Evil Dead: The Game is a soulful love letter to Sam Raimi’s horror franchise and its loyal fans. I’ll put my hand up and immediately say I’m indifferent to the Evil Dead movies. While I’m a horror lover through and through, when it comes to those delicious horror/camp crossovers, my love lies in the rude nature of Rob Zombie movies. Having said that, I greatly admire Sam Raimi’s work and am still very interested to see how his cinematic direction will apply to asymmetrical horror games.
A must-play for Evil Dead fans and still fun for the rest of us
Despite my interest in this game, my hopes have never been higher: The last multiplayer horror game I played – Back 4 Blood – inspired the biggest disappointment I’ve ever experienced in gaming one. True. So this time around, although the two games are very different, I can’t help but expect more of the same; they’re both horror-centric multiplayer games from developers with incomplete histories. You understand my caution, right?
But I was pleasantly surprised by Evil Dead: The Game. For the most part, it feels as if the title has learned from the genre’s previous mistakes. And don’t worry about a lack of love for Evil Dead getting in the way of your enjoyment – the game is fully playable and parseable even if you don’t know anything about Ash and friends; you’ll just have multiple punch lines flying over your head.
I’ve put hundreds of hours into games like Dead by Daylight and Left 4 Dead 2, and when I loaded my first Evil Dead game, my efforts certainly didn’t go to waste (it feels weird to say that) . While it clearly shares similarities with other asymmetric horror games that require survivors to cooperate, Evil Dead: The Game is still incredibly fresh in its approach to the genre. Imagine if they gave Dead by Daylight a great soundtrack, a more accessible UI, and a character progression system that didn’t require hundreds of hours. Then, imagine if they combined that with Left 4 Dead 2’s humor, gore, and utter chaos. Finally, imagine the gameplay is absolutely packed with action without feeling complicated or overly complicated. What you’re depicting now may not be too far from what we’re getting here.
Great graphics and a fresh game loop make hacking and slashing so satisfying
When opening the game for the first time, and then loading into a match, what struck me was how good it looked. From the loading screens to the character models and maps, everything looks impressive—probably the kind of graphics that can be used for an entire generation. Jumping into a new map can be disorienting at first (those great weather and lighting effects ensure that), but you’ll quickly see how much effort goes into making the environment pristine. For even more viewing pleasure, scroll through the various menus and take a peek at all the in-game artwork. These illustrations often show Ash Williams and co. In a variety of situations — you’ve probably found yourself in the game — and each one is great.
At first, I was worried that too much would happen in Evil Dead: The Game. However, it seems to strike an almighty balance of delivering content without overwhelming you. When you first start the game as a Survivor, there’s a lot to do; you’ll have to collect not only various key items to subdue the demons, but also resources (including Shemp’s Cola and Pink F***), and you’ll find them in the Smash skulls while cooperating. As a demon, you roam the map, fueling yourself, micromanaging your units, then handing over management to your own claws as you engage in action. In short, you’ll never be doing the same thing for a long time, so it’s not that hard to stick with it. The loop can get boring after hours of trying to relive Ash Williams’ worst moments, but when you get a satisfying bloody finisher on Deadite after Deadite, it feels like a badass reigns supreme.
Balance will prove to be an issue over time
Evil Dead: The game isn’t without flaws. Doing so much in one game can be exhausting — especially without a team of friends to expand the experience. The game loop does the best it can, but racing against time to complete objectives can cause problems for some people, especially those who play as demons.
While I mostly played Survivor during Evil Dead: The Game, I did manage a few games as a demon (I even won one!), and the balance issues were already apparent. For the four survivors, taking on a single demon is easy if they are coordinated. The only reason I won a game as the Demon was because someone disconnected halfway through, and Henrietta wreaked havoc on the remaining three in the final minutes of the game. However, as I get closer to the end of the game, I’ve seen the latter happen repeatedly: the demon summons a boss unit, and the survivors will gather and melee with the boss unit to the death. When swarmed by chainsaws, hammers, spears, etc., it’s nearly impossible to move to safety and give your boss units a second chance at life. Playing Demon is difficult, and I feel like it has a much higher skill cap than Survivor – but that certainly causes more problems as Survivor squads do rounds. Especially if this game falls into the hands of more casual players who will choose it for the IP rather than the hardcore multiplayer experience.
The complete lack of accessibility options ruins the rest of the game
Balance isn’t the only issue that may frustrate some players. Evil Dead: The game also surprisingly lacks accessibility options. The first thing I noticed was sensitivity. This can be adjusted in Survivor’s settings, but even at the lowest sensitivity I get dizzy from my own mouse movements. As for the Demon, it’s even worse; there’s no way to change the sensitivity while roaming, and there’s no way to turn off motion blur, unless you hop into a game file on your PC.
I also found it rather odd in multiplayer that there is voice communication, but no push-to-talk option. Most of the time it would be fine if I didn’t have to listen to a guy chew chips the whole game while giving directions to the team in between bites. Fortunately, you can mute noisy players, but it would be nice to see a push-to-talk option added soon so we can play and communicate without hearing allies eating or talking to their parents in the background.
Accessibility in video games is very important to me, so I’m disappointed to see the basics missing. While the lack of sensitivity zoom and push-to-talk is the biggest issue for me personally, the game also lacks accessibility options for colorblind players, you can’t rebind keys, and you can’t resize subtitles or do anything. Overall, this gave me a sour taste in my mouth. I certainly hope to see these settings added to the game in the future, but launching without them feels very dismissive to players who need them. It’s 2022, come on.
Evil Dead: The Game is a good time, and while demanding (seems like the single-player missions have everyone struggling), it does let itself down by not having basic accessibility settings available to players. The game itself is certainly impressive in terms of its fresh gameplay and great graphics, and it’s also a lot of fun for fans of Evil Dead and Sam Raimi. However, horror fans who have no interest in the series may find more fun in the alternative multiplayer horror game, and they may also find the game more accessible.
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