I start up Tiny Tim’s 1968 song, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” as I creep closer to an unsuspecting Civilian, breathing heavily behind the stark white mask of Michael Myers, moving close enough for proximity chat to turn on. The player controlling the Civilian before me shrieks, shouting, “Aw hell no, it’s Pennywise!” Pennywise is not in Halloween: The Game, nor has he ever been connected to the long-running horror series (or Tiny Tim, for that matter). But alas, my random song selection and the unexpected reaction it inspired from an online stranger is now canon to my time playing IllFonic’s new asymmetrical horror game. The interaction is exactly the one I needed to confidently tell my friends – the ones who would join me in hysterics over this Tiptoed Tulips-infused jumpscare – that this is a game they need to pick up. The single-player campaign is a glorified but impassioned tutorial; charming jank is present throughout the experience; and its multiplayer confidently strikes a balance between tense, terrifying, and downright hilarious stupidity.
In other words, it is a game I look forward to playing for countless future hours.
If you aren’t a multiplayer person and were curious about picking up Halloween for its single-player offering, don’t. It lasts just a couple of hours (though you can extend its runtime by replaying chapters to find Dr. Loomis’ audio logs and complete challenges that unlock cosmetic rewards) and is just a few notches above a standard tutorial for playing as Michael. That’s not to say it’s not worth playing; it is, and that’s because while it ultimately serves as a tutorial for the game’s killer, it is also an incredibly detailed love letter to the 1978 film from director/synth player/gamer John Carpenter. The campaign is just clearly not the main attraction here, nor should it be, and I’d be leading you astray by telling you to pick it up if you were expecting a gamified adaptation of a horror movie you might love.
However, if you’re open to it, or already enjoy the asymmetrical horror genre, which pits multiple players against a single killer (Civilians vs. Michael, in this game), Halloween offers a refined and confident approach that is likely to get even better over time. Matches begin quickly, but offer upwards of 20 minutes of fun each time, though exactly how much fun depends on your ability to survive. As a Civilian, your goal is to escape, but more importantly, it is to help others escape. Primarily, should search Haddonfield’s suburbs to locate the three special target residents, which are the NPCs that call each map home. They’re not all that different from the other residents you can save in each match, but they are marked as special for you and Michael, and prioritizing them secures the most XP. It’s a fun mechanic that forces Civilians and Michael into the same places, which is where the most exciting face-offs happen.
In doing so, you encounter other non-special residents, whom you can order to call the police, hide, or follow you, and ideally build the ranks of people who want to stop Michael and escape. Different playable Civilians have unique traits that affect how they play, such as Athleticism, which dictates stamina and how long you can sprint, and passive abilities that make you better at calling the police or knocking Michael down. While skilled players will take these traits into account for marginal gameplay gains, having played as each, the experience feels largely the same no matter who you play as; choosing a Civilian because they look cool, for example, is just fine. The fun isn’t dictated by your Civilian’s traits, but rather, what you get up to as them, and I appreciate that this won’t force a meta-game of who you should play as in order to win.
You can play it straight, looting cabinets, drawers, tool shops, and more for weapons to defend yourself with, repair kits to fix escape cars, or keys to open escape hatch padlocks… or you can stock up on firecrackers, lawn darts, and a baseball bat and be an absolute menace to the real player controlling Michael. The amount of fun I’ve had bullying Michael alongside other stranger Civilians in the game matches the enjoyment I get out of a successful escape; whether I’m whooping on Michael, watching him go down only to pop up for another whopping, or following the rules and picking up residents in my sedan for a four-wheel escape, I’m smiling. That is the joy of Halloween. It is as fun as you make it, and IllFonic has filled its horror toolbox with more tools than ever.
Playing as Michael naturally leads to more straightforward gameplay because you’re all alone, but you possess brutal, movie-inspired killing prowess, an empowering set of abilities, and proximity chat begging for Tiny Tim to be played through. While the movies explain Michael’s ability to be everywhere and anywhere with the unknown – he’s simply the embodiment of evil, void of “whys” or “hows” – IllFonic has created smart gameplay mechanics to bring him to life. Shape Jumping speeds you around the map like a specter, though light slows him and prevents him from advancing through doors (just find the power box and disable it). Evil Presence effectively sells just how terrifying The Shape is, boosting your fear factor and terrifying anyone nearby when you use it. Even the Stalk feature, which lets you look at a resident or Civilian and increase their level of fear by holding your gaze on them, feels good, and it’s literally just a mechanic for looking at someone. Turns out, putting you behind the mask, with first-person eyeholes on screen and Michael’s inhuman breaths escaping his mangled throat, further sells that you are pure evil.
Stalking those you wish to kill makes doing so easier, and it opens you up to even more kill types, like context-specific fridge smashes, window bashes, or phone cord strangulations. Halloween can get quite brutal, and I am still eagerly chasing new ways to kill players, earn XP, and level up, which unlocks new cosmetics.
IllFonic has also made commendable efforts for Halloween to be enjoyable even after you die. On-screen minigames, like mashing buttons or pressing a button within a small timed UI window, can benefit those still alive (or even bring you back into the game as a police officer or Dr. Loomis), but they get old quickly, and it sucks that you have to sit through the entire 20-ish minute match to get your XP, alive or not. I understand you don’t want players to quit the match since they might not come back in, but I’ve spent more time than I’d like playing the same boring minigames just for them to amount to little more than some additional XP.
Halloween needs some massaging. There are bugs galore, its Civilian onboarding isn’t great, and leveling up to unlock new color tints on sunglasses, or a new shirt or hat, isn’t the best motivation. But when I’m actually in a match, all of that fades away. The bugs aren’t game-breaking and blend in with IllFonic’s feature-not-a-bug jank, like one where another player and I hilariously moonwalked when we ran instead of sprinted. Learning what to do as a Civilian doesn’t take too much time, even without any helpful context built in-game, and cosmetics don’t affect how I play. What matters in Halloween is the scares I’m delivering and receiving, and the joy I’m feeling through it all. Death has arrived in IllFonic’s latest, and while the fear is abundant, so too is the fun waiting in the sleepy little town of Haddonfield.
