Cult filmmaker John Carpenter seems to have been having a moment at Gamescom 2025. Not only does his name grace the title for Toxic Commando, Saber Interactive’s fun evolution of the zombie co-op FPS, but his sci-fi horror, The Thing, is also a key influence of the upcoming Directive 8020. Topping it off, it was during the show where the previously announced Halloween, based on the horror classic with Carpenter himself attached as executive producer, had its first trailer it was announced that his defining slasher horror classic Halloween is being turned into a game, with Carpenter himself attached as an executive producer.
Given it’s being developed by Illfonic–the studio behind other licensed horror or horror-adjacent games like Friday the 13th, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Predator, and Ghostbusters–in collaboration with Gun Media, Compass International Pictures, and Further Front, it shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that this will consist of asymmetrical multiplayer. But this isn’t just going to be Friday the 13th: The Game swapping out Jason Vorhees for Michael Myers. For one, the announcement confirms that Halloween will be both a single-player and multiplayer horror experience.
Although Friday the 13th did technically feature single-player content, these were essentially challenge missions that featured no narrative. Sitting down with design director Jordan Mathewson, he explains that this is very much a story mode experience that the studio is working on with Pollard Studio, the Shanghai-based studio behind Karma: The Dark World. “It does have narrative and cinematic components to really give it a lot of story and exploration into what it is doing,” he says. “But we’ve also been building a lot and iterating in a way that allows us to build a type of experience that stands apart from multiplayer and give you a completely different look at what this type of game can be.”
Unfortunately, apart from the announcement trailer, there has been no further reveal of the gameplay–not even behind closed doors–and so it’s still too early to have a clear idea of what to expect from Halloween’s story mode, apart from that it will put you in the boots and behind the mask of Michael Myers. But from what I’m able to learn from Matthewson, it sounds deliciously like a serial killer’s version of Hitman.
As Halloween will be using the 1978 movie as its blueprint, that means the setting is in the sleepy rural and suburban town of Haddonfield, Illinois. “All the decorations, the characters, the clothing are all from the 1970s,” he explains. “It’s been a lot of fun exploring what that means, and everything that comes with having that kind of technology back then when it comes to actually making the single-player is a big portion of this compared to our previous titles.”
While Haddonfield may have you just thinking of the iconic suburban neighborhood, its grounded and familiar setting being what elevates the horror when a terrifying killer is let loose in it, Matthewson also assures me that there will be a variety of maps that go beyond that neighborhood. “There’s a lot more to Haddonfield that you see throughout the movie that we’ll be exploring and making sure there’s different types of maps that have different sizes and different types of play styles associated, so it does lend itself to different experiences as you get set on these different maps.”
Having what sounds like large sandbox maps is going to be crucial to Halloween’s more slow-paced and stealth-based gameplay. Whereas Friday the 13th boiled down to Jason trying to kill as many counselors as possible within a time limit, Halloween’s Haddonfield isn’t just a map but a simulation of ’70s suburbia, so there will be a lot of NPCs also going about their own routines on Halloween night. The twist is that any one of these can be targets for Myers.
This is where the Agent 47 comparison comes into play, as Myers needs to bide his time, observing an NPC, staying in the shadows, until the opportune moment to kill comes. What this means is that rather than playing as targets trying to escape, the goal of other players is to prevent the massacre from occurring by rescuing the targeted townsfolk, such as convincing them to leave their homes.
“It’s very stealthy on both sides since Michael of course doesn’t want to be seen and he has a more methodical approach, but the civilians are obviously trying to stay out of sight until they have the means to try and combat him,” explains Matthewson. Just as it is that assassinating a target out in the open can have everyone coming after you in Hitman, so too it seems that Michael’s massacre can be more difficult to pull off if he gives himself away. It will also be possible for the civilian players to escalate things. “You can try to call the cops and convince them there’s a murderer on the loose. If the cops come to investigate and start finding evidence, they’ll send more and more that create a much more difficult challenge for Michael. He’s very powerful, but at the same time, the authority figures will challenge him.”
But without seeing this in action, I can’t quite picture in my head how this plays out. Is the bogeyman seriously going to be deterred by a bunch of smalltown cops? If Michael Myers is such a foreboding presence, I also can’t imagine his stealth options are going to involve crouching in a bush, but if not then how does he stay stealthy? And given that this game is sticking to just the 1978 movie, which was arguably his most grounded depiction, does that limit the kind of powers he will have when facing both other players as well the rest of the town?
Alas, those are details we’ll have to wait for Illfonic to reveal at a later date. Nonetheless, Matthewson assures me that the studio has been doing a lot of research and working directly with IP holder Compass to explore what Michael is truly capable of. “It retains that grounded nature because it is meant to exist in a reality where you feel vulnerable and you feel like you’re in a familiar setting,” he says. “It’s been really fun to explore that side of it, and making sure we stick to it but then also getting to jump back to Michael’s perspective and expand on it in a way that makes it a really interesting, fun, powerful experience.”
Halloween will be coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2026.
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