The last patch for the asymmetrical multiplayer horror title is out this month. Other upcoming patches will focus on transitioning to peer-to-peer matchmaking, and the publisher clarifies that the title will remain playable. It also won’t be delisted from online storefronts.

However, don’t expect more content, bug fixes or balance adjustments. As for what’s next, Gun Interactive didn’t say much aside from “stay tuned” in all caps.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and PC. Based on the original 1974 film, it features one side playing as members of the Slaughter family and hunting down the teenage Survivors. It reached 5.6 million players as of March 2024. Check out our review of the launch version here.

Publisher Gun Interactive recently revealed via a Twitter update that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has now sold 1.1 million units worldwide across all platforms. In total, it has attracted 5.6 million players, of which 4.5 million have come through Game Pass alone.

At last count, in September of last year, the game stood at 4 million players across all platforms, so it’s exhibited decent legs in the months since then.

In our review of the game, we gave it a score of 7/10, saying, “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre differentiates itself well from other horror multiplayer titles, channeling the brutality of the films with some unique gameplay despite the various issues.” Read the full review through here.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Over 1 million units of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre sold!

To all 5.6 million players who stepped into Texas, thank you for sharing this unique horror experience with us! pic.twitter.com/D5ylMi0qzG

— The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (@TXChainSawGame) February 28, 2024

Gun Interactive has revealed a new map and two new characters that will soon be added to the game with a new trailer (which you can view below). Players will get to one new Victim and Family member each, with Danny and Nancy respectively, while Nancy’s House will be added to the map rotation.

The map will arrive for free for all players as part of an update that will also bring over 250 fixes for the game, though both characters will be paid DLC, and will be purchasable for $9.99 each. The patch, the map, and the new characters will all arrive on November 28, a week from now.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. In a little over a month after its launch, it had attracted over 4 million players. You can read our review of the game through here.

Taking to Twitter, Gun Interactive recently announced that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has seen over 4 million players across all platforms within its first month. The horror title is, of course, also available via Game Pass, which doubtless will have contributed to those numbers quite a bit. Regardless, it’s an impressive milestone for the game.

In our review of the game, we gave it a score of 7/10, saying, “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre differentiates itself well from other horror multiplayer titles, channeling the brutality of the films with some unique gameplay despite the various issues.” Read the full review through here.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Over 4 Million players in our first month.

That's a whole lot of BBQ. pic.twitter.com/KVF808b7Ec

— The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (@TXChainSawGame) September 21, 2023

An issue causing voice chat not to work in lobbies for party members is also fixed. Bugs causing inaccurate XP and delays in earning the same, in addition to the UI showing rank-ups after each match despite not having the requisite XP, have also been fixed. A crash on PS4 that occurred when unlocking Trophies and another that high-level players faced in the match results are also fixed.

Check out the full patch notes below. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. The online horror title had a good start, crossing one million players in its first 24 hours. You can read our review to learn more about our thoughts.

PATCH NOTES

Fixed:

PC stuttering on Ultra graphics settings

• This fix resolves graphical issues when running the game on Ultra settings with appropriate hardware.
• This also fixes an issue causing FPS drops when attacking or grappling with opponents while running the game on Ultra settings with appropriate hardware.

Fixed:

• Voice chat not working in lobbies for party members
• This fix is for an issue where party members would lose voice chat functionality once in a lobby.

Fixed:

XP Progression

• This fix resolves a UI issue that would appear to rank up after every match, despite not gaining the required XP to do so.
• This fix also resolves inaccurate XP and XP delays related to earning XP.

Fixed:

Various Crashes and Freezes

• This includes a PS4 crash related to unlocking trophies.
• This also includes a fix for high level players experiencing a crash on the match results screen.

Changed:

Key Rebinding

• We’ve added key rebinding to the PC version of the game.

