Leatherface Is Coming to Your House in May in the New Texas Chain Saw Massacre Game

The film classic Texas Chain Saw Massacre is finally getting the asymmetrical video game treatment, and it'll be on your PC or console as early as May. Put down some newspaper because it's gonna be really bloody.

Gun Interactive, the studio that launched with the popular Friday the 13th The Game, is applying its formula for multiplayer games based on bloody horror movie franchises to Texas Chain Saw Massacre, directed by Tobe Hooper. The game has been in development for more than a year and, according to the latest trailer, players can join a technical test on May 25 and get the full game on Aug. 18.

Just like the Friday the 13th game, players can play as a victim or a slasher. The goal of the slasher is to kill the victims. The goal of the victims is basically not to die. This time, however, instead of one killer trying to hunt down a group of up to seven camp counselors, there are up to three killers on the slasher team and four victims on the other team, according to the game's website.
Unlike Friday the 13th: The Game, however, the Texas Chain Saw Massacre game will have some exposition and won't just be an open killing field of traps and escape objectives. The victims in the game cross paths with the Slaughter family when a woman named Maria Flores goes missing in Muerto County. Robbie Hobbs, the creative director for Gun Interactive, wrote on the website's community hub that Flores is a University of Texas student who went to the Slaughters' hunting grounds to take pictures of some of the native flowers before she disappeared. Local law enforcement don't seem to be making much headway, so Maria's sister Ana and some of her college friends go searching for her and end up finding the Slaughter family instead.

Killing for fun or self-defense isn't the only goal of the game. The developers took great care and attention to detail to re-create the infamous Slaughter family house from the first movie, designed and decorated by the movie's eccentric art director Robert Burns, who would look for animal bones on nearby roads and fields to build furniture and set pieces for the house. So part of both team's strategy includes some stealth maneuvers by hiding in dark shadows and corners, whether it's a victim trying to evade a murderous family member or a slasher trying to carve up a victim.
The victims may be weaponless at the start of their adventure but they aren't completely helpless. Players on the victims side can be one of five characters, each of whom have their own special ability such as strength, endurance and hiding skills. Connie can pick locks, Sonny has a heightened situational awareness that allows him to hear and pinpoint noises and Leland can stun enemies. The use of each ability comes at the cost of another skill or attribute.

The same profiles apply to the five members of the Slaughter family. Sissy can craft poisons to stun victims or plant traps around each map. Johnny is skilled at stalking victims by identifying footprints. Leather has a chainsaw and can dismember victims to make them weaker. That last one's not really a skill, but it's still pretty damn handy.