The Texas Chain Saw Massacre — Blood Tied
Review
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a third-person, team-based asymmetrical online multiplayer stealth game developed by Sumo Digital and published by Gun Interactive. This review is based on the version available on Steam in August 2023.
I have to admit that I never play online games for long because I tend to get bored with the gameplay loop and aggravated by the cheating and toxicity. This goes for the vast majority of online games I have played over the years. I should also add that I am not a fan of gore and horror in general; I only saw the original movie once, years ago.
All that said, I very much enjoy stealth games that reward skill and patience more than quick reflexes and spam attacks. I also appreciate game adaptations of movies that stay true to the elements of the originals, such as Alien: Isolation; though The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is not as grand and complex, lacking a single-player mode.
Instead, it is the thrill of hiding and hunting that matches the iconography of the movie in the mechanics and level design as you either try to escape the Family or find the Victims. The asymmetrical design starts there: with three Family members and four Victims. Each character available to play has their own special talents and perks.
But how will it hold up in the long term? Time will tell. Based on my experience covering Hunt: Showdown since Early Access for another website, I would say that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has potential as a long term investment for players looking for less running and gunning and more sawing and hiding.
Technical Sleights
The game features cross-platform play; I had few issues with the matchmaking, but it can be hit-and-miss. Since you don’t have to worry about aiming and shooting, your input of choice will not influence the outcome of matches. I played first on keyboard and mouse, then I tried it with an Xbox controller; I prefer PC controls, but I played with several console players who were better at stealth and running.
There are a few bugs, glitches, crashes, and framerate dips. The developers announced a server fix for a ‘credentials’ error a while ago, but it still came up when I was trying to respec a character before a match, and it kept logging me out of matchmaking. I had to restart it a couple of times until it worked, but I got my points back. Other than that, one of my Family characters got stunned by a Victim once, then input stopped working completely. I am not sure if this was cheating, but it looked like it.
One Happy Family
As far as toxicity in the community, my experiences were fine so far. No insults or name-calling, except some light trash talk. I know that some players who are migrating from Dead by Daylight find the community refreshing, but that probably has something to do with the size of the player base. Fewer players mean fewer assholes, and as the player base increases we might see an uptick of that demographic.
Victims who get killed and disconnect will lose the experience. When I played as a Victim, I liked spectating other players and learning from their play style, seeing how they go about evading, hiding, running, and hiding again. I never died playing as a Family character, but that may have something to do with my choice of character; it is unclear whether Family players can in fact die from struggling with Victims.
Familiarity Breeds Contempt
Although the matchmaking is straightforward, one of the main problems with it is that someone has to play as Leatherface, otherwise the match will not start. On more than one occasion, I had to change from my preferred Family character, Johnny, to start the match. And of course, that comes with a different play style.
This is not so much a dealbreaker as it is a minor annoyance. There are advantages to playing as Leatherface, but when I played as Family, I got better at staking out the outside of the farm and catching the Victims just as they thought they were about to escape. Leatherface is more about preventing Victims from leaving the basement.
If you play as Family, someone also has to focus on collecting enough blood to feed Grandpa and amplify his ability to find Victims. I found myself doing this in several matches almost by myself, as the other players roamed around on their own. It gets repetitive and boring when you are the only player doing it, but it is a viable tactic. Just don’t mind me running around like an idiotic blood boy.
Meta Balance and Beyond
There is a fairly deep and varied progression system in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that sets it apart from games such as Dead by Daylight, which might enable a long shelf life for the community. The question is how expansions will work, since the characters and locations are soft-locked by the IP licensing, which is rather limiting. It will take creative liberties to expand the current content into an ongoing game.
The long-term value of this game will depend on how the meta balances out over the next months. It could already use a patch to fine-tune and nerf a few characters that have an edge with lock picking in particular. As it is now, it is not that hard to escape with some characters, as long as you can navigate the level design and its variations.
I will wait a few months before I give The Texas Chain Saw Massacre a final rating score, but I recommend it to anyone who enjoys stealth games and hunting people for sport. It gets a bit addictive and repetitive once you learn the basics and get used to its loop, and the thrill of hunting or escaping keeps you going into the hours of the night.
Disclosure: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was reviewed on PC with a Steam key provided by the publisher over the course of 24 hours of play time. All screenshots attached were captured during the review process.
Rating: TBD
The Good
Cool adaptation of the movies’ iconography;
Stealth gameplay that rewards skill and patience;
Compelling gameplay loop on both sides;
Decent enough community so far;
Great graphics on some levels;
Rewarding progressions systems.
The Bad
Someone has to play as Leatherface;
Some perks and skills should be nerfed;
Frequent framerate performance dips;
Bugs, glitches, crashes, possible cheats.
Gallery
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is available on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation. More information is available on the official website.