Changed:

• Lobbies will now launch with 6 players
• This change should help lobbies get running smoother, quicker, and with less drops due to incomplete lobbies.
• Leatherface is STILL required for a match.

Changed:

Quick Match Menu

• We’ve moved Quick Match to the top of the menu options when looking to join games.
• Quick Match will result in not only quicker matchmaking into a lobby, but also fuller lobbies.

Changed:

PC Removed from Cross Play

• We are temporarily separating PC from the console player base in cross play while we continue to improve our anti-cheat tools and resources.

Tuning:

EAC and Anti Cheat Improvements

• We have made several improvements to our anti-cheat and protection from additional cheat resources.
• We’ve also improved our tracking and logging for cheat detection and consistent future improvement.

Heal Fellow Victims

You may think it’s every man for himself in a multiplayer game focused on escaping, but you should actively attempt to keep your allies alive, and in doing so, earn valuable experience points by healing them.

Victim Proximity

Continuing on from the previous tip, also try to stay in proximity to other victims, for a bonus to experience points.

Take The Fight To The Killer

Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. If you can present a united front with fellow victims, you can confront killers and use a bone scrap or relevant perks to temporarily neutralize them and gain some experience points in the process.

Killer Proximity

If you can not beat them or ally with other victims, just being in proximity of killers can gain you experience points, as will leading them on a pursuit and keeping out of their clutches for as long as possible.

Play Your Perks

If you have unlocked some perks already, actually make use of them as the situation demands, and earn experience points from deploying them successfully.

Noise Makers

These makeshift alarms can alert the killer to your activity, so cutting them down with a bone scrap will help you maintain stealth, and also earn you experience points.

Slaughter Chickens

The bone scrap once again comes in handy to both eliminate chickens for resources and gain you experience points.

Open Every Exit

There are multiple avenues of escape which have to be opened up before they can be viably used to leave. Even though some of these can be quite intricate to accomplish, and you may not actually use the route out, you should do so anyway, as the very act of unlocking them also earns you experience points. 

No Victim Left Behind

Besides healing and defending your fellow captives, you should also try to make sure that as many of you as possible successfully exfiltrate, if not all of you. You have nothing to lose by doing so, and everything to gain, in the form of more experience points for each successful escapee.

Last Man Standing

If you can pull it off without being captured, you should try to be the last victim that leaves the round, as this also provides an experience point bonus. But be careful not to get into a struggle for the last man out the door with another victim, and then find both of yourselves cornered by a killer unexpectedly.

Escaping Successfully

A no-brainer really, but you should do your best to accumulate all possible experience points in the round, before gaining this final bonus at the end, simply by staying alive till you walk out the door.

All of these tips when used in conjunction can earn you several hundred points of experience in a single round at minimum, if not thousands. And that concludes this experience point farming guide for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre videogame adaptation.

The sales weren’t revealed, but since The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is available on Game Pass, the service undoubtedly contributed to the player count. This is fine because Gun Interactive CEO/president Wes Keltner felt that launching on the service and having “that many potential players” for quicker matchmaking was “paramount.”

“Partnering with Microsoft and allowing the game to be available to the millions on Game Pass was a no-brainer decision for us.” Along with Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One, the title is also available for PS4, PS5 and PC.

Based on the classic film series, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre sees a team of four Victims trying to escape while dealing with the murderous Family. The latter includes the likes of Leatherface and Chef, with new characters lending their hunting experience. Check out our review for more details.

Over 1 million of you went to Texas in the last 24 hours.

Who survived and who turned into BBQ? pic.twitter.com/DrZw5x2CCt

— The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (@TXChainSawGame) August 19, 2023

"At Gun, we never make the same game twice. I think between Friday the 13th and Dead by Daylight, we’ve shaped modern asymmetrical horror. Now it’s time to redefine it and innovate towards something new. And The Texas Chain Saw Massacre does that."

