Sound design is sometimes overlooked during the development of a video game, but for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, developer Gun Interactive is focusing on making Leatherface’s favorite human gardening tool sound as authentic as possible.
The studio managed to locate three of the same make and model chainsaws used by Leatherface in the 1974 film, and according to game director Wes Keltner, spent around six months sourcing parts and rebuilding the tools into screen-accurate murder machines. The next step to capturing the sound involved firing up the chainsaw in the right environment, as the team spent time in the “blistering heat” capturing audio and perfecting their movements while using the tool.
“Yes we could have gotten a modern chainsaw, but that’s not the correct chainsaw,” Keltner said in the video below. “It doesn’t have the same sound profile. To us, we think that matters.”