Beebom Score
When it comes to genres, Horror isn’t really my cup of tea. I don’t buy into being chased or jumpscared by anything supernatural to begin with. But from time to time I do make exceptions, and John Carpenter’s Halloween sits right at the top of that list.
The 80s slasher horror never gets old, no matter how many times I’ve rewatched it. So naturally, when Illfonic announced Halloween: The Game, I was thrilled. The pitch is what sold me in the first place: relive that infamous Halloween night in Haddonfield, but this time through the mask of Michael Myers. And by the time it ends, you eventually land on Laurie Strode’s balcony.
But surprisingly, what I actually got in the name of Halloween was a “stalking simulator” that’s like a practice range for The Boogeyman. And that one thought left me more uncomfortable than thrilled.
Haddonfield Presents Michael with an Open Playground to Prey
If you’ve ordered the game or are even reading this review, chances are that you’re already a Halloween fan and have followed the franchise over the years. This horror game’s setting nails exactly what you’d expect – Haddonfield’s suburban streets frozen on a Halloween night in 1978, with some teenagers lurking around.
But what really pulled me in is the retelling of the story from the first film from Michael’s POV, which is an intriguing hook no one has tried before. I’m sure you’ve wondered what it’s like to be behind The Boogeyman’s mask, right?
Well, just like the movies, the campaign opens with a strong Prologue: Michael breaks out of the asylum, sneaks past the guards and Dr. Loomis, steals a car, and heads back to the town where he murdered his sister Judith when he was six years old.
However, coming to Michael’s first kill in the game that I performed was crushing a guard’s ribs with bare hands, which I must say was absolutely brutal and honestly, kind of a rush for me.
As the prologue goes on, Michael gears up afterward, swipes the coveralls from a mechanic he executes, The Shape mask, and a Kitchen Knife from a party store sold me on the game’s premise. I was all geared up to stack up on my killer trophies until I started peeling the layers of this darn game.
The Gameplay Is Michael Myers’ Murderous Version of Groundhog Day
Okay, so now let’s talk about what you’re here for: the gameplay. To sum it up in a single line, I’d say that the gameplay loop is basically Stalk -> Sabotage -> Kill -> Repeat. Yup, that’s pretty much it; a gameplay loop so repetitive even Ghostface won’t get a high on it, and this is where it gets complicated for Michael Myers.
Don’t get me wrong, Illfonic has equipped Michael with a pretty impressive kit: Shape Slip lets him transform into this shadow that can phase through doors, walls, and fences, Detection Pulse reveals nearby targets, and Blackout basically kills the power without you needing to fiddle with a junction box.
Stalking is the bread and butter for Halloween The Game. You build a stalk meter by staying hidden and keeping your eyes locked on your prey, which feeds a bloodthirst meter that unlocks more powers for even more brutal executions. Which brings me to the point: where were those narcotic substances that led to Halloween being banned in Australia? If you spot it, please do let me know in the comments; Michael would like some.
Of course, then you’ve got environmental elements you can sabotage, like cutting the phone line or killing the power from a junction box when you’re outside a civilian’s house. These are the two real advantages that strip your victims of any way to call for help or even see you coming.
The problem is how it feels when you actually do it again and again in the game. Look, not to be an “idealist” while playing a video game where you actually play a killer who’s the Dumbledore of stalking, but hiding inside a closet and taking heavy breaths while peeking at a couple making love without any clothes on is just another level of creepy.
Sure, Halloween wants to make you feel like a creep, and that’s what I went in there for, but hey, I guess that’s what we franchise fans signed up for, right? Not to forget that tombstone scene where Michael pins Annie to the bed and mounts her sister’s tombstone above her. That scene haunts me to this day.
Coming to executions (or finishers), this is where the game’s best ideas and its worst instincts show up together. Beyond the standard knife slasher kills, there are bloodthirsty environmental executions. These include pinning someone to a wall with a knife, strangling a victim’s neck with a phone cord, smashing your prey’s head on a stove sear, or even smashing them inside a TV or a fridge just to give them a strong jolt.
It’s all pretty cool when you think of it, but the game barely tells you any of it exists and instead just shows skull icons next to any of these interactive environmental objects while you’re choking your victim with your bare hands. I stumbled onto half of these by simply being curious, including the chokehold quick-time event and the fact that prey can escape through basement doors and trapdoors if you’re slow.