As an asymmetrical multiplayer horror game, I suppose comparisons to Dead by Daylight are going to be unavoidable. What are the biggest ways you’re looking to set your game apart from others in the genre though?

Wes Keltner (CEO and President of Gun Interactive): I think they are unavoidable until you spend a few seconds playing/watching gameplay. Players will quickly see it’s very, very different. The only similarities are that it’s horror and asymmetrical, that’s it. We set it apart because we rethought what asymmetrical horror could be. We pushed the genre forward instead of a lateral move. At Gun, we never make the same game twice. I think between Friday the 13th and Dead by Daylight, we’ve shaped modern asymmetrical horror. Now it’s time to redefine it and innovate towards something new. And The Texas Chain Saw Massacre does that.

As a 4v3 experience where three killers will be working together to hunt down their victims instead of just one main threat, how have you approached balancing characters and ensuring that every match remains a fair experience, and one side doesn’t feel too overpowered?

Keltner: We approached each family member with this idea of the family working together as a unit. One might be better used defensively, while another is more a brute. One hits hard, while another should be focusing on setting traps. There’s strategy in using the team. When you approach the design with that idea, it becomes about balancing the family against what they can do when working together. It’s a slightly different approach to balancing an individual character and then trying to figure out how to make them fit into the world via balance. Once we concentrated on that idea, the design started coming together more cohesively. Which in turn helped to balance the victims on the other side and it even affected level design.

What was behind the reasoning to not include cross-play in the game’s last-gen console versions? Is it something you might look into adding at some point down the road?

Keltner: To be completely transparent, we started working on crossplay before we made the decision to support the older generation of consoles. It would have pushed our launch date out a lot to pull that off. Could it be something we do later? Maybe. But I’m not making any promises. We have a lot of things on our internal wishlist, but the success of the game will dictate what we get to do.

Given its very nature, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is obviously a game that’s going to function as an ongoing experience that players will ideally be sticking with over a long period of time. With that in mind, what sort of post-launch plans do you have in mind for the game? Can players expect a steady stream of new content following release?

Keltner: Right now, we’re focusing on a solid launch. We had a great PC technical test a couple months back and learned a lot from that. More than anything about ingesting to servers, matchmake, etc. That is our primary focus and has been for a while now. Discussing future plans feels a bit premature at this point. Do we want to add new stuff? Absolutely! But we also need a strong and stable launch, and if players are loving it, we will tackle new content.

"We started working on crossplay before we made the decision to support the older generation of consoles. It would have pushed our launch date out a lot to pull that off. Could it be something we do later? Maybe."

What was the experience like of getting the original actors for many of your characters to reprise their roles for the game?

Keltner: It was fairly painless to be honest. They all have a soft spot for that 1974 film. Once they saw the care and love we also have for it and the white glove approach to bringing it to life in a game, they were in. Also everyone we’ve met so far that was affiliated with the film, be it in front or behind the camera, has been lovely. Just all-around good humans.

In addition to featuring several well-known characters, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is also introducing some that have been created specifically for the game. What was that process like? How did you approach these characters, not only in terms of how they will play, but also in terms of how they’ll fit into this universe?

Keltner: Kim Henkel wrote the original film. He stood beside Tobe Hooper just about every scene that was filmed. Kim is also the rights holder of the 1974 film, which is what we have rights to. He’s been so, so good to us. Warm and welcoming with every question and inquiry about how this or that was filmed. What cameras they used. What film stock, etc. He has a sharp memory and helped guide us along the way. This also included creating new characters. Kim sat with our creative director, Ronnie Hobbs, and created Sissy and Johnny, the two new family members. That process was surreal to say the least. Here’s the thing… Kim already had Sissy created. Her name and bio were written decades ago. He dug it up from this binder and started brainstorming with Ronnie. That’s pretty damn cool if you ask me.

It was recently confirmed that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre won’t have bots available for those who want to play online. Is this something that might get added in following launch?

