1974's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a horror landmark. It's gritty like no other, unflinching in its brutality, and downright terrifying as often as it wants to be. Bringing those same qualities to a video game adaptation of the movie milestone would be paramount, which is exactly what Gun Media and Sumo Nottingham have done. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (TCM) is every bit as nauseatingly tense as the classic movie, all while cleverly gamifying its scares in ways that are satisfying and built for the long haul.

Asymmetrical horror multiplayer games have been experiencing a golden age for several years now, but TCM is already my favorite of them. In TCM, a unique 4v3 setup allows each round to play out like an actual horror movie. What I didn't realize until I played it for review is that to properly balance this particular game, creating an even playing field isn't necessarily the best approach. Each round is a horror story, and its team of "victims" intentionally have the odds stacked against them, often coming down to just one Final Girl (or Guy) who might limp off the property to salvation. The high-stakes game of hide-and-seek is better for it.

A cast of five victims and five Slaughter family members, including two newly created characters who fit right into the world, make up the roster. While those playing the family have what are essentially class-based villains to pick from, the victims are closer in performance to each other, save for a special ability they each uniquely possess and starting stats that make up their various but customizable builds. As the victims start out in the basement impaled on meat hooks, the goal is simple and exciting in horror movie terms: Get the hell out of there. That encompasses first needing to climb off the hook, then unlocking an escape route, then traversing a labyrinthine and treacherous outside section no matter which of the game's three maps they're on, all while being hunted. Needless to say, survival is never easy.