Evil Dead: The Game review — Revival of the cult-classic franchise

The next entry in the Evil Dead franchise has finally come in the form of Evil Dead: The Game. Taking inspiration from other popular horror and survival video games like Left 4 Dead and Dead By Daylight, Evil Dead strives to build on these gameplay mechanics with a few creative twists of its own.

Evil Dead as a franchise takes a lot of inspiration from every different subgenre of horror, from slasher flicks to lovecraftian horror. The plot of each entry revolves around the undead returning to Earth to eliminate the living. Luckily, the Earth has heroes in the form of the witty Ash Williams and his friends.

A screenshot of the game's title screen (Image via Saber Interactive)

The Evil Dead franchise is known for embracing its cheesy, over-the-top style and antics, and fans will be happy to see this game keeps that spirit alive. Each weapon has a fair handful of cinematic finishers for players to use and rewards them with bonus points and witty one-liners.

Evil Dead: The Game — Hot or flop?

Ash Willaims in Evil Dead: The Game (Image via Saber Interactive)

After the short lifespan of Back 4 Blood, many users may not want to give this game a chance as it appears to be merely another co-op survival game. However, a few details about the game make it worth checking out. Being a part of the cult-classic Evil Dead franchise is not all this game offers.

The objectives of the title remain consistent with each round. Gamers are tasked with finding three parts of a map to reveal the location of the missing pages of the Necronomicon and the Kandarian Dagger. After locating all the required pieces, the survivors need to construct the Necronomicon to win the game.

Demon players' objective changes drastically in Evil Dead: The Game as those in this role will be tasked with delaying the survivors as they pursue their objectives. They can do this by setting traps, scaring the heroes by dashing through them, or swarming them with hordes of the undead.

Story

In terms of a story, this game tends to lack. Each round of play always has players finding the same pieces of the map, completing the same objectives, and fighting through the same rotation of the undead. However, this leaves the game incredibly friendly to the casual form of pick-up-and-play titles without a heavy story.

However, this is a little disappointing to me, as bringing the franchise into this media field carries a lot of potential for storytelling for the Evil Dead franchise. As unfortunate as this is, it does not take away from gameplay for either the demons or the survivors, making this entry more appealing to newcomers.

Graphics

A display of one of the potential environments players may encounter in Evil Dead: The Game (Image via Saber Interactive)

The game version played for this review was for PC, purchased from the Epic Games Store. My system is far from top-notch. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the title played great and looked even better.

The lighting also plays heavily into the perfect atmosphere this game provides.

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3500 6-Core
RAM: 16 GB

However, in horde-fighting games such as this, I have found that the screen can get cramped very easily, leading to some frame dips. Models for the characters can also look a bit plastic in-game, but this is common for titles of this scale. Overall, the graphics are delightful for a casual, gameplay-focused audience.

Gameplay for Demons and Survivors

The best part of this game by far is the characters. It has an expansive roster of Evil Dead characters from each of the movies and the show.

Each character has its own set of voice lines that fit perfectly. The icing on the cake is the return of Bruce Campbell, the original Ash Williams.

Evil Dead: The Game can feel repetitive at times, the combat especially. A large part of the title is attributed to its combat, as users have to fight through hordes of demons, elites, and the occasional boss. While the finishers are flashy, mashing a button against every enemy grows tiresome, even in short play sessions.

Combat in the demon role can be pretty underwhelming, as possessing a minion takes away from the demon's job of collecting energy. This energy is required to summon more units, elites, and bosses and possess survivors and the environment. This leaves the demon to sit and watch a lot of the time.

A Demon player stalking a Survivor player in-game (Image via Saber Interactive)

I also felt that the tutorial for the demon role is relatively poor. This can confuse many players anticipating their first game in the position, as it is never explained how to find participants or how to level up quickly.

In my first couple of games, I was clueless about how I leveled up as the Demon while in a match.

Matchmaking in Evil Dead: The Game is also incredibly slow. I played this title for the first time a couple of hours after the launch, and I found myself waiting upwards of 7 minutes to find a match, which is peculiar for a highly-anticipated game such as this.

With the game's niche audience as it is, I do not see this issue improving.

Music and sound design

In the sound department, the attention of gamers is grabbed as soon as Evil Dead: The Game opens. As soon as they see the menu screen, users are greeted with an energetic, over-the-top horror score that sounds like it came straight out of the original Ghostbusters film.

Regarding in-game sounds, the feeling of a looming threat remains in each round through the menacing beating of bass instruments and the occasional choir. It may also be worth mentioning that the studio collaborated with the rapper Method Man for an original song to promote the video game.

Other miscellaneous sounds users hear throughout their playthrough tend to lack that Evil Dead flair. I found this game to have more in common with the Ghostbusters video game than any entry in the Evil Dead franchise.

This leaves Evil Dead: The Game to feel a bit cartoony and less scary a lot of the time.

In Conclusion

Evil Dead: The Game can feel a bit cartoony and less scary a lot of the time (Image via Saber Interactive)

Overall, my experience with Evil Dead: The Game has been quite pleasant. This game is filled to the brim with fanservice and will most likely be looked upon positively by Evil Dead fans for years to come. However, it has a few glaring shortcomings that could easily be fixed with a future patch update.

Evil Dead: The Game's story is non-existent, and the combat is boring, but the atmosphere for this game is excellently crafted. The music, sound design, and voice acting bring it together and do an excellent job of letting players know this is not their standard horror game. This is an Evil Dead game.

For my final thoughts on Evil Dead: The Game: it truly appeals to the Evil Dead fanbase. For fans of the franchise, this title is a must-have. Nostalgia goggles can easily look beyond some of this game's shortcomings. However, fans may want to look elsewhere for their co-op horror experience for the average gamer.