Keltner: At this time or the foreseeable future we will not be adding offline bots. The true Texas Chain Saw experience comes from humans playing humans. We created the sandbox. We give you the tools to create your own Texas film. That’s not achievable with bots. It doesn’t match the vision we have for this title.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is going to be available on Game Pass at launch. Can you talk to us about what motivated that decision? As a multiplayer game, was the prospect of having access to Game Pass’ entire subscriber base on day one just too good of an opportunity to turn down?

Keltner: You hit it right on the head. To have that many potential players, filling up the servers to keep matches quick and the turnover to a new match snappy, is paramount. No one wants to sit in an empty server waiting for it to fill up. Partnering with Microsoft and allowing the game to be available to the millions on Game Pass was a no brainer decision for us.

"At this time or the foreseeable future we will not be adding offline bots. The true Texas Chain Saw experience comes from humans playing humans. We created the sandbox. We give you the tools to create your own Texas film. That’s not achievable with bots. It doesn’t match the vision we have for this title."

Do you have any plans to eventually also bring the game to the Switch?

Keltner: At this time, no. It’s more likely to get it running on a Steam Deck. But again, no promises.

Given that you have now worked on all the current gen consoles, I hope you don’t mind answering some questions about their hardware. Since the reveal of the PS5 and Xbox Series’ specs, a lot of comparisons have been made between the GPU speeds of the two consoles, with the PS5 at 10.28 TFLOPS and the Xbox Series X at 12 TFLOPS. How much of an impact on development do you think that difference will have?

Ismael Vicens (Executive Producer): Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X were a pleasure to work on. To be honest, the available performance from both platforms let us design and develop a title that performs exceedingly well on the high-end machines, while presenting amazing image quality that absolutely reflects the visual goals we set for the game. We love that this generation of consoles has targeted 60fps for games, and we love that fluidity when playing.

The PS5 features an incredibly fast SSD with 5.5GB/s raw bandwidth. How can developers take advantage of this, and how does this compare to the Xbox Series X’s 2.4GB/s raw bandwidth?

Vicens: Since we’re a multiplayer title, most of our load time constraints occur in moving a lobby full of people into a match, and worrying about their bandwidth and internet connection. The superb I/O speed of both consoles means that users are going to see a clean image while playing without texture pop in. Our load screens are often used primarily to shuffle people around and make sure they’re synced up before we pop back into gameplay.

Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X boast Zen 2 CPUs, but there is a difference in the processors of both consoles. The Xbox Series X features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.8GHz, whereas the PS5 features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz. Your thoughts on this difference?

Vicens: Any multiplayer title has a good chance to find itself CPU bound, but the combination of fast speeds and the maturity of Unreal Engine 4’s optimizations meant that we were able to squeeze every bit of performance out of the game across both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

"To have that many potential players, filling up the servers to keep matches quick and the turnover to a new match snappy, is paramount. No one wants to sit in an empty server waiting for it to fill up. Partnering with Microsoft and allowing the game to be available to the millions on Game Pass was a no brainer decision for us."

The Xbox Series S features lesser hardware compared to Xbox Series and Microsoft is pushing it as a 1440p/60 FPS console. Do you think it will be able to hold up for the more graphically intensive games as this generation progresses?

Vicens: A few of us at Gun love our Xbox Series S consoles. They’re a great entry point into this generation of gaming, and the hardware is very capable. So many games – including ours – target a wide range of hardware for games due to the flexible nature of gaming PCs, and the Series S still has a comfortable performance envelope that will let developers make sure they are bringing their titles to as many gamers as they can.

What are your thoughts on the Steam Deck? Do you have plans for any specific optimizations for the device?

Keltner: Personally, I love it. We got our hands on one about a year or so ago and I was blown away with what it could do. As mentioned previously, it’s more likely we could get the game to run on that vs a Switch. But honestly, we have not spent any development time on the Steam Deck. So, I’m not making any promises or predictions on that.

