It’s full-on Sam Raimi season with his cinematic return with the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
But what’s even more amazing for Raimi fans is the release of the long-awaited video game adaptation of his beloved Evil Dead film series.
Saber Interactive’s Evil Dead: The Game is the latest horror theme multiplayer survival game joining the likes of Friday the 13th and Dead by Daylight.
Like these previous games, the Evil Dead will see a group of characters (known as survivors) from the film take on one of the main villains.
Evil Dead: The Game doesn’t follow the narrative from the films but rather allows the player to take part in famous scenarios in Mission Mode.
The Game is visually stunning with the development team paying careful attention to adapt the series's characters, locations and even weapons.
Saber Interactive has done a fantastic job at recreating the Evil Dead’s iconic lore, there is so much fan service scattered throughout the game. I particularly enjoyed how different each of the Ash’s were, in design and gameplay.
Adding to the list of fan service, the developers have managed to get several iconic actors to reprise the roles including Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Dana DeLorenzo and more.
They all do a phenomenal job at bringing life to their video game counterparts, elevating the authenticity of the experience.
There are a few modes within Evil Dead: The Game offers different experiences allowing players to play as iconic characters and demons from the series
The Survivor vs Demon mode is where players will spend the majority of the time. Teaming up with three other online players they will have to traverse one of the large semi open-world stages looking for key items such as map pieces, pages of the Necronomicon and the Kandarian dagger.
This ends with a full-on battle to banish the evil while protecting the Necronomicon. There are several human characters to pick from who come in four different classes which are Leader, Warrior, Hunter and Support.
Their core abilities do differentiate quite a bit and are built to cater for different play styles, however, I found that I didn’t have to really change my style of play that much when playing with each of them.
Thankfully no match will really be like another as there is an abundance of different weapons, paths to take and upgrades to unlock.
Another element is the fear meter, which also adds another level of strategy that will dictate your movements to avoid getting possessed by the demon.
This is all amazing with the stylish animated combat moves that look fantastic, but after a few rounds of playing with the human characters, things can become very repetitive as there is only one objective which has to be completed the same way over and over.
On the other hand, players will also be able to play as the Kandarian Demons whose job is to stop the human characters.
The demons come in three different classes, Warlord, Puppeteer and Necromancer.
Playing as the demons is a bit more satisfying than the humans as players will have to strategically set traps and open portals in order to raise the human’s fear level.
Players can also opt to play this mode solo with the other characters or the demon being controlled by the computer. This isn’t nearly as fun as playing online but is a great way to train up.
There is also a private mode where players can set up PVP matches with their friends, with the option to scale the number of competitors down to just two people, which is a fun alternative way to play.
My only issue with this is that the Demons can feel way too overpowered at times resulting in one way traffic for most matches. The other main mode is the Mission mode, where players participate in challenges that recreate iconic moments from the film.
These are single-player missions where the player will mainly control Ash. There are only a handful of missions which are very linear but also challenging at the same time.
It’s a great way to unlock extra characters and get experience points, but they don’t offer the same level of excitement as the other modes.
Combat is fun but intense mainly due to the scarcity of ammo and health items for humans. This improves the overall strategic element of the game as it pushes players to really plan out how to survive.
Players will also be able to unlock new skills via the character's skill tree from the points collected. The game allows players to improve any character even if they haven’t been played with which is a nice touch.
Verdict 3/5
Evil Dead: The Game is a great addition to the survival horror asymmetric multiplayer genre, whilst it may not add anything drastically new, fans of the series will simply love the attention paid to recreating this iconic lore.
The game does feel a bit light on content so would be great if more gets released throughout the year to ensure this title's longevity.
Evil Dead: The Game is out now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X,Series S and PC
