REVIEW: ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ Is A Horror Love Letter (XSX)

Asymmetrical horror games are a trend that has quickly turned into a genre, and GUN are the developers who kicked it all off with Friday The 13th: The Game. Now, the horror game developer is back with another take on horror classics, this time digging deep into Texas and the iconic IP at the same time. The game’s art and rendering of the Texas landscape is the state I know and love, and the attention to detail when adapting the very first slasher is unmatched. For your part in the game, you take on the role of one of the Slaughter family or their victims. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a third-person, asymmetrical horror experience based on the iconic 1974 horror film, known for kickstarting the slasher genre from GUN and Sumo Digital Ltd.

As a victim, you must use your wits and stealth to stay out of the Family’s reach and find the tools you need to lead to your eventual freedom. But the real fun is as a member of the Slaughter Family. As one of them, players must seek out, track down, and stop their guests from escaping.

The best element of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the way that the asymmetrical teams are balanced against one another with counteracting powers and physical barriers. Balance is important to make sure that a game can be played and replayed with a five versus three set-up instead of a one versus many. With only a two-person difference between the teams and the victims beginning to get injured, it’s easy to think that the Slaughter family has the upper hand. However, they are human—even if Grandpa definitely has something a little spooky going on.

While you are inhumanly strong and able to cut through barbed wire barriers as Leather Face, playing as the other members of the family, you’re limited by the house itself and their own bodies when it comes to following Victims through crawlspaces and more. Because the Family is limited by their bodies and attributes, this allows the victims a chance to get away and explore the house for meds and weapons with at least a small amount of ease. That said, with that ease, you can be lulled into a false sense of safety as the victim only to hit hanging bones or make too much noise, alerting the Family of your whereabouts immediately.

The main objective for the Family is to secure the property to keep the Victims inside and take them out one by one. Each Family member has an Ability that allows you to find victims easier and keep them from escaping. Similar to the Star Sign abilities that the Victims have, the abilities that each member of the Family has fit their archetypes as horror villains.

The Cook’s ability is Seek, which allows him to seek out victims’ locations and see when they interact with objects that generate sound. As a bonus ability, the Cook has locks that allow him to shut crawl spaces and doors to keep victims from escaping. The Cook is a fine support class if you can communicate effectively and learn the house. If you’re bad with directions and learning maps, the Cook’s abilities are a little wasted—I’m speaking from experience.

Sissy brings her flower child cult aesthetic and background with Bane, an ability that allows her to craft potions to use to her advantage, directly incapacitating Victims or setting traps by infecting objects that you know Victims will interact with. As for her bonus ability, Sissy is agile, allowing her to hide and take advantage of the house’s tight hallways and gaps. Sissy is the best example of how GUN utilizes characters’ sizes in how they traverse the map stalking their prey. Akin to Sissy, the Hitchhiker also has an agility bonus ability that allows him to chase Victims through crawlspaces. But it’s his main ability Trap that offers the most fun for those who get to play him.

Finally, you have Johnny and Leatherface, both of who have Hunt as their main ability. While Johnny’s Hunt allows him to track victims through their footsteps, Leatherface’s ability allows him to rip and tear through his victims. As for their individual special abilities, Johnny can concuss Victims, destroy doors, and close off crawl spaces, creating funnels for others in the Family if communication is just right. As for Leatherface, he can destroy barriers, doors, and more allowing him to barrel toward his prey with impunity. But the one extra non-playable member of the Family that offers a fantastic added objective is Grandpa. Feed Grandpa blood to awaken a special surprise and get a pretty unbeatable edge in the match.

As for the Victims, each one has varying levels of Toughness a trait that dictates a character’s fortitude; Endurance doesn’t just increase your stamina but also increases how quickly you get it back; Strength determines your ability to go up against the Family in close encounters; Proficiency allows you to do tasks like locks to varying success and speed; and Stealth impacts how much noise you generate and ability to complete tasks silently. Additionally, each victim has a Star Sign,which functions like the Abilities that the Family have.

Connie has a Focused Ability that allows her to pick a lock much faster than other characters, trading off stamina and her Family proximity warnings (elements that tell you how close the Family is to you) in order to lock pick without an unlock tool. While the cost is steep, it can be the pivotal moment in escaping and being trapped. For his part, Sonny has a Heightened Sense that allows his situational awareness to increase and detect noises of anyone nearby. When used effectively, a player, playing as Sonny, can help the Victim team avoid any paths where the Family is waiting.