So along comes The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, based on the film franchise but sticking to the aesthetic and overall direction of the 1974 classic. It’s from Gun Interactive, which also published Friday the 13th, while Sumo Nottingham handles development. Unlike other titles before it, this is not a 1v4 multiplayer title, but 3v4, as the vaunted Family attempts to slaughter the Victims trying to escape from their property.

The opening text crawl and narration set the tone, almost like the calm before the storm. You can queue as either a Family member (aka a killer) or a Victim, though there’s also Quick Match and an option for Private and Public Lobbies. Once you’re in a game, your job as a killer is to slaughter the Victims mercilessly. Obviously, as the latter, you want to escape, ideally together (but you won’t be penalized for leaving someone behind).

"Though the Family can’t die and is equipped with all kinds of nasty abilities, from Leatherface’s ability to destroy barricades and crawl spaces or Sissy poisoning areas and scattering some in her target’s face, they’re not all-powerful."

Despite the overall goals of each side being clear, there are some interesting variations on how they achieve them. The Family, for instance, are on the prowl, and while they have a detection skill to see through walls, they can also feed blood to Grandpa, who sits decrepit in a rocking chair, awakening at the first sign of noise from a Victim. By doing so, they activate different perks and improve detection to scout their Victims.

The Victims must rely on stealth, break out of the basement where they’re being held captive and unlock the door to ultimately reach the surface. There are a couple of exits to choose from, some requiring the disabling of traps, picking of locks and powering generators to finally be free. Beware though – any injuries sustained cause you to lose health until you’re incapacitated. At that point, you must wait for an ally to help or be slaughtered by the Family, who can pick up and execute you. It’s nothing personal. They need that XP.

There’s an unmistakable terror as you’re sneaking around, trying to avoid Leatherface and utter dismay on seeing Family members like Sissy or the Hitchhiker pass through gaps or crawl through spaces to pursue you. Hearing the chainsaw revving up as you flee for your life is pretty harrowing. On the other hand, that feeling of chasing and cornering a Victim before killing them is also fun, even if some of the hit responses can be a bit iffy. Sometimes, it’s hard to know whether your chainsaw connects with a target’s body, especially if they’re crouching.

However, because this is a 3v4 scenario, there are some fundamental differences from titles like Dead by Daylight or even Friday the 13th. Though the Family can’t die and is equipped with all kinds of nasty abilities, from Leatherface’s ability to destroy barricades and crawl spaces or Sissy poisoning areas and scattering some in her target’s face, they’re not all-powerful. Like the Victims, they’re bound by stamina, and thanks to the overall size of the maps, you can spend a lot of time running around without catching wind of the opposition.

"There are five Family members and five Victims, each with different abilities to make the opposing side’s life a little more difficult."

In that sense, teamwork and cooperating with your fellow Family member is key, and I didn’t mind it. Watching the teammate pursue a poor Victim, and cutting off their only escape as we hacked him to bits was neat (in-game, of course). You may also have teammates unlock and leave doors or gates open, making it easier for the Victims to escape. I’m not going to pretend I’m innocent, having accidentally triggered an electric trap on a fence my teammate set and becoming stunned in the process. On the plus side, it was a good learning experience as a Victim when trying to disable the same trap and escape.

It doesn’t help that you’re thrust into the game with the most minimal of instructions. Some video tutorials explain what must be done, how certain characters play and so on, and it’s all well and good, but learning the maps, knowing which ability does what, etc., necessitates a single-player component, if not the option to practice with bots.

The development team opted out of any single-player or bots to focus on polishing the online portion, and that’s fine. However, for a game like this, where the Victims can escape quickly if they know what to do, or the Family can slaughter their prey before they get out of the basement, it can lead to some frustration. Unfortunately, you can’t even create a Lobby without a party of four players, so forget about learning maps and characters on your own time.

