Halloween Preview: Michael Myers Game Freshens Up Horror Genre

(Image Credits: IllFonic)

The development team at IllFonic is no stranger to working in the world of horror. They’ve delivered some of the best horror games to date, and in doing so, they, along with developer Behaviour Interactive and Dead by Daylight, have refined the asymmetric multiplayer genre to the point where fans know more or less what to expect. However, with IllFonic’s latest game, centered all around the iconic 1978 film Halloween, the company takes some big swings that set it apart from anything the genre has seen.

During this weekend’s PAX East 2026 convention, I got the chance to check out IllFonic’s latest game, as well as talk to IllFonic’s Chief Creative Director about the team’s upcoming game. In just a short amount of time, it’s clear that IllFonic has ventured forth to make something that not only feels familiar to players of their past games, but brand new at the same time, and incorporates what makes Michael Myers the feared boogeyman that he is.

It’s no secret that, when it comes to the horror genre, there’s none above Halloween. The legendary franchise created by John Carpenter has been a mainstay since its inception in the late 70s, and has been a game that IllFonic has been eager to tackle for some time. As IllFonic Creative Director Jared Gerritzen jokingly put it, the team is building a “Thanos glove,” and Halloween is “the biggest” franchise of them all.

While familiar with the world of horror thanks to games like Friday the 13th: The Game (which was shut down after licensing issues with creator Victor Miller), Predator: Hunting Grounds, and more, IllFonic never got the chance to deal directly with a franchise’s creative team. When the opportunity to talk to longtime Halloween producer Malek Akkad (the son of the film’s original producer, Moustapha Akkad) and the folks behind Halloween came about, the idea for the game began taking shape.

“We get to talk directly to the people that hold the ropes, right?” Gerritzen said in our talk. “Versus another person on top of another person at a company that then goes and talks to 13 other people to get it approved, which is what we’ve been dealing with…so talking directly to Malek and Ryan [Freimann of Compass International Pictures], it was great.”

At its core, Halloween is very much an IllFonic asymmetrical horror video game. Players can play as either civilians or Michael Myers, and the goals are clear: make it out of Haddonfield without Myers catching you, or catch enough people as Myers to win. That’s where the similarities end, though, and a lot of what makes Halloween so fun begins to emerge. As civilians, players can interact with NPCs littered around the map and try to convince them to go get help, hide, or join their group of survivors.

Convincing NPCs is as easy as successfully performing some quick-time events. However, the fear comes in wondering when Myers will catch up to you. As Myers, this fear is achieved thanks to his “Shape Jump” ability, which essentially turns Myers into a wraith-like being that can float through the world and objects at a faster speed. This includes being able to phase through things like windows and doors, as long as no Survivor is watching you.

While this sounds a bit cheesy in the game, it actually works tremendously. In the Halloween movie, much of the dread comes from the fact that Myers seems to appear anywhere, no matter how far you may think you are. The “Shape Jump” helps translate this perfectly: during my time playing, Myers was chasing us into a home, only to suddenly appear inside one of the bedrooms after we had thought we were safe. According to Gerritzen, this feature is one that helps separate it from other games.

“All of these films pull from the same exact page that John [Carpenter] set up in the 70s, which was Mike shows up out of nowhere,” said Gerritzen. “And that was the thing that I was like, ‘How do we do that? How do we figure this out?’ And so I just kind of theory-crafted with Jordan [Matthewson, Design Director at IllFonic] the idea of Shape Jump.”

The new features make Halloween feel much more unique than anything IllFonic has put forward in the past. While other games had fun mechanics tied to their villains, this felt like the first time the studio really tried matching the exact feel of a movie to the game, and in my brief time with it, the marriage was perfect. Of course, the biggest blessing comes in the form of John Carpenter, the legendary director who Gerritzen noted told the team at IllFonic to make the game they wanted to make.

“John has been in multiple calls,” Gerritzen said. “When we jump on with them, we show them stuff, and the thing he always goes back to is, ‘I’ve done this, this has been mine at the beginning, it’s mine all the way through…this is you, this is yours. And so there are things that we have to, of course, keep, that he asked us, and we’ve kept it…but it’s been great, because we’ve only focused on the first film, which to me is the hub of the wheel of insanity. I mean, this started horror.”

Halloween Preview: Final Verdict

IllFonic is clearly no slouch when it comes to presenting awesome games set in the world of popular horror franchises. With Halloween, though, it feels like they’ve stepped their game up. With closer connections to the people behind the franchise, IllFonic has crafted a game that truly makes you feel like you’re in the quiet, suburban city of Haddonfield, and whether you’re a civilian or Michael Myers himself, the looming presence of “The Shape” is always there.

Halloween is set to release on September 8, 2026, and will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

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