The development team at Gun Interactive is taking on another asymmetrical horror game with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. This isn't the first game of this style made by Gun Interactive, who also created Friday the 13th, so the team has experience with the genre, though whether or not the venerable franchise is as compelling in video game form as it is in film remains to be seen, as multiplayer horror takes a deft touch in order to be compelling enough to beat out the competition.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre will be an asymmetrical horror game, so it's a player-versus-player style with the teams being unequal in number. Each round in this game will have three players as members of the Sawyer family working against four players taking the roles of the victims. The trailer shows the team's commitment to authenticity, making The Texas Chain Saw Massacre game look terrifying, just like the movie.
Multiplayer horror games can be fun, but there are some flaws that tend to appear due to their design. Even when the setting is inspired by a classic horror film, the terror doesn't always translate into a gaming format, which could happen with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre if care isn't taken. The developers at Gun Interactive would do well to consider the criticism of other asymmetrical horror games while creating The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, in order to avoid the genre's common flaws and pitfalls that sometimes doom great franchise adaptations to obscurity.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Needs To Keep The Horror & Avoid Repetition
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is at risk of becoming repetitive, an issue that multiplayer horror games like Dead by Daylight have. There is a limit to how many variables can be changed in the game, so players might feel that things grow stale from repetition as they play. The multiplayer aspect also has a couple of potential drawbacks when it comes to what many people come to horror for in the first place: A PvP style requires the power of characters to be balanced, which can be tricky to accomplish in a way that allows them to feel unique as well, and there's always the risk of shortchanging the monster characters and making them less scary. Multiplayer horror games can also end up lacking in horror simply due to the fact that having other people around to help takes away from the fear of isolation. Being alone in adverse circumstances is far more frightening than having a squad to team up with. Some multiplayer horror games like Phasmophobia create an environment where splitting up is the best course of action, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre could follow a similar principle to keep the fires of its horror stoked. Alternatively, it could follow Dead by Daylight's style, where sometimes the best decision in the late game is simply to abandon players who aren't worth the trouble to save.
It can be difficult for developers to create a multiplayer horror game that is scary and avoids becoming repetitive. Asymmetrical horror games are still a fairly new concept in gaming generally, but it's been long enough for some common flaws among them to have become increasingly obvious. Since Gun Interactive has experience with the genre, however, it has a leg up on being able to recreate the feeling of the movie in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre - so long as the spirit of the terror can be translated to its gameplay.