Listen, folks, horror movies, scary or not, are always a bit horny. The Halloween series wