The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Review

Asymmetric horror really has come a long way to establish itself as a beloved multiplayer formula. Somehow developers have managed to turn the concept of being hunted down by a terrifyingly powerful psychopath into an engaging and electrifying experience – even if it isn’t always a scary one. Christ, some of my fondest memories are the ones where I am laughing until my sides hurt.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is both a game and a concept that lends beautifully well to this terrifying cat-and-mouse party, with a chainsaw-wielding cat leading a small cadre of similarly murder-y kittens against their mousey prey. This is where Chain Saw revs up its formula in a new and exciting way – by evening the odds between stalker and target.

Don’t mess with electricity, let some other schmo give it a go

Four wayward teens are trapped in the domain of ‘The Family,’ a gruesome group of demented weirdos that have no qualms with doing odd shit like carving up young adults or feeding their ancient grandpa blood (either fresh from victims or cold from a bucket). These four bodies need to contend with not one, but three murderous freaks trying to track them down – all packing their own unique methods to mess with the game world and ultimately take a life.

It’s a tremendously massive departure from the usual fare of asymmetric multiplayer, where numbers may often vary for the underdog team (Friday the 13th: The Game had seven ‘victims’, for example) but the usual state of the hunter team is one overpowered, terrifying menace. This shift results in a killer team that employs two ‘lesser’ murderers (who can still absolutely take your life) deploying tricks and roadblocks to mess with the survivors, and the iconic chainsaw-wielding Leatherface as an unstoppable force that stomps around the map and exerts a presence that has you quick to mess your dacks.

It was this dynamic that had me immediately concerned that the game would surely be an awful experience. In my mind I conjured visions of Dead By Daylight with multiple killers, or Friday the 13th: The Game with two lesser Jasons wandering the woods. Surely this wild shift in experience would be stifling to get any kind of surviving done, but by some twisted dark magic the crew at Sumo Digital have made it work.

The visceral outcome of someone who failed to outwit, outplay, outlast

Your average match as a survivor will see you scrambling around the filthy basement tunnels before emerging into the terrifying interior of the building above you. Pick the locks on a few doors, or perhaps dive through a window and you may get to experience a taste of freedom once you emerge outside. While navigating your way past noise-making bone wind chimes and panicking chickens, you will also need to contend with the ancient bloodlust of Grandpa.

See, Grandaddy is the best killer there ever was – and as the family dose him up with tasty blood, he will sense your movement. It’s a brilliant little system to clue your hunters into your location – a forced game of Marco/Polo that will give pause to your current journey to avoid detection. If you manage to avoid the ancient hunger of Gramp’s desiccated self, you then need to contend with the rest of the family and their methods of tracking you down.

Each killer has a niche, and they can be swapped and changed before each map – with the exception of Leatherface, the titular chainsaw massacrist, who has forced attendance in every game. While big Bubba will stomp around with his cutting implement, the other hunters will have a little more finesse in utilising unique abilities to halt survivor progress, or track them down. A great example is The Cook, who comes packing three big stinking padlocks to slap on gates and doors around the map. These padlocks will turn that particular entry point into a double-lockpicking nightmare, prompting hesitation to players attempting a certain path of escape. The Cook can then employ his secret weapon – his ears – as an active ability to listen out for survivor activity. The unique play styles of each killer does a lot to promote replayability for the title, especially when you start to consider how different killer team rosters may work on each map.

Grandad is into the cooking sherry – NOW it’s a party

Maps in Texas Chain Saw are robustly large, without hitting an upper limit of being a slog to get around. The mix of interior, exterior and underground areas provide a lot of ground to cover and escape your would-be predators – with neat options like wells or ladders to quickly get back into the apparent safety of the lower levels. The different locales on offer are exceptionally different from each other, with their own unique foibles and arguable bias between survivors and slayers. Take for example the Family House, which served as my grave for my first four games – so much so that I started to question if the game even had other maps. Its labyrinthian tunnel network immediately had me pining for a minimap (a thing in Friday the 13th) as I routinely found myself circling back on myself and struggling to find a way out. Each of these four games saw my comrades and I get slaughtered scarcely before the five minute mark, prompting me to ask via in-game chat if I was doing something especially wrong. “Nah,’ was the response, “The House just seems really killer-friendly and noob unfriendly.” Fair enough, further learning would surely fix that up.

Some of the most polished and enjoyable murder-y fun I have seen in a long while

And fix it up it did. Once I had grasped a simple mental image of where I had kept looping myself around, my very next game saw me picking the correct door lock and emerging into the actual house itself – free from dirt walls and ramshackle barricades. If anything, the sunlight felt almost blinding as I stared out windows and saw a dirt road that may yet prove to be my salvation. I learned the hard way that crashing out of a window is not really a great exit strategy – but the real victory was getting a taste of personal progress to drive me further.

This learning curve was at least helped by way of tutorials offered within the game, but there is still a steep, sharp learning curve to really cement the game’s rhythm. While a big part of this may be map knowledge, forming a set of flexible priorities will help get you on the path to escape – or murder – for each round of gameplay. A lot of these initial stumbles could likely be helped by way of some UI improvements to make some knowledge more accessible – a great many items lack any form of tooltip or glossary explanation, meaning that your best resource can often be a YouTube tutorial or write-up from a veteran player. Once this knowledge is attained, and you can hit your stride and start delving into the options for levelling up and tweaking your characters, you’ll get to enjoy the surprisingly deep emergent playstyles that are on offer for the observant and enthusiastic.

The taste of freedom, by way of a brisk jog and booty shorts

It is this initial hurdle that I hope every player overcomes – my own nagging doubts initially had me questioning if the game really was all that enjoyable. As I admired its beautiful aesthetics and sound design, I still wondered if maybe the ‘spice’ just wasn’t there. But a modicum of dedication on my end saw an immediate return on investment, to have some of the most polished and enjoyable murder-y fun I have seen in a long while. While it may not grip the depths of my heart as being a terrifyingly scary experience, its solid cats-and-mice formula provides enough tension to keep you in the moment and keen to keep on living.

For longevity however, I wonder if the game has strong enough legs to take any substantial strides. The absence of a roadmap (with a statement from developers that they won’t be providing one) means that players better find this initial meal to be hearty enough. And without any form of skill-based matchmaking, there is a rising worry that the game will eventually become inaccessible to newer players. All things that can be addressed of course, but games of this type have fallen into a pretty expected groove – and some of those vibes are missing here.

Cor, I feel bad for this bloke

Final Thoughts

The entire vibe of Tesco Chainlink Mastery feels just off centre to what you would expect from a horror-based video game. But this may actually work to its strengths, promoting a tight gameplay experience rather than a tightness in your chest or arsehole. The larger-than-life characters that inhabit its blood-soaked world feel wonderfully goofy but still altogether dangerous, with short and sharp cinematic matches that easily turn into a serial case of ‘just one more game’ long after you should have been in bed. Don’t fear the reaper, bumrush him and teabag his elderly frame instead.

Reviewed on PC // Review code supplied by publisher

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