The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Game’s 3v4 Setup Is a Needed Shakeup for the Genre

Ever since The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was revealed by developer Sumo Nottingham and publisher Gun Interactive — the latter being an integral part of Friday the 13th: The Game — the 3v4 dynamic between the Family and the Victims has been one of the main talking points. Most other asymmetrical multiplayer games like this one that draw inspiration from storied horror franchises typically have one antagonist facing off against a varying number of human players, but the bad guy is almost always on a team by themselves. That leads to a certain degree of pressure being placed on the one player to make sure the game is enjoyable for everyone else since they’re the core component of the game whether they like it or not, but the 3v4 setup in Texas Chain Saw Massacre so far seems to be the release valve for that pressure that the genre needs.

Feeling out the effects of the 3v4 setup was only made possible just recently during the game’s tech test that took place over the weekend where seven characters were playable across two maps. On the side of the Family was Leatherface, the Cook, and the Hitchhiker, the three core characters from the original movie save for the unplayable Grandpa who hangs out in each map waiting to be fed some blood. On the Victims side, we had Sonny, Ana, Leland, and Connie. Every character has unique abilities that set them apart from one another, though it’s still early to tell which characters are best.

The uniqueness of different killers and their abilities is something not isolated to Texas Chain Saw Massacre by any means. Dead by Daylight has its whole roster of Killers that play unlike any other character in that game, and even Friday the 13th’s Jason variants were different enough to make each match different from the last. What feels special about Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s setup, however, is the reassurance that whatever Family character you’ve picked (or been assigned, in the case of the tech test), there are two other people there to balance you out.

Take the Cook, for example, who happened to be my favorite Family member from the playtest only by a small margin ahead of Leatherface. The Cook’s power is that he can hear moving Victims through walls, but he lacks the ability to squeeze through crawlspaces like the Hitchhiker or chainsaw Victims as they maneuver in those tight spaces like Leatherface can. He also has a pitiful stamina bar that makes him the worst possible person to pursue a Victim.

That sounds like a pretty terrible character, but that’s only true if you try to play him in inefficient ways. The Cook feels much more like a scout-type character, someone who’s able to keep tabs on Victims, and with the Family’s shared ability that lets them all see where each Family member is at once, the Cook excels at cutting people off while other Family members keep pressing the Victims into inopportune situations.

Therein lies one issue with the 3v4 team sizes, however. Just as the responsibility is dispersed between three players, so is the blame. If the Cook, for example, has someone pinned down in a loop but can’t quite secure the kill, the player can easily call on a teammate via text or voice chat to help tip the scales in the 1v1. That requires communication and game knowledge, however, and as anyone who’s dabbled with random teammates can tell you, neither of those are guaranteed. Scores are present throughout the match to quantify performance, so it’s easy to see who’s pulling their weight and who’s not, but it’s evident from the long weekend spent with the game that the antagonists here have to be much more cohesive with one another if they want a perfect match

In other games like Dead by Daylight, it can be quite demoralizing if a match doesn’t go well from the start. Even if Survivors aren’t spam-crouching and waving at you at the exit gates or behind a pallet, the constant notifications of objectives getting fixed across the map make for frequent reminders that you’re getting beaten by people you can’t even see. Those same notifications are present in Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but as Victims escape, things become even more dire for those who remain. When only one Victim is left, the Family has a mental buff on their side — there’s one of them, three of you, and the odds couldn’t be better. The flip side of that, from playing as the Victims last weekend, too, makes for a harrowing experience. “There’s no way I’m getting out of here,” I thought from time to time when being the last Victim alive, but whether I made it or not, it was always at least entertaining.

We’ve only seen three of the five Family members made playable so far with the other two original characters, Johnny and Sissy, set to be available in the full release, so perhaps they’ll be one-person armies all on their own once they’re released. But from what’s been seen so far, the shared responsibility between the Family members and the higher ceiling for big plays it allows for comes as a refreshing change of pace for the genre.