A new subgenre has emerged in recent years. The ‘online asymmetric multiplayer survival horror game’ doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue but it’s certainly popular. It pits two teams against one another and affords one group a marked aggressive advantage. It has inspired adaptations of Evil Dead and Friday The 13th but by far the most successful entry is 2016’s Dead By Daylight. Now it’s the turn of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic horror film.
Players are split into two teams comprising four victims and three family members. There are five characters to choose from on each side and they all have their own strengths and weaknesses which can be improved over time by spending XP in a rather cumbersome process. The family members are the most distinct, particularly Leatherface whose towering presence is a requirement for any game to begin.

Victims start locked in a basement in one of three locations. They must search for tools to make their escape, first by reaching the ground floor and then by venturing outside. But that’s not the end of it as the final exits are likely to be trapped, and it requires a mixture of stealth, courage and luck to safely disarm them. All the while, the family members must hunt down and kill their victims, and they’re passively aided by Grandpa who periodically awakens in his rocking chair to alert his clan to the victims’ movements.

Playing as a victim is a deeply unsettling experience and the odds are firmly stacked against you. Picking locks involves a tense mini-game which will fail if it’s rushed, and at all times you must scan the environment and pay attention to every sound. Often, you’ll be crouching in the shadows or hiding in the long grass, desperately hoping the killers can’t see you. It works particularly well in multiplayer, where mind games and erratic behaviour trump the predictability of computer AI. Playing as a family member is an invigorating challenge and, despite the inherent advantages, it takes real skill and teamwork to locate, trap and kill your prey.

It’s a shame there isn’t an interactive tutorial. Instead the game asks you to sit through a surfeit of text-heavy videos. But then nothing beats actually playing the game to learn its intersecting systems. It really looks the part: the family members all resemble their on-screen counterparts (including the hitchhiker and the cook) and the locations and discordant soundtrack are highly evocative of the source material. These particular games rely on solid post-launch support so time will tell if it will survive and what will be left of it. 
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is out now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.