October 31st, 1963. The date of the most horrific night in Haddonfield, Illinois, history. The day Michael Myers escaped the asylum and became infamous with the holiday that is Halloween. I’ll never forget the first time I watched John Carpenter’s masterpiece 1978 horror film, Halloween, at far too young an age. The result? At 30 years old, Michael Myers is still the most terrifying silver-screen slasher to me – watching one of his countless appearances in media still invites nightmares of that white mask, Michael’s uncanny ability to be anywhere and everywhere at once, and his endless desire to kill.
It’s for this reason that Halloween is my all-time favorite horror movie. It’s also a franchise I’ve been waiting forever for Illfonic, developer of Friday the 13th, Predator: Hunting Grounds, and Killer Klowns From Outer Space, to tackle it in its typical asymmetrical multiplayer style. I was thrilled to learn that the time has come, with IllFonic revealing Halloween last week, and even more excited to interview the studio’s chief creative officer, Jared Gerritzen, about the game.
Everything We Learned About IllFonic’s Halloween
Gerritzen first shows me the Halloween reveal trailer, which offers a nice cinematic appetizer of what’s to come in the game when it launches sometime next year, before proclaiming Halloween is IllFonic’s biggest game yet. That’s not surprising, considering it features 1v4 asymmetrical multiplayer – typical for the developer – but also, a single-player campaign that puts you in the boots of Michael on the night of Halloween in 1963. That’s a huge addition to this multiplayer title, and something I’m eager to ask Gerritzen at the top of my interview.
Single-Player Campaign
He says IllFonic is aware that when it and other teams announce games based on popular horror IPs like Halloween, fans get bummed when they learn it’s an asymmetrical multiplayer game, and wanted to include a single-player campaign for them. But that’s not the only reason. Gerritzen tells me the single-player campaign is designed to be played first as it teaches you how to be the best Michael Myers in the game’s multiplayer mode.
You’ll play through the events of the first Halloween film, and a little after to learn more never-before-seen story about that night, and acquire different abilities and perform different kills on the citizens of Haddonfield in this campaign. “It trains you to be an optimal Michael Myers for multiplayer,” Gerritzen says. The team is working with Carpenter and longtime franchise producer Malek Akkad – he’s been it’s producer since 1985, taking over the reins from his father, who was the Halloween producer prior to that – to create this game, including the single-player campaign; so you can expect it to feel authentic to the original films. It will even emulate the 1970s movie vibe of the original film, with Gerritzen calling it a “period piece” game.
This means the visual style, the dialogue, and even the technology available to you in-game will match the time period. This applies to single-player and multiplayer content in the game, with Gerritzen explaining to me IllFonic has taken great strides to “revolutionize” this genre this time around. “We’re filling out the world with NPCs and AI, and heroes can save the town now instead of the standard do XYZ and escape alone, but you can play how you want,” he says. “If you’re saving town people, you’re slowing Michael down from killing people. On the other hand, if you’re playing as Michael, you have more things to do that might be easier than killing a hero, so the power balance is a lot more interesting and different than the same old, same old of the genre.”
Halloween will utilize the canon of the franchise heavily, but IllFonic has been given the green light to add things it needs to make it fun. For example, in the movies, Michael has the uncanny ability to appear anywhere and is seemingly inhuman in the amount of damage he can take. His gameplay abilities will reflect that.
He is not a man anymore after all, as Dr. Samuel Loomis declares in the reveal trailer; he is The Shape. Speaking of Loomis, IllFonic is working with the family of Loomis actor Donald Pleasence to use his likeness, as Loomis is the narrator of the game’s campaign. Karma: The Dark World developer Pollard Studio is helping IllFonic develop the campaign, something Gerritzen says has “supercharged” the Unreal Engine 5-developed project.
Gerritzen says Jason (of Friday the 13th fame) is a “bull in a China shop,” that the Predator is a “big cat, powerful and noisy,” and that Michael is a “coiled-up cobra that happens to be in any bush you walk by.” That will be reflected in his gameplay prowess, though IllFonic isn’t ready to dive into specifics yet.
IllFonic is still supporting its older titles – it released new Predator: Hunting Grounds content in recent weeks – but Gerritzen says this is the first time the entire team will be focused on one project in Halloween. Partly, that’s because Unreal Engine 5 allows the team to try new techniques it struggled with in the past, such as dynamic lighting and other technological feats.
Why Now?
After the release of Friday the 13th in 2017, IllFonic made a massive list of the IP it wanted to play around in, because “you can’t just grab an IP and say, ‘Okay, we’re starting on it,'” Gerritzen tells me. As you might expect, copyright and other rights issues make developing in an IP like Predator or Halloween tough. Gerritzen says IllFonic developed Friday the 13th, then Predator: Hunting Grounds, then had “a couple of projects canceled,” and while working on Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, the Killer Klowns from Outer Space IP landed in its lap. During that game’s development, Halloween arrived at its doors, and “that’s when we started going, ‘Let’s work on the next project and focus the entire company on it.'” Despite this studio-wide focus on Halloween’s development, Gerritzen says it’s important that IllFonic not abandon its prior projects, which he says it hasn’t.
“We fully believe in making a game, supporting the game, and, even when going to another game, still keeping past ones going and fostered,” he adds.
As for developing a game around Michael Myers, Gerritzen says there hasn’t been much representation for him in games. I joke about owning the Michael skin in Call of Duty. “Yeah, and that’s exactly what you want for Michael, right?” Gerritzen jokes back. “No, Michael is this unknown monster, The Shape, that thing in the corner of your eye, the thing you’re afraid to look out and see at night, and everyone has a different experience with him. He is the boogeyman, and that’s why we’re really all in on this game.”
Design
“Fun” sits at the top of IllFonic’s multiplayer priorities in Halloween, but a close second is “breaking the stigma,” Gerritzen says. “We have to use this world to make it bigger. What would happen if you zoomed the camera all the way out and saw Haddonfield beyond how it was needed for a scene in the movie.” IllFonic is focused on thoughtfully adding to Haddonfield; it’s doing the same for Michael’s set of moves.
Since this game is based on the events of the first film, it places you in the same mindset as Haddonfield citizens (and movie watchers) in that a lot about Michael Myers is obscured in mystery. “We’re kind of expanding on that,” Gerritzen adds. “Is he looking for [Laurie Strode] or just coming back home to write a wrong or get revenge or something else? You don’t know what it is; all you know is he is Michael Myers and he killed his sister. Loomis has gone crazy in the film because he’s so obsessed with this thing he cannot understand, and in our game, you will be playing the thing he and you cannot understand. I think that’s definitely an interesting angle.”
For creating Michael’s moveset, Gerritzen says the team watched Halloween over and over again, “paid attention to the things he does in film, just kind of took that and determined what it means and what if you can XYZ. We essentially connected these things and presented it to the IP team, and said, ‘Hey, this is what we feel like we can do.'” Though he’s cagey about what exactly, Gerritzen says the team “cracked a mechanic I’ve never seen in any other game,” and that players will have to experience this “holy s***” moment for themselves when Halloween launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC next year.
Are you excited for IllFonic’s Halloween? Let us know in the comments below!