Evil Dead: The Game

A brilliantly done asymmetric game with entertaining features, gorey finishers and tons of references for fans. The game contains single player challenge missions, a PvPvE mode, survivor bots and a lot of fun. It still has some minor glitches and matchmaking hiccups to work through but a lot of love was put into this game and it shows. I expect good things in the future.

I said in my review of "Evil Dead Rise" that I love everything to do with the "Evil Dead" franchise and, whilst that's generally true, it's fair to say that I don't love this particular game, released in 2022 and made free on Playstation Plus in early 2023.

"Evil Dead" is an asymmetric combat game, where a small group of player or AI controlled characters from across the "Evil Dead" series of films battle against a hoard of AI or Player controlled Deadites. The human players aim to collect various items that unlock a villain and an exit, the Deadites aim to kill them before that happens. The Humans can loot various weapons and items on their quests and the Deadites can set traps and interaction with various aspects of the map.

Let's start with the good. The dedication to the franchise is very admirable. There are plenty of heroes and villains from the four films (at the time) and TV series that are rendered here as playable characters. There are four variations of Ash to chose from, five if you include Evil-Ash and various weapons, items, and the Delta Oldsmobile from across the series. The levels look nice. Ermm.....

So, on to the bad. One of these is my preferences I accept, but I don't like playing online with people (particularly when I'm supposed to be in a team with them, shooting randos is fine) and so this being yet another game with no real story mode, but only multiplayer is disappointing. You can play the multiplayer mode with bot teammates but in my experience, they had a tendency to just keep running endless loops around me and it felt more distracting than helpful. The actual game wasn't particularly fun to play either. There's third person shooting which is OK, but then it's mashing buttons for awkward melee combat, which is OK if it's one on one, but quite annoying to be surrounded by three Deadites that you can't fight off properly because you can only swing in one direction.

I do understand that some people have liked this more than me, and I do also get that more play unlocks different moves and attacks that might get rid of my problem with the melee attacking but ultimately, it's not fun enough for me to want to commit the time to it to unlock those aspects. I don't have any friends who are playing this now (indeed I couldn't start a team game with actual humans due to lack of players) and I just came away wishing that they had committed this much time to a single player experience.

This game is everything I had hoped it would be and more. Its not just another L4D clone or copy of other mainstream horde shooters, instead it has its own identity and is an overall amazing experience for casual players and extra special for enjoyers of the movies.

The game is multiplayer focused but as a solo player I do not see myself running out of content any time soon. There are a good little bundle of solo missions that have their own quests and are completely separate from the core game mode which is Humans vs Deadites. A team of 4 Humans will face off against a team of player controlled or AI controlled deadites and the humans need to collect various items across a surprisingly expansive non linear map to trigger a large final boss battle of sorts. The deadites job is of course to derail the humans. There are multiple ways to play this including private match, public match (pvp), player humans vs AI deadites, or what I've played: solo mode which consists of 1 player and 3 other AI humans vs AI deadites. When I've had enough of the solo missions the human vs deadite game mode is a wonderful way to wind down with some casual slaughter.

Overall while I am very happy with the game I do have a few things I hope to see in the next update that I think could improve it even more: difficulty scale (mainly to increase difficulty), more solo missions (which are confirmed but either way I cant wait for more), more game modes (maybe even a full fledged campaign no matter how unlikely), and maybe some new weapons/enemies sprinkled in but if they didnt do that I wouldnt be mad as there is already a healthy amount of hardware and things to use them on. I seriously cant wait for more updates to roll out for this game and see it improve over time. Thank you to Saber Interactive for delivering this gem to us and taking your time to do this legendary franchise a true service and of course bringing Bruce Campbell back to this iconic role once more for us all to enjoy.

I'd like to preface this review by saying that i am a massive fan of Evil Dead and out of all these old horror franchises that have gotten 4 v 1 multiplayer games (Friday 13th, Predator, Alien) Evil Dead is my personal favourite.

But i must say I'm rather disappointed with where they decided to go for a Evil Dead game. I feel like a multiplayer looter shooter was the last thing i imagined being associated with Evil Dead, i mean the franchise screams for a modern resident evil style survival horror game right? But regardless i still went in with a open mind since i hold this franchise dearly, and i must say i regret my purchase.

There is alot to like here, locations are fairly detailed, there's some great gore, Bruce Campbell is great and it's clear the developers love the Evil Dead franchise. But there is only so much sheen you can put on what is ultimately a fairly hollow, uninteresting and kinda janky experience.

These games are a dime a dozen and Evil Dead really doesn't do much to change the formula and it feels so mismatched with this type of game. I mean Evil Dead isn't exactly the most popular franchise, and i don't think anything gameplay wise is done here that is interesting enough to attract and hold the attention of people outside of the Evil Dead fandom.

The enemy grunt deadites are mostly generic zombies and don't even really resemble what they are in other Evil Dead media, they just grunt and run at you whereas deadites on the show and in the films would mock people and would voice their sadistic pleasure from torturing people.

There is also a lack of a real single player mode, i mean you have these missions but they just have slideshow cutscenes and drop you into a multiplayer map and give you a fetch quest with very little to change up the formula.

Everything here has been done before and better in other games and the only aspect making it stand out is the Evil Dead license. Not a terrible game just so mediocre considering what else could have been done with the Evil Dead license in video game form.