Gun Interactive may be a comparatively newer game publisher, but they’re already one that’s made a significant impact to the industry. They published the Friday the 13th video game from 2017, and today they’re working on another horror classic film adaptation. But can the publisher make lightning strike twice?
For Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Gun and developer Sumo Digital is pushing hard the idea that this will be the most authentic sequel to the 1974 grindhouse original. It’s a uniquely ambitious undertaking, given that said original was an independent production made dirt cheap, as cheap as a 1970s small town horror movie could get.
But Sumo’s project design director Kelvin Moore was quite serious on this point:
“It’s solely based on the original 1974 classic. All the characters, the setting, the theme, the tone – everything. And it’s all wrapped around recreating those kinds of daytime nightmarish experiences that you’ve seen. We start off with the victims in the basement. You’ve already been captured. You have to work through a series of stealth mechanics while being hunted by Leatherface, who starts in the basement with you. And then as you kind of broach out the family members start to appear, the Hitchhiker and the Cook, and then basically, they want to kill you, you’ve got to escape.”
With many of the original people who made the movie no longer with us, Sumo reached out to Kim Henkel, one of the co-writers and co-producers of the film alongside the late Tobe Hooper. Kim is helping them realize a scenario where the game is set a year before the events of the movie.
A major element for authenticity, and gameplay, are the three vicious members of the Sawyer family. You won’t get to play Grandpa, but Leatherface, alongside The Cook, AKA The Old Man, and The Hitchhiker are all playable. Casual fans will be most familiar with Leatherface’s cross dressing chainsaw antics.
The Hitchhiker, voiced by the original actor Edwin Neal, plays a nimble and fast threat, who can stalk victims into tight spaces. Like the movie, he can be knocked over if you surprise him just right.
The Cook plays like the nice middle between Leatherface and the Hitchhiker. He’s also been given the ability to lock doors off so that victims cannot escape.
As you can tell, having three playable killers already changes the gameplay significantly from Dead by Daylight. In fact, Grandpa has been slotted into the game design as well, to take the place of that game’s The Entity.
It’s feeding time for Grandpa again, which also means he’s on high alert for any victimes near the Sawyer’s home. As absurd as it sounds, the Sawyers can feed their Grandpa, so that he can level up and enable different abilities. Grandpa Sawyer will have his own meta based on what loadouts you get for him.
But Sumo’s greatest ambition is balancing the playability for both killers and victims. Each character will offer a different gameplay experience, and Sumo hopes the victims will have something to offer to also interest players who would be gravitating towards the killers.
Given that the original crew of the film had an unpleasant time filming in the extremely humid summer of 1974 Texas, it’ll certainly be interesting to see how Sumo Digital and Gun Interactive intends to make this prequel engaging enough for new and old fans alike.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre will be coming in 2023 for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. You can watch its original trailer here.
Source: PCGamesN
