Much like with Michael Myers himself, Halloween: The Game brings a beloved asymmetrical horror format back from an apparent demise. IllFonic and Gun Interactive previously developed and published Friday the 13th: The Game. Tragically, its life got cut short due to licensing issues. So now, the developers are hauling the horror to Haddonfield, with a few differences.
Game Name: Halloween: The Game
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Reviewed On: PlayStation 5
Developer: IllFonic
Publishers: IllFonic, Gun Interactive
Release Date: September 8, 2026 (Deluxe Edition: September 4, 2026)
Price: $39.99
Commendably, Halloween: The Game isn’t just a reskinned version of Friday the 13th: The Game—even if fans likely wouldn’t have minded. The new game leans into the unique nuances of the Halloween franchise. It focuses more on preventing a community rampage than on purely escaping a masked killer. It mostly works. And it adds a unique spin on asymmetrical horror that pivots away from survival. But in taking a big swing, its knife doesn’t always connect.
The Night Michael Came Home
First, a big and welcome addition to the formula comes in the form of a single-player campaign. Don’t get me wrong: Halloween: The Game doesn’t have a full-length campaign lasting hours and hours. “The Night He Came Home” is short and to the stabby point. But it simultaneously teaches players how to play as Michael and lets them vicariously live (and kill) through expanded events of the first film through his mask-hole eyes.
It may seem tempting to call the campaign a glorified tutorial. I think that would be a mistake. There’s a subtle genius to it. For people who skip a standard tutorial in favor of diving in, the campaign offers enough appeal on its own to make it worth playing. It’s a blood-red smoothie that gets you to imbibe your “how to play” veggies.
The prologue of the main campaign kicks off at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium on October 30th, 1978. Dr. Samuel Loomis narrates Michael’s escape as you play it out in real time. You stand near orderlies undetected to build up your stalk meter. Then you grab them and complete a short mini-game to kill them. On PS5, grabbing is mapped to L2 and killing to L1. It’s a little awkward unless you have your first two fingers on the two left triggers. But it works.
Shaping Up in Halloween: The Game
As you play through the other five chapters, you learn Michael’s other abilities. He can Shape Jump, allowing him to cover ground quickly if he’s not standing in a well lit area. As such, he also has the power to knock out the power—albeit for a brief time. Rounding things out is his bloodlust meter, which makes him more powerful, and a few other abilities that can close the gap or frighten prey. One of the most satisfying is Shape Stalk, putting him in first-person so he can observe victims from afar to increase his stalk meter. In matches, this creates scenarios in which civilian players glimpse Michael watching from the shadows, a gleefully eerie nod to the films.
In the campaign, as Michael tears hell towards Haddonfield, these abilities gradually come into play. Players may particularly enjoy the penultimate chapter, which adapts the events of the 1978 film by John Carpenter.
That said, I enjoyed the third chapter the most. This one introduces us to the original characters created for Halloween: The Game. And while their screentime (and lives) prove short, they make an impact. There’s a girl-next-door whose meet-cute goes south, a streetwise biker trying to get his granny to flee Haddonfield, and an athlete whose dad actually wants him to go enjoy a party. Surprisingly, I became drawn to these characters more than to the legacy ones, since the game assumes we already know their personalities from the 1978 film.
Solo Slashers and Helpful Heroes
The single-player campaign consists of the prologue and five chapters. Each one takes roughly ten minutes to complete. But they’re meant to be replayed. Each chapter has several challenges you can accomplish, such as killing or terrifying a certain number of people. You also get a score. Completing more challenges unlocks cosmetics which you can apply towards multiplayer matches.
So let’s talk about multiplayer, shall we? Each match consists of one player as Michael Myers and four players as four heroes. For Michael, the goal is simple: kill everyone. Use every ability practiced during the single-player mode to complete your objective. In building up your stalk meter, you can carry out more complex “context kills,” which are gnarlier and glean more points. For the other players, your goal proves a bit more complex. Yes, ideally you want to survive. But actually, you really want to save as many civilian NPCs as you can.
This is where Halloween: The Game stands apart from most asymmetrical horror titles. It’s a shame that it doesn’t have a campaign for the heroes, since arguably they have the more intricate gameplay. Interestingly, as a hero, you can actually score more points by saving civilians and dying than by escaping on your own. Once you realize this, it’s a fun spin on the genre. Halloween: The Game takes asymmetrical horror gameplay and makes it active (rescuing civilians) rather than passive (surviving).
The Neighborhood Watch
As such, there’s always something for players to do. As a hero, you run into the house of a neighbor and play a conversation mini-game. Once you complete it, you can convince that NPC to join you, hide, call the police, or escape—if an escape route has opened. As such, when you’re not warning NPCs, you’re actively looking for ways out, whether by unlocking storm shelters, fixing cars, or getting the police to bring a police wagon.
These are the main goals, but the devil is in the details, as they say. Each hero has strengths and weaknesses, such as being better at convincing NPCs or having more stamina. As any hero, you can call the police to increase their presence. You can also arm yourself or find weapons to give to NPCs. You can even hop on a bicycle to haul ass across town. Basically, you want to slow Michael’s rampage as much as you can.
Playing From Beyond the Grave
And if you die, death is not the end. Halloween: The Game has the nifty little addition of a button-pressing mini-game that grants perks to living players from beyond. And if a living player calls through on the CB Radio, you get to come back as Loomis, the good doctor himself. There’s also a chance to come back as a regular police officer too. These are nice ways to keep players who got knocked off invested in the game, more or less.
Still, it’s much more fun to actually play. Thankfully, by giving Michael an incentive to kill NPCs first, it does keep real players alive longer. And again, heroes get more points for saving NPCs, not for escaping. In one match, for example, the Michael player spent it chasing me around nonstop. He eventually got me, but in wasting all that time, the win went to me, since every civilian escaped while I gave Big Mike the run around.
On a side note, Halloween does have some glitches. I’m told most of these should be patched by release. And mostly they have to do with animations looking a little jank, which can prove charming. That said, one “glitch” I suspect may just be a design oversight is that if NPCs lock their doors after players warn them, they can’t be returned to once an escape route opens. There is one character who can pick locks, but if nobody plays as him, it can lock you out of a win. I’m hoping the developers figure out a workaround soon.
Michael vs. Jason
The main problem with Halloween’s multiplayer is that it doesn’t really lean into its multiplayer potential. As mentioned, heroes need to go door to door to warn NPCs and help them escape. There isn’t really an incentive to join up with other players, as splitting up means you can reach more NPCs.
I tried to resist comparing Halloween: The Game to Friday the 13th, but the reason that game worked so well for me was that it encouraged players to work together. You’d decide which mode of transport to fix, gather the pieces for it together, and then get the vehicle going while distracting Jason. Everyone had a role. Here, you can pretty much ignore what others are doing. Admittedly, the upside is that if you have a weak link, it won’t bring you down. But I’d argue that was part of the fun.
Friday the 13th also proved less repetitive, as Halloween is mostly going door to door and trying to convince people there’s a killer on the loose, like an anxiety-riddled election campaigner. On the Michael side, it’s the same thing, but rather you’re going door to door, knocking out power and killing the people behind the door, like a homicidal election campaigner. Ultimately, it comes down to who can reach the most houses first. I get that this is the structure of the films. Unlike other slasher movies, the Halloween series is mostly about watching the body count build. But I wish there was a little more spice here.
Starring in Your Own Slasher
But there are absolutely ways in which Halloween improves upon its predecessor. And I’ll admit, some of these came about from simply acclimating to its differences. For example, I initially balked at the cookie-cutter design of its suburban maps. But when I got to the Haddonfield Town Center map, I played one of my best matches. That map has buildings of various sizes, and even a whole cemetery to set the mood.
Entering a record store with an apartment above it, I implored the owner to aid me. He battened down the hatches while I called the police. And then we armed ourselves to the teeth and got ready to make our escape. I ended up enjoying this map more than any in Friday the 13th. In moments like these, Halloween: The Game truly feels like playing your own self-contained horror film.
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Review Disclosure Statement: Halloween: The Game was provided to us by IllFonic and Gun Interactive for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.
Halloween: The Game resurrects the asymmetrical horror gameplay of Friday the 13th, while carving out its own franchise identity. A campaign mode offers a short, sweet Halloween treat. But the multiplayer is a bit of a mixed bag. Still, its bold stab at prioritizing NPC rescue over player survival mostly slices through the competition.
Pros
- A replayable single-player campaign that teaches players the ropes (and knives) of being Michael Myers while basking in the moonlight of the 1978 film.
- Multiplayer gameplay that encourages players to stay in the game as long as possible rather than simply escape, and gives them tasks even when they’re out.
- Michael’s stalking abilities prove a thrill to utilize in creeping up on his victims.
Cons
- The multiplayer mode doesn’t really incentivize teamwork.
- Going house to house to kill or save each civilian can get repetitive.
- There is no campaign to introduce the unique hero gameplay.
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Halloween: The Game Review
