“When you’re a Victim, hiding in a pool of shadows behind a couch and a couple of Family members walk into a room, you don’t know whether they’re going to check exactly where you’re at, or if they’re just passing through. Killer “patrols are not going to be predictable, their actions are going to be impromptu based on what that team is thinking, communicating, and acting upon at any given moment,” he says. Single-player or bot matches won’t be possible, but Keltner hopes the games’ meticulously-made, but unscripted, format will boost players’ genuine, spontaneous fear. Just like with the victims, these characters chat with one another, they have relationships that we take pains to depict.” “When players take control of these killers, they’re not playing monsters, or absolute killing machines - they’re playing damaged humans. They’re protecting their way of life, protecting their property, and protecting themselves - or at least that’s what they tell themselves,” Keltner says. “What makes The Texas Chain Saw Massacre so unique is that we find a family of killers. To keep things Texas, the game maintains the ensemble cast format of the film - a few friends get gutted by a few depraved butchers - and translates it easily to an asymmetrical survival horror, kind of how Dead by Daylight, also inspired by the 1974 film, sets up its game.īut unlike DbD, or other one-versus-many horror games like Evil Dead: The Game or Friday the 13th: The Game, also published by Gun, Texas will be 3v4, with five Family members and five Victims, all with unique abilities, for players to choose from. That wouldn’t be very Texas.” Asymmetrical horror done different “We didn’t want to look at other films that might have more visceral gore and try to shove that into this game. “The game might ramp up the gore a bit more compared to the film, it’s still not the backbone or focus of visual tone or gameplay,” Keltner says. Gun’s Texas aims for similar suggestiveness. The camera never shows character Pam’s wound as Leatherface sticks her onto a waiting meat hook, but you see her agonize, unable to move or breathe, and you might picture the wound as worse than it is. Much of the film’s horror relies on the viewer’s runaway imagination. It also makes it so, as Keltner notes, “perceived gore is far more relevant” to your full-body terror. Its infrequent appearance makes it more significant, especially as it collects and dries on Sally’s body, rewarding her unwavering, exhausting screams with red. You only ever get quick, unexpected looks at it, brushed in-between armadillo roadkill’s rough skin like lotion, pooling in a cannibal’s palm after he cuts himself, or forming a wet bead at the tip of protagonist Sally’s finger, right before desiccated Grandpa sucks it clean. “Every sound, every plant, every drop of blood.” “We want the fan to be completely immersed in the world of Texas Chain Saw,” he continued. But “if something is just a bit off, it might nudge you towards reality, thus killing the illusion we spent the last three years of our lives creating.” “Obsessive? Yes,” Keltner says, hearing your thoughts. “We studied the sounds, insects, floral and fauna present in Texas at exactly the month our game takes place.” They even fact-checked Texas songbirds’ migratory patterns to make sure that if a player heard some occasional ambient chirping, it was accurate. “We spent weeks in rural Texas towns, snapping over 10,000 photos that were referenced by artists,” Keltner says about establishing locations for the game. Gun Interactive toiled under the movie’s looming, skull-shaped shadow in pursuit of that right, poring over the film and its details like an obscure Bible verse. ![]() Recreating the Texas of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre “That unique blend of discomfort, absolute terror, and beauty all had to find their way into the game for us to earn the right to call it The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” “We could have just taken some ingredients that some people think of as scary and slapped Leatherface into it, but we don’t work that way,” Keltner says over email about the game, due August 18. But developer Gun Interactive will sure as hell try to capture that in its forthcoming asymmetrical horror game The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, art and audio director and CEO Wes Keltner tells me. None of its prosaic sequels have quite managed to replicate its magnetic horror: Scorching viewers with an orange sun and tossing them into the orange smoker, where the barbecue goes, like the original does. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 stomach-roiling film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a slasher masterpiece with unparalleled garish beauty.
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