I don’t mind figuring a thing or two out myself in video games, but this tips into the game not explaining itself. Even though it shows a pretty neat control scheme to execute a prey with your slasher knife, there’s more depth to executions than it appears at first sight. Michael also cannot sprint, jump, or crouch at will, and his walk speed is painfully slow. If Illfonic is trying to make a better version of DBD by using the same formula, it needs to sit closer to it.
Furthermore, the game’s map could include a waypoint system when looking for primary targets in a chapter. I’ve spent most of my time figuring out how to find the targets to achieve my objective more than I spent stalking them and planning their murder. While the faint yellow highlight and a question mark do the job, Halloween requires a bit more hand-holding than just keeping most of its features under wraps.
But here’s the real kicker: the entire thing gets Groundhog Day-style real quick. Executions look varied for the first two kills in the game, but by the third chapter it starts getting repetitive. You stalk from cover, cut the phone line, cut the power, phase shift through doors or walls, pull the victim out of the closet, close in, and execute.
Doesn’t matter if you’re in a different corner of Haddonfield or change the kill animation; it’s the same beat every time. Across five chapters, with a gameplay clocking at around 6 hours, that loop never evolved and instead resets with a new house and a new name attached. It wore me down well before the credits rolled, and it’s the main reason why Halloween feels like a one-and-done rather than something I’d revisit.
Multiplayer, for what it’s worth, I barely got to test properly as my lobby was rarely filled with at least two players. But from what I played and experienced, it’s the same loop as the single-player mode; the difference is you, as a civilian, can fight back – and that’s nowhere close to impressive. Sure, I did miss Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie in the game, but the current actress, including the entire cast, was mighty impressive.
Performance: A Few Cracks in The Shape
Thanks to the good folk at Illfonic, the devs flagged the known issues ahead of time and assured a launch day patch to mitigate them. However, Halloween was filled with some unknown issues too, which I encountered more than the usual bunch. I hit progression blocks even after clearing a chapter’s main objectives and was thrown back to the restart chapter screen without a warning of why this mission failed.
Visually, Halloween is a well-put treat to the eyes: no frame drops even with maxed-out graphics, solid lighting and shadow work, and the execution animations in particular look stellar. However, Michael’s regular attacks outside of executions are stiffer by comparison. It’s like I’m watching Chucky swing a knife at an enemy.
My Setup: CPU: Intel i7 14700K 3.40 GHz
CPU Cooler: CORSAIR H150 RGB 360mm
Motherboard: MSI Z790 Pro Wifi
GPU: Nvidia RTX 5080 Founder’s Edition 16 GB
RAM: Crucial (2x16GB) 5200MHz DDR5
SSD: Kingston 3 TB NVMe SSD
Monitor: 1440p @ 160Hz
Blood effects are quite underwhelming, as it looks like clots of blood rather than actual pools of blood flowing out of the victim’s body. This is something that I expected anyway, so no grudges there against the devs. But what really set me off was that, despite turning on DLSS on my RTX 5080 Founder’s Edition, the jagged edges kept showing even when anti-aliasing was enabled as well.
Verdict: The Boogeyman Failed to Scare Me on This One, so He Can Keep His Knives
If you’re a fan of John Carpenter’s Halloween films and love listening to the haunting Haddonfield piano melody on repeat, then Halloween: The Game is worth a playthrough. Illfonic clearly put effort and care into Michael’s side of the experience of that ill-fated Halloween night and his kit; not to forget the mood of the town on that chilly night.
However, the campaign locks itself into the same old beats the movie already told, and none of your choices really bend the outcome – it’s as linear as it could be. Multiplayer has more room to build out loadouts and builds based on your killer or survivor playstyle, but that too still feels like a grittier take on Dead by Daylight. Still, it doesn’t give you enough freedom of an open-world title like Hitman or 007 First Light when it comes to opening options for your players to approach your objectives.
And that’s the bottom line – because Michael Myers said so. Play it once for the fantasy of being The Shape (or The Boogeyman if you prefer that term), then move on. Had a bad day at the office? This might scratch that itch better than therapy would, so no judgment here, pal. Even a killer as threatening as Michael Myers gets “downed” here when he’s had enough.
