including a glory kill if you fully stalk someone, but the variety in tools you can use and the executions you can get from them isn’t all that impressive, and they begin to loop pretty fast. That being said, what is there is pretty gory and cinematic, and I think players on both sides of the match will have fun executing or watching themselves get executed.

I can’t say the game offers much in long-term rewards, with many of the late-game unlocks being rather boring, or at least uninspired. Beyond unlocking new abilities, you mostly choose from different starting weapons for Michael as you progress through the levels. I can’t say the game’s progression system had anything that particularly inspired me to grind, so you really are playing for the gameplay, which isn’t a bad thing at all.

As fun as Halloween: The Game might be, I worry the game doesn’t have a promising future. Like all franchise-specific horror games, Halloween: The Game sort of backs itself into a corner when it comes to future content, something that a live-service game desperately needs to survive. While new original survivors can be added, there isn’t much the game can do to improve the killer experience, and interesting killer changes are what make the game fun for both sides. I worry the game will quickly face a problem where all it can release is new Michael Myers skins, or perhaps small abilities that mix up his gameplay a bit. While the latter does give the game a slight edge over others, it can still quickly fall into the trap of becoming stale when exciting material to pull from the franchise dries up, something that can happen with the relatively short Halloween franchise.

Overall, Halloween: The Game isn’t bad: It has its bugs, many of which I expect to be patched out soon, and doesn’t offer much in the way of progression, but it does offer an exciting and interesting take on the asymmetrical horror experience that has a bit more legroom than other single-franchise horror games. That being said, the single-player experience is nothing to write home about, and the game can easily fall into a trap when it comes to providing updates for its live-service run. All we can do for now is wait and see, though I wish the game the best.

Try Hard Guides was provided with a Steam code for this PC review of Halloween: The Game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Halloween: The Game is available on Steam, Epic Games, Xbox, and PlayStation.