But while those two Star Signs are fun, the final three are the most interesting. Leland has a Life Saver ability that takes advantage of his jock build to chard a family member and stun them. The most adept in close encounters, Leland can interrupt animations happening when someone on your team is captured in an encounter, saving their life. While Leland is fight, Julie is flight. Julie’s Ultimate Escape Star Sign allows her to get reduced stamina while sprinting, which comes in handy especially when up against the slower members of the Family like the Cook.

And then you have my favorite, Ana Flores. In our interview with Creative Director Ronnie Hobbs, he shared that Ana was inspired by the stories he and the team heard in Mexican American communities across South Texas. To that effect, Ana’s Star Sign is Pain is Nothing. The leader of the Victims, Ana is the most fun I’ve had playing as a Victim. She is an absolute immovable force. As the title of her Star Sign implies, she takes significantly reduced damage from attacks, falls, and jumping out of windows.

As a team, the Victims have to work to traverse the map and escape by completing small tasks that can be sabotaged by the Family at any turn. Turn on the generator, open doors, and run. But while the simple tasks may be repetitive and the same as other games we’ve seen, the loving detail put into each map is astounding. Each map is a maze, layered with elements from the film arranged in such a way to keep you constantly on edge, one turn away from being lost. This moves from the house to the tunnels, and retracing your steps doesn’t always guarantee the grounding effect it would in other games. The claustrophobic maps somehow manage to feel endless at the same time, and it’s a testament to GUN’s dedication to bringing to life a piece of horror history and immersing you, the player, in the dread of just trying to survive.

I debated whether or not to include a large section of text detailing the character’s abilities, but the truth is, when you lay them all out, you can see the ways in which one ability on its own doesn’t make a win. Communication is central to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in a way that it wasn’t in many of the past horror IP asymmetrical on the market. This can be a fun addition if you have a group to run with, making for a fantastic party night, but at the same time, if you’re running solo and not the best at being on mic, for whatever reason you choose, success is difficult, to say the least.

As your Victim team dwindles, you can immediately feel the effects of being the last one. With all eyes and ears trained on your footsteps and pathways out of the house or on the farm, escape is nearly impossible. Four versus three is balanced in the beginning and becomes increasingly more difficult as the Victims succumb to their wounds or a chainsaw through the body.

But while the balancing between the sides in terms of abilities is well executed, the variance of objective and fun between the Victims and the Family is large. While some characters like Ana are fantastic to play, mainly because she is a tank for lack of a better word, being forced into stealth across three maps doesn’t allow for the kind of excitement and thrill you get from being a member of the Family. With only one game mode as well, once you’re in a groove with your team and with specific characters, it’s easy to grow frustrated when you play a Victim.

That said, I’m sure that some will chide the game because it doesn’t reinvent the wheel of the horror asymmetrically. And you know what? That’s fair. If that genre of game isn’t your sweet spot and you don’t have a love for the IP, then it’s better to let others enjoy the slaughter. However, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre deserves credit where it’s due, and their attention to balancing and pushing communication is a level that blows stands head and shoulders above others in the genre.

Unfortunately, for all of its fun the technical issues are fairly constant and more so than I experienced in the technical test. From substantial framerate drops during combat animations that deflate the tension of engagement. As a member of the Family, it’s most frustrating given that the stellar kill animations were often laggining. On top of that, the disconnects happened enough to cause frustration, especially when a match is just getting good. Of course, with a pretty stellar tech test under its belt, I’m hoping that the servers are ready for launch and beyond.

The is room for improvement to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. An expansion on game modes, server stability, and ensuring smooth gameplay are just a few of the ways to improve. That said, this is a game that carries a deep and intimate love of the IP on which it’s based that fans will feel both charmed, scared, and completely endeared by the choices made in character background, landscapes, map details, and the wealth of lore unlocked with the Slaughter Family themselves. There is longevity here, and the game has the runway to just keep getting better.

Truthfully, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a game that thrives on its dedication to not just replicating the Slaughter Family (which it does excellently) and planting easter eggs but on its goal to expand on it all. By using a unique storyline, the developers at GUN highlight the importance of honoring the source material and the necessity of making something unique from it. This allows the game to thrive and, in some ways, is a benefit from choosing a horror property from the 1970s. While there have been many iterations and sequels of the film in the decades since The Texas Chain Saw Massacre takes a unique place in the legacy of the franchise, there is no disputing that.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is available now with crossplay on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC.