Upon learning of the existence of asymmetrical multiplayer horror Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game, from Friday the 13th and Predator Hunting Grounds’ Illfonic and Teravision Games, you’d be forgiven for having, well, questions. The first of which, understandably if you don’t happen to carry a burning penchant for cultishly adored but undeniably niche 80’s schlock, is simple: Why? First, why get invested in another asymmetrical multiplayer game from a studio that has a bit of a history with limited shelf lives? And why, of all the licenses, have they chosen one so relatively forgotten, at least in comparison to Predator, Ghostbusters, and Friday the 13th?
I can’t really answer that first one for you, but after playing matches as both human and Klown with the Illfonic crew, the second query starts to make a bit more sense. Whether you’ve seen the Chiodo Brothers’ 1988 film or not, Killer Klowns From Outer Space is an easy concept to wrap your head around. Clowns are inherently terrifying. Space clowns so nihilistic that they simply do not care to adhere to basic spelling conventions, moreso. On the other side, you don’t need much of a primer to put yourself in the regular length shoes of a basic, largely space-ignorant but spelling-proficient human in this situation. Run, hide, fight, escape. Do anything you can to stop those klowns getting too close. They’re killers, don’tcha know?
I play as a klown for my first match, the choice of which being mainly cosmetic. You’ll unlock upgrades and weapons as you play, and abilities can be freely assigned and swapped around, so you won’t have to sacrifice utility when playing your favourite klown – assuming you have a favourite. We load in to a night-time carnival map, and my Illfonic klown-guide immediately throws me a ‘cotton candy cocoon’ he finds behind a car, which I then lug over to a contraption called a ‘lackey generator’ and plug in. This helps spawn irritating little companions to aid our human hunts, but it also counts toward an early ‘klown-pocalypse’ timer. Matches last fifteen minutes, after which any un-escaped humans are killed by a giant cotton candy bomb. But, if we can hook up 16 of these cocoons, we’ll trigger the end early.
16 sounds like a lot of cocoons to find just lying around, but we’ve got another option here. Each klown is armed with a raygun that can transform humans into cocoons with sustained fire – very quickly, if we work together. As with traditional, mallet-based killing (my other weapon), cocooned humans can be resurrected by a one-time use feature, but each one hooked up brings us closer to victory. It’s a 3 vs 7 game, so there’s plenty humans to harvest. The mallet does offer at least one distinct advantage though. Downing humans allows for a flashy execution kill, and at least one of them involves pies. Humans do have a short window to rescue their companions from the hooked cocoons before they add to the klown-pocalypse count. One such human does attempt this in my match, but an AI lackey jumps on their back, and my trusty mallet finishes the job.
It’s then we spy a big red exclamation mark on the far side of the map, which means a human is trying to escape. We run over to the bridge, but the slippery bastard gets away. However, the bridge is quite rickety, so after a vigorous jig, the boards fall through, meaning the other team won’t be able to use this route to escape again. Elsewhere on the map, we can block off bunker doors with cotton candy to make alternative exits more difficult for humans to use. So, to prevent more of them escaping, what else is at my disposal aside from my mallet and raygun?
As you play, I’m told, you’ll unlock a variety of weapons and gizmos, including boxing gloves, a pizza box disguise, and balloon dogs to help with hunting. For this match, I’ve got three abilities hotkeyed on the left side of the screen. The first and, dare I say, most klown-tastic of these is a giant leap. Pressing the key brings up a top down view of the map which I can use to plot my jump. Later in the match, I’ll see a teammate land on top of a human, stunning them. Me? I keep getting trapped on invisible geometry, although I’m able to just walk right off. I take some fall damage, but luckily my second ability is a heal with some stat boosts. My third, which I’m able to test soon, is a lure that forces a nearby human player to walk towards me for a short time. It’s helpful, since humans are faster than klowns by default. Then again, they don’t have that jump.
When the timer hits 30 seconds to the klown-pocalypse, a human-friendly ice-cream truck comes smashing through a fence, giving them one final chance to escape, and things become a mad scramble for both teams. We end the match with three humans killed to four escaped. Granted, I imagine some of the team were concocting scenarios for my benefit as well as explaining things to me intead of playing optimally, but it did somewhat assuage my worries that the klowns would be an unstoppable force.
While the humans don’t have as many tricks, numbers, speed, and multiple escape routes do seem to even the playing field. “We playtest this a lot, and that’s the only way you can truly playtest an asymmetrical game,” says Jared Gerritzen, Illfonic’s CCO. “You can’t just do pen and paper math like you can with a red team vs blue team multiplayer game.”
“We’ve found that asymmetrical horror games aren’t always for the hardcore gamer, so we’ve really tried to balance this out to make it fun and interactive for any type of playstyle,” Gerritzen continues. “We’ve found with [our previous games], fans that don’t play videogames but love the IP will come in. With Klowns, this is that opportunity to bring that ‘evade and escape’ vs having that hardcore shooter mentality. I think we’ve got a really good balance.”
I start my human match, and the first real change here is how quickly a game plan is needed. While there are a few instant escape routes, like the bridge and the last-ditch truck, others take multiple steps to pull off, like a portal that requires collected spark plugs to activate. A ‘safe room’ on the map allows us to meet up and get some map information on where the different escape points are, alongside some weapons. I find and install one plug early, and things are looking up, but quickly devolve into chaos when the klowns come running.
I spend the next five minutes or so sprinting, sneaking, and occasionally hiding in bins. My absolute favourite Game Thing I noticed in this human match was how what could have been otherwise be dull downtime was enlivened by various minigames. Hiding requires you to hit progressively faster QTEs to avoid alerting the klowns, and even when you die, spectating itself features minigames you can play to help out your surviving teammates. You can, for example, win and gift weapons and health items if you play well enough. This meant that I was always active during the span of the match, and thanks to that resurrection system, I even got to jump back in after getting thoroughly malleted earlier. If I wanted to, I could have kept those weapons for myself. Sometimes, you can gift critical items like keycards, so the tides of fate can switch even when the klowns appear to have the upper hand.
While this is Teravision’s project, for which Illfonic took on publishing duties from Good Shepherd late last year, the Friday The 13th studio are also bringing their own genre nous in a co-development role. “It was a great car, and we added a new turbo charger, new exhaust, new wheels, parts to make it into a really great hot rod,” says Gerritzen. The clown car simile was right there, Jared! But I appreciate the image. Another image I appreciate is just how creepy and authentic to 80’s practical effects those klowns look, which Gerritzen says is down to both the next-gen lighting engines, and working closely with the Chiodo brothers themselves in bringing their vision to life. It’s good to know Illfonic have their input, then, not least because the license might stick around for the long term if you do happen to get invested when the game releases on June 4th this year.
