The first sign that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is committed above all else to channeling the spirit of Tobe Hooper’s landmark horror film is the spelling of the titular weapon. Start the game and you’ll be treated to narration over scrolling text reminiscent of the 1974 film’s opening, and from there it’s time to choose to play as either a member of the cannibalistic Sawyer family or one of their teenage prey. Each match takes place in one of three locations pivotal to the film, including a loving recreation of the horrifying Sawyer residence, where the teens must work together to evade and escape the family, lest they become dinner.
Most asymmetrical horror titles tend to cast only one player in the villain role, either as a slasher archetype (Friday the 13th: The Game, Dead by Daylight) or as a single antagonist controlling numerous enemies (Evil Dead: The Game, Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed). But The Texas Chain Saw Massacre pits three of five Sawyer family members against four of five hapless teens, offering a reasonably fresh take on gameplay that demands successful teamwork.
Each enemy has unique abilities based on their on-screen persona, like the Hitchhiker being able to trap his victims. The teenagers also have abilities that are in sync with their personality types, from the jocky Leland capable of body slamming a family member to the saavy Connie being able to quickly pick locks. And both sides have objectives. The teenagers begin locked in a basement, stalked by the lumbering Leatherface, and must find their way topside, where other members of the Sawyer clan join the hunt for them as they desperately scramble for an exit.
If you’re playing as one of the teenagers, the path to victory is through escape, as the vicious and very hungry Sawyers cannot be killed. On the other side, playing as the family involves hunting down the four teens while also performing a series of secondary tasks. Those include running generators that keep electric fences running and feeding blood to patriarch Grandpa Sawyer, who “powers up” across a round of gameplay, thus allowing the murderers to see where any survivors are on the map via a temporary, routine ping similar to a motion detector.
That latter bit is the biggest departure from the source material, as the ancient Grandpa Sawyer of the original film can barely swing a hammer, and most definitely doesn’t have sharable psychic abilities. But it certainly adds tension to the proceedings as the victims are given a short alert to the ping system being triggered and must use wit and stealth to avoid detection. Similarly, if you’re playing as one of the teens, an on-screen prompt appears when one of the family members is nearby, which builds dread alongside a soundtrack that changes depending on what the players are doing, effectively scoring the horror film that players are taking part in.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s most significant departure from the established asymmetrical game format is that the gameplay is very much unbalanced against the victim side. Even when they’re outnumbered, the members of the family are all-powerful. Most team-based multiplayer games strive for balance, with heavy patching attempting to keep any side or class from completely dominating the others. Not so here, with the odds very much against the teens, and the game is better for it. Not only is this accurate to the source material (few make it out alive in this franchise), but it constitutes a surprisingly compelling direction for the genre.
Playing as the victims is tense and unnerving throughout, and given that the act of escape can be a genuine struggle, this Texas Chain Saw Massacre feels much closer to a survival horror game than your average asymmetrical title, where the game elements and subsequent strategies get in the way of the raw experience. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre utilizes this lack of balance to make a more potent experience, and one hopes that updates will not change this dynamic.
The game, at present, isn’t without its issues, such as framerate stuttering and network dropouts, all of which will hopefully be addressed in future updates. Something, though, that isn’t likely to be addressed is the lack of variety, as there are only three maps—the Sawyer residence, the slaughterhouse, and the derelict gas station—each with a day/night variant. But don’t expect locations from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, like the abandoned carnival ground and radio station, to be added, as the makers of the game only have interactive rights to the original film. At least in terms of content, this Texas Chain Saw Massacre proves that, even as it pays rock-solid tribute to a film classic, fidelity has its limitations.
This game was reviewed with code provided by Evolve PR.
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