The Game demo remembers what makes Michael Myers so scary

“The Shape” (Michael Myers) is already a playable Killer in Dead by Daylight, so when I saw that developer Illfonic was showcasing Halloween: The Game at PAX East 2026, I couldn’t help but wonder—why? They’re both asymmetrical horror games, where one player assumes the role of the slasher-movie villain while the other four struggle to survive against the overpowered threat. Do we really need another participatory gorefest with the same hook?

Watching people play it, however, made me realize that I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was never all that interested in Dead by Daylight — its graphics and animation didn’t look all that impressive, even a decade ago. Halloween: The Game, however, elevates the experience in meaningful ways. It isn’t just another asymmetrical horror game — it’s one that actually understands what makes Michael Myers terrifying, and builds its entire design around that idea.

On Halloween night in 1978, the Boogeyman returns to Haddonfield Heights, a quiet suburban neighborhood in the midwest. Despite all the darkness and horror, the environments are eerily bright and colorful in a way that feels very ‘70s. Character models also have smoothed edges to them that feel just a touch cartoonish — in a good way. Halloween: The Game is also far more complex than a simple 1v4. Those four players each assume the role of a unique “Hero of Haddonfield,” but the town is full of NPC residents who need to be escorted to random escape points. So it’s less “escape the killer” and more of a “manage a town under siege” situation. That alone gives Myers more victims to target — and turns every match into controlled chaos.

Myers can focus on his targets with Murderous Intent to build levels of Stalk, which makes him better able to track targets and unlock more executions. He also has access to Shape Jump that lets him travel through shadows at great speed, even passing through some solid surfaces. That allows him to suddenly appear in front of a victim while they’re running away. This ability is restricted by sources of light, however, so any Myers player ought to spend most of their time early-match knocking out lights.

Watching Myers in action is deeply unnerving (and it made me stay very far away from the record-breaking Michael Myers cosplay meetup held at PAX East). In-game, he moves with the same kind of demonic grace that made the original Halloween movie such a sensation. He’s slow, deliberate, and supernaturally controlled. Myers is also just a regular-looking guy in a white mask, but the way he moves — and randomly shows up in weird places to stare at victims — instills fear. It’s never a question of whether Myers can catch you or not. It’s just a matter of when he looks in your direction.

At one point while wandering the show floor at PAX East, I lurked behind two people playing Halloween. As Myers, one player walked boldly down the middle of a dark street in Haddonfield with a knife. His pace was urgent but unrushed, with sudden bursts of intensity in the way he flings open a door or pivots around a corner.

At the next station over, a woman was playing as a Hero of Haddonfield, cowering in some bushes with a rifle in her hands. We both watched the Boogeyman leave an empty house to stalk back out into the streets. He walked right past her. She exhaled. Then he stopped…and turned his entire body to face her. We both yelped — and she shrieked again when she heard me. Sorry, ma’am.

While Dead by Daylight also used some motion capture for the game’s animations, the overall quality pales in comparison to what Halloween: The Game has to offer. I later learned that the new game features mocap from the original Halloween actor Nick Castle and stuntman TJ Storm.

I was instantly reminded of a hilarious viral video I saw on TikTok once. A child dressed as Mike Myers stalks through what looks like some kind of maze made of hay bundles, while other kids scream and run around him. He trips over one, falls, then quickly shifts to lay flat on the ground. After a dramatic pause, he sits bolt upright in that idiosyncratic way only Mike Myers can do.

That clip stuck with me because it captures what the best Halloween adaptations understand: Michael Myers isn’t scary because he’s fast — he’s scary because he never breaks character.

Halloween: The Game will be released on September 8, 2026 for Xbox, Windows PC, and PlayStation.