There are five Family members and five Victims, each with different abilities to make the opposing side’s life a little more difficult. Connie can pick a lock faster thanks to her Focused Ability, using up stamina, while Ana can shrug off pain from attacks or fall damage. On the other hand, Leatherface is your quintessential killer, charging through the fields with his chainsaw held high (which can short out if you don’t execute the target at the end). The Hitchhiker favors traps, and the Cook can set padlocks while using his enhanced hearing to better sense Victims at the cost of speed and toughness.

Completing matches nets XP and Skill Points or SP, with the latter used to unlock skills for each character (while using them enough times unlocks other outfits). You can only equip three Skills at a time while the Family has a fourth slot to accommodate skills that activate when Grandpa is fed, like slightly increasing melee damage for all allies or regaining stamina when Grandpa’s sonar is active. The more you use a core ability, the more XP it gains and improves, allowing you to equip modifiers.

"If only the overall stability of the game was better. There were only slight frame drops when playing, and my system could handle the overall experience without any issues."

By progressing through each character’s Skill Tree, you can unlock Attribute Points to increase Stamina, Savagery and Blood Harvesting for the Family and Toughness, Endurance, Strength, Proficiency and Stealth for the Victims. You must make choices since other paths on the tree become locked if you branch towards a specific one. There’s no cost for respeccing, though it can be annoying in the early going when you have low-level characters and need to reset the Skill Points for one to free up enough to unlock another’s Skills.

Each character feels varied enough, and matches are fairly dynamic, at least at the start, to prove entertaining enough. However, as faithful as each map feels to the films, their overall flow can feel the same after a while. When playing as Leatherface, I’ve always started in the basement, and the Victims always have to escape their shackles while trying to reach the same four exits. You also can’t play matches without Leatherface – he’s required because, well, that’s how the films are. After all, having him do his trademark chainsaw dance at the end would look weird if he wasn’t present.

There are also only three maps, which can further add to the repetition. Matches also wouldn’t start without the full three Family members and four Victims – this shouldn’t be an issue at launch, but when the player base declines, as often happens with every multiplayer title, it can prove an issue for those matchmaking.

I was satisfied presentation-wise, especially with the animation work for the Family, and the sound design is well done. When the latter is necessary for tracking down Victims or sensing just how far a Family member is while hiding, having it feel on point is great. Now if only the overall stability of the game was better. There were only slight frame drops when playing, and my system could handle the overall experience without any issues.

"The atmosphere and audio do well to convey the horror of the films, delivering brutal kills without going overboard with the blood and gore (though you’ll find plenty of it strewn about the environment)."

However, there were several crashes, whether from starting the game or getting into a match, necessitating a restart. It’s annoying when you’ve found a match after several failures and waiting, only to have it crash and start the process all over. At least there were no network issues during the actual matches.

Boiled down to its raw gameplay, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has some issues but provides a riveting experience when everything starts to click. The atmosphere and audio do well to convey the horror of the films, delivering brutal kills without going overboard with the blood and gore (though you’ll find plenty of it strewn about the environment).

It’s unfortunately hamstrung by lackluster tutorials, no bots or practice, limited maps with all too similar gameplay flows, tedious respeccing when you don’t have enough characters leveled, odd design choices and bizarre crashes. It may become something special with time but must settle for being a competent stealth vs slasher experience rather than the next breakout horror multiplayer title.

This game was reviewed on PC.

The multiplayer horror title goes live at 7 AM PDT/10 AM ET on August 18th. Sydney, Australia, will need to wait till August 19th, midnight local time to access the game. System requirements for all configurations include 30 GB of installation space and Windows 10 with at least 8 GB of RAM necessary.

As for crossplay, Steam, Windows Store, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S can match with each other. However, PS4 and Xbox One players can’t and must play with those on the same platforms. Time will tell if this changes, so stay tuned for updates.

Check out our feature for more details on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It will also be available on GeForce Now and Game Pass at launch.