The number of asymmetrical horror games has risen quickly over the last few years, with games such as Friday The 13th, Dead By Daylight, Evil Dead, and more giving players the chance to see the world through the eyes of both original monsters and licensed slashers–not to mention their hapless victims. No two of these games are the same, but Gun Interactive is one of a very small number of studios to work on a second, separate franchise within the genre. For the studio, moving from Friday The 13th’s misty Camp Crystal Lake to the cruel Texas heat of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is an undertaking that goes beyond setting and scenery.
While some lessons can be applied directly from one game to the other, a lot doesn’t translate so easily, despite their broad strokes being similar. GameSpot recently got to go hands-on with next year’s horror game and speak to the team about what it takes to bring this specific series to video games, what it’s like to become a go-to team for horror adaptations, and how they ensure players will appreciate playing as more than just the series’ mass-marketed monster.
Asymmetrical multiplayer and horror are like “chocolate and peanut butter,” Gun Interactive CEO Wes Keltner told me, but not until Friday The 13th: The Game launched in 2017 was there a game where “all mechanics and features were built around” a licensed horror IP. Naturally, this drummed up thoughts in my mind of Dead By Daylight’s way of retrofitting countless licensed monsters to its standard 4v1 setup and map layout. For Gun, to make a licensed horror game a second time demands something like a reinvention of the wheel for the team, because what worked there and then won’t necessarily work here and now. “With Friday The 13th, there’s one killer. With Texas Chain Saw, you’re dealing with a whole family.”