Halloween: The Game Review (Xbox): Overcoming My Fears, but Not These Bugs

Growing up, I was terrified of any kind of horror. I couldn’t handle slasher films, and if there was any indication that some form of media had any scary elements, I did my best to avoid it. One of the biggest catalysts for that was Michael Myers and the Halloween movies. Now here we are in 2026, and I’m reviewing Halloween: The Game, another asymmetrical multiplayer horror game from Illfonic, and despite a few switch-ups, this largely feels like another typical buggy release for the team, but long-time fans of these games should find plenty of enjoyment.

The Boogeyman Follows the Formula

If you have played any of Illfonic or Gun’s titles in the past, you have a good idea of what you’re getting into here. One person plays as Michael Myers as they work to hunt down and slay four other players that are civilians. The slight change this time around is the killer has more targets to focus on than past games. There are a total of seven bots that he can kill as well, four normal civilians and three special ones. In all honesty, I don’t know the difference between the two, they all seemed to act the same to me. If they are killed, Michael gets more points towards his overall score, but if the other team gets them to escape, that hurts his score. This can lead to some interesting scenarios because even if the survivor team all escape, they will lose if Michael kills all of the bots. The focus on getting everyone out, not just yourself, is a nice change for this kind of game, and hopefully will reduce players screwing over teammates. 

The downside of this, though, is the waiting when you’re on the survivor side. If you escape or die early, you can be stuck spectating for a very long time. In one game, Michael spawned right next to me at the beginning and killed me within the first 60 seconds, and the match lasted the whole 20-minute timer. When dead, you can do various QTEs to send perks to your friends if they’re alive, but even if all humans are dead or gone, you will be stuck watching as Michael hunts down the bot citizens. There’s a chance to be brought back as Loomis or a police officer, but then you’re just given a gun and can no longer escape yourself. Also, Halloween: The Game uses the host system for its lobbies, so if the wrong person leaves or gets disconnected, the whole lobby is thrown to the main menu.

Escaping for the survivors comes down to a few options. After the cops have been alerted enough, a police wagon will show up. Otherwise, escaping comes down to repairing a sedan and driving away or opening a storm shelter. With those two options, everything comes down to finding the right items to repair the car or open the shelter door. It’s not necessarily intriguing stuff, but when you get the right gear to escape, it feels great to have your path laid out.

Of course, a lot of that comes down to luck. I’ve gone through a long game where I searched every house I came across and couldn’t find the right things to repair the car, but I’ve also found a storm shelter with the right things to open it right by it in the first two minutes. That variance can really create a push-and-pull of everyone’s enjoyment in a match, especially if the only open escape is filled up by bots, leaving you to find a different way out.

Michael’s on a Scary Good Run

If you played the Friday the 13th game in the past, you might notice the similarities in Halloween: The Game when playing as the killer. Michael behaves similarly in ways to Jason, but he does have his own things to help him stand out.

First, he’s incredibly slow. Walking around as Michael can be agonizing at times, but luckily, he has an ability called Shape Jump that turns him invisible and lets him run around the place and appear in a dark area where no eyes are. If the lights are off in a place, you can also use this to phase through doors, but if they get turned back on and you’re inside, you can get stuck with no way to leave until someone opens a door. Using Shape Jump effectively can really give you that horror villain feel as you literally appear out of nowhere and grab someone who isn’t expecting it.

Michael’s main power, though, focuses on his ability to stalk his prey. If you get to a spot where you can watch a citizen without them seeing you, you build up a stalk meter. If you get this to level three, it opens up your ability to do more interesting executions with environmental objects on the person you’re stalking, and there are a lot of diverse ways to kill people in this game. Almost everywhere you go allows you to destroy the citizen’s head, whether that is smashing it in with a rock, throwing them through a television, or cooking it on a stovetop. Some of these are gruesome, but the animation quality was very lacking, so hopefully that is better on release with a day one patch.

While the interesting kills happen at stalk level three, you only need level one to execute someone with the weapon in your hand when you grab them, and that happens just by being close to them, even when in a brightly lit spot, so as long as you can get your hands on someone, there’s a good chance you can end them right there. Being close to Michael at any time is a death sentence for the citizens, so even if they have a weapon in hand, all it takes is one grab or a few melee slashes to quickly kill them, and if Michael has a throwing weapon, he can take someone down quickly with a well-aimed throw.

Halloween: The Game Single Player

While Halloween: The Game is highly focused on being a multiplayer game first, it does have a small single player mode that retells the first movie, and you entirely play as Michael during it. It took me a little under an hour to beat the prologue and five chapters, so it’s very short and essentially feels like a tutorial for how to play him in multiplayer, but it has replay value in giving you challenges for how to beat it. By no means is the single player the one thing I would recommend you buy this game for, but for what it is, I found it enjoyable.

They Forgot to Give the Bots Brains

When it comes to the bot citizens in Halloween: The Game, I at first saw some promise in their implementation, but the more I got time with them, the more I started dreading their presence. The main issue comes down to how useless and stupid they are. As a survivor, you must first go through a lengthy conversation with them to either follow you, use the phone to call the cops, or run towards an open escape. The QTEs you contend with here aren’t anything terrible, but it started to grind on me. If you tell them to call the cops, they won’t follow you, and only one person can follow you at a time. While following, they will grab a melee weapon, but they do absolutely nothing to help you fight off Michael.

It’s not just fighting that they’re terrible with, though. If they are hiding inside a house, they will lock you outside so only Michael can enter by breaking down the door, or you jump through a window (if one is available). In one case, I had one look at a perfectly fine phone and ran away from it for a different one directly in the path of Michael. They also just routinely get lost when following you, going MIA until you eventually get the notification that they’ve died.

That uselessness also carries over to the cops. The more that the citizens call the police, the more that police officers show up and try to shoot Michael down. Unfortunately, they are some of the most lackadaisical officers you will see. Whoever is playing Myers can cut down cops in two heavy swings while they will slowly shoot at him, only doing chip damage until he falls down. When stunned, the cops are supposed to be able to arrest Michael, but I’ve never seen it happen. One game, my team ganged up on Michael, knocking him down a good five times in a row with cops standing there for them to do nothing. 

Too Many Tricks, Not Enough Treats

Hopefully, a day one patch takes care of most of these issues, but in reviewing Halloween: The Game, I encountered a ton of bugs and glitches.

Everything from bot citizens standing on a rooftop to getting stuck in an animation while fixing the car and not being able to move until Michael struck me. Not once was I able to talk in the in-game proximity chat because the game automatically muted everyone with no way to unmute, and I have had multiple issues with doors. Sometimes, Michael would have to punch into a door twice to unlock it, or he could just walk through a locked door in his normal form. I played the single player while the servers were down, and it didn’t save any of my progress, plus it would automatically restart the chapter I just finished upon completion.

Add in all the issues with the bot citizens and Halloween: The Game is going to need a pretty hefty day one patch to truly feel finished on release.

Final Verdict

Halloween: The Game has its rough patches, but it’s a good enough time for fans of Michael Myers and asymmetrical horror games. My time with it was bogged down by numerous bugs and really dumb AI characters, but when the game ran as it was supposed to, it was a fun horror experience of cat-and-mouse between killer and survivor. Adding some new elements like the additional citizens that you need to save or Michael’s various abilities keeps things interesting, but I do worry about there being a ceiling for this game’s future when compared to past Illfonic and Gun titles.

Halloween: The Game was reviewed on Xbox Series X with a code provided by Illfonic. It is also available on PC and PlayStation 5.