Halloween: The Game vs Friday the 13th (and Texas Chain Saw Massacre): what actually differs
By DayOneFix Editorial · August 24, 2026
These three games are not variations on one formula: Halloween: The Game is 1v4 with five players, Friday the 13th: The Game is 1v7 with eight, and Texas Chain Saw Massacre is 3v4 with seven. Different lobby sizes, different killer-side design, different studios — and only one of the three has a single-player campaign.
This page compares verifiable structure only. Which one is more fun is not something a spec table can settle, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Head to head
| Halloween: The Game | Friday the 13th: The Game | Texas Chain Saw Massacre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Split | 1v4 | 1v7 | 3v4 |
| Players per match | 5 | 8 | 7 |
| Developer | IllFonic | IllFonic | Sumo Digital |
| Publisher | IllFonic Publishing with Gun Interactive | Gun Media | Gun Interactive |
| Released | 8 September 2026 | 25 May 2017 | 18 August 2023 |
| Single-player campaign | Yes — a separate six-chapter story | No | No |
| Steam status | Pre-order | Delisted | On sale |
The two things aggregators get wrong
1. IllFonic made Halloween and Friday the 13th — but not Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
This gets scrambled constantly, because Gun appears in all three credit lists in some form. The accurate version: IllFonic developed both Friday the 13th: The Game and Halloween: The Game. Texas Chain Saw Massacre was developed by Sumo Digital and published by Gun Interactive. So the studio continuity runs Friday the 13th to Halloween, and the publisher continuity runs Texas Chain Saw Massacre to Halloween — two different threads, and articles that collapse them into “the Texas Chain Saw team’s new game” have it wrong.
2. Friday the 13th is not purchasable, so this is a migration question.
Friday the 13th: The Game has been off sale on Steam since 31 December 2023. That reframes the entire comparison. “Halloween vs Friday the 13th” is almost never someone choosing between two things on a store page — it is someone who played Friday the 13th asking what the successor from the same studio actually changed. Which is a much more answerable question.
(What we did not verify: whether existing owners can still play online. The delisting is a storefront fact from the Steam page; server status is a separate matter with no source in what we checked.)
What the split numbers actually mean
The lobby-size row is the row that changes how a match feels, so it is worth reading beyond the digits.
Halloween runs the smallest room of the three at five. One Michael Myers against four heroes. A smaller survivor side means each player is a larger fraction of the team, and it means fewer people to coordinate with — and coordinate they must, because the heroes’ objective is not passive survival. They have to find NPC residents, persuade them the danger is real, and escort them to randomised escape points under a timer, with police escalation as a pressure valve. See the full 1v4 breakdown.
Friday the 13th ran the largest at eight — one Jason against seven. Its Steam description puts it plainly: you and six other unlucky souls, which is where the seven-plus-one comes from.
Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the odd one structurally, and deliberately so: three killers against four victims. Gun’s Wes Keltner put the intent on record — “when it came to the design of Texas we knew that 3vs4 was different”. It is the only one of the three where the killer side is a team that has to coordinate with itself.
So Halloween is not “Friday the 13th with a new mask” in the one place it would be easiest to be: it cut the survivor side nearly in half, and it kept the killer side at a single player rather than following Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s three.
The single-player row is the real differentiator
Neither Friday the 13th nor Texas Chain Saw Massacre shipped a single-player story campaign. Halloween does: a separate campaign called The Night He Came Home, played as Michael Myers. IllFonic’s chief creative officer Jared Gerritzen said as much directly:
“When we looked at how can we take asymmetrical horror to the next level for this project we knew adding in a singleplayer mode would set us apart from other titles in the genre.”
That is the studio explicitly naming the differentiator against its own back catalogue. Note that the campaign’s reported six-chapter structure comes from a developer Q&A rather than the official site, and that whether the campaign runs offline has never been stated — both covered on our single-player page.
What this comparison cannot tell you
- Match length. Halloween has never published one, so there is no like-for-like duration row.
- Post-launch support. No roadmap, season pass or DLC has been announced for Halloween. Comparing content pipelines against two games with years of history behind them is not possible yet.
- Server model. Nobody has said whether Halloween uses dedicated servers or peer-to-peer, which was a defining part of how the older games played.
- Whether it is better. Structure is comparable; quality on a game that is not out is not.
Quick answers
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Same developer as Friday the 13th? | Yes — IllFonic made both |
| Same developer as Texas Chain Saw Massacre? | No — that is Sumo Digital |
| Bigger or smaller lobby than F13? | Smaller — 5 versus 8 |
| Can I still buy Friday the 13th? | No — delisted on Steam since 31 December 2023 |
| Which has a story campaign? | Only Halloween |
| Which has multiple killers per match? | Texas Chain Saw Massacre (3v4) |
FAQ
Is Halloween: The Game made by the Friday the 13th developers? Yes. IllFonic developed both Friday the 13th: The Game and Halloween: The Game. IllFonic did not develop Texas Chain Saw Massacre — that was Sumo Digital, published by Gun Interactive.
Is Halloween: The Game bigger or smaller than Friday the 13th? Smaller. Halloween is 1v4 with five players a match; Friday the 13th was 1v7 with eight.
Can I still buy Friday the 13th: The Game? No — it has been off sale on Steam since 31 December 2023, which is why “Halloween vs Friday the 13th” is a migration question rather than a purchase decision.
How is Texas Chain Saw Massacre different from both? It is 3v4 with seven players, the only one of the three where the killer side is a coordinating team rather than one player.
Which of the three has a single-player mode? Only Halloween: The Game, with a separate story campaign played as Michael Myers.
Related
- How many players per match, and how the 1v4 actually works
- The single-player campaign: what is official and what is only reported
- Release date, editions and the advance access window
- Crossplay: what is confirmed and what the Steam page is missing
Sources
Everything in the table was checked 24 August 2026. The Halloween column — 1v4, five players, the 8 September 2026 release, the single-player campaign, IllFonic as developer and IllFonic Publishing with Gun Interactive as publishers — comes from IllFonic’s official site, specifically the multiplayer gameplay overview and single and multiplayer post, plus the Steam listing; the Gerritzen quote is from the official announcement. The reported six-chapter structure of the campaign comes from Horror Geek Life’s developer Q&A, not the official site, and we label it that way wherever it appears. The Friday the 13th column is read off its Steam listing — the “you and six other unlucky souls” description that gives seven counsellors plus Jason, the 25 May 2017 date, and the store’s own notice that it stopped being sold on 31 December 2023. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre column is from its Steam listing for the 18 August 2023 date, developer and publisher; the 3v4 split and the Wes Keltner quote are from Gun’s own design post. Match length, server model and post-launch plans for Halloween have no source and are therefore absent from the table rather than estimated.