{"id":13795,"date":"2026-09-05T02:04:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T23:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/?p=13795"},"modified":"2026-09-05T05:44:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T02:14:48","slug":"halloween-the-game-review-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/09\/05\/halloween-the-game-review-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"Halloween: The Game Review So Far"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Plenty of things are terrifying about a man in a boiler suit creeping up behind you, but it&#8217;s hard to be scared of Halloween: The Game&#8217;s Michael Myers when he strolls around the neighborhood with all the urgency of a retiree on a golf course. Admittedly, my early experience with the latest asymmetrical survival horror based on a famous movie came without the obligatory day one patch, so everything I\u2019ve seen so far comes with that giant, flashing caveat. But after several hours, my immediate reaction is that this just isn&#8217;t ready. I would <em>barely<\/em> think it\u2019s ready if it were labeled asan early access game, which it\u2019s not. Clumsy, buggy, and often frustrating, Halloween: The Game seems in need of considerable polish and bug squishing. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Developer Illfonic is, of course, almost synonymous with asymmetrical horror at this point, if not quite able to break the stranglehold Behaviour Interactive has with Dead by Daylight. In keeping with the traditions of the genre, you either play on your own as the killer, Michael Myers, and rampage through the town, or you work with up to three other humans and a handful of AI companions to loot items and keep yourself alive long enough to find, open, and escape the streets of Haddonfield on Halloween night in 1978. <\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">Halloween: The Game Gameplay Screenshots<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2896921488 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/halloween-the-game-review-so-far.gif\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"><span class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button button--primary jsx-3027214138 jsx-4266531355 row-pagination-button next contained centered round large\" data-cy=\"paginate next\" title=\"Open Slideshow\"><span class=\"ign-icon right-chevron jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"right-chevron\"><\/span><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Because of Illfonic&#8217;s back catalog, I came in with high expectations, and knowing Halloween creator John Carpenter was also involved sent them soaring even further. You&#8217;d think, with the best part of a decade&#8217;s learning and all that asym trial and error behind it, Halloween: The Game would be the most polished of all Illfonic&#8217;s games. But \u2014 so far at least \u2014 that just doesn&#8217;t seem to be the case.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Animations are broken or missing completely. I&#8217;ve had hard crashes that sent me back to my PS5 dash, averaging at least one an hour. Combat is beyond janky \u2014 several times now, I&#8217;ve stabbed a player and had my weapon phase right through them. Often the sound gets messed up, so when I open a door to my <em>left<\/em>, I hear it to my <em>right<\/em>, which is hugely irritating given sound is <em>vital<\/em> to a stealth horror game. And on two occasions, a quick time event bugged out and trapped me in a broken animation, giving Myers all the time in the world to step up right behind me. That was just as much fun and not-at-all-frustrating as it sounds.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">The NPC AI is also hysterically stupid. Once, playing as Myers, I (loudly) busted through a front door and found all three remaining NPCs in the same room, still standing at the same window. I had executed two before the remaining one decided it was time to make a run for it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"display-title jsx-684634384 jsx-2659527929 quote-container\" data-cy=\"quoteBox\">The NPC AI is hysterically stupid.<span class=\"stack jsx-2959124702 jsx-326843967\"><span>\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">It&#8217;s galling because there are some <em>excellent<\/em> ideas here. I had a great time with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre&#8217;s spin on asymmetrical horror back in 2023, but within <em>days<\/em> it was clear no one wanted to play as Leatherface because it was so much easier \u2014 and considerably more fun \u2014 to clock up XP and escape as a survivor. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">In Halloween: The Game, however, Illfonic seems to have really worked to balance the odds between killer and civilian, and Myers is a blast to play. Even though he never, ever runs, making it next to impossible to take out a player if they&#8217;ve seen you, his special abilities \u2014 snuffing out all the lights in the immediate area; jumping from shadow to shadow; detecting nearby players \u2014 help mitigate that deeply unsatisfactory walking speed, especially if you nail the timing. Plus, the execution mechanic is a neat shortcut if you manage to get close enough to\u2026 well, execute it. The death animations, if often out of sync, are brilliantly brutal, too, particularly if you manage to catch a civilian, by a window or next to an electric oven. (I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s more still to discover!)<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Best of all, this isn&#8217;t just four humans against one killer. As Myers, your job is to wipe the map clean of all survivors, human and NPC alike. As a civilian, you need to creep around the deliciously 70s-inspired maps \u2014 everything, from the cars to the decor to the rotary phones, is on point here, not to mention the fashion! \u2014 quietly warning NPCs and instructing them to either hide, follow you, or escape. <\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"poll-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<section class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\"><\/section>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">There are plenty of items to gather as you creep through residential homes, including offensive weapons, defensive tools, and a host of goodies to bolster the odds of getting out of there unscathed. You&#8217;ll never be able to take Myers out completely \u2014 just like the movies, this is a dude who does not know how to take the hint and die \u2014 but you can temporarily immobilize him with the right timing and the right equipment. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">That said, why do we have to sit and watch Myers finish killing off idiot NPCs if all the human players are already dead? You&#8217;re given QTEs when spectating \u2014 I hate them; there are too many, they&#8217;re too boring, and I <em>swear<\/em> there&#8217;s occasionally an input delay \u2014 but it&#8217;s so tedious, especially as the maps are pretty chunky and make hunting down one last survivor time-consuming. <\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"playlist-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<section class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401 user-list-embed\" data-cy=\"user-list-embed\">\n<div class=\"card jsx-2310533475 jsx-1355461925 box\">\n<section class=\"stack jsx-806034919 carousel-section jsx-282394234\" data-cy=\"carousel\"><span class=\"stack jsx-3647836811 jsx-1304765713\"><\/p>\n<h3 data-cy=\"title3\" class=\"title3 jsx-12333944 jsx-2321054750\">Vikki Blake&#8217;s Most Terrifying Horror Games Ever List<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"stack jsx-3647836811 jsx-2980091846\">See All<button class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button button--secondary jsx-3027214138 action-button contained centered large\" data-cy=\"more-actions-btn\" type=\"button\" title=\"More Actions\"><span class=\"ign-icon icon-ellipsis jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"icon-ellipsis\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">And it just doesn&#8217;t perform well. Even beyond the poor AI and broken QTEs, I experienced numerous crashes, rubberbanding, and framerate drops for no discernible reason. Characters sometimes walked three feet off the ground. Interacting with items is completely hit-or-miss \u2014 half the time you can pick stuff up or remove a chain with a bolt cutter; half the time you cannot. Oh, and sometimes you can open a door, step through it, lock it, and then find yourself back outside the front, unable to get back in. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Like I said, I need to play on the launch patch before finalizing my thoughts \u2014 but, generally speaking, a day one update is rarely a miracle fix for all of a review build\u2019s issues. Still, I&#8217;ll be back once I&#8217;ve spent some time on the live servers with both the single and multiplayer modes (so far the former has completely underwhelmed me \u2014 again, mostly due to idiotic NPCs). I&#8217;d also like to better understand how the card perk system works and experiment with all the civilians&#8217; passive abilities. For now, though, it&#8217;s difficult to recommend Halloween: The Game to anyone other than a horror fan with a Michael Myers shrine in their home (now that&#8217;s a scary thought) or those with deep, <em>deep<\/em> affection for asymmetrical games.<\/p>\n<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/halloween-the-game-review-so-far.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/halloween-the-game-review-so-far.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/halloween-the-game-review-so-far.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/halloween-the-game-review-so-far.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[51],"class_list":["post-13795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-49","tag-51"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13795"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13797,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13795\/revisions\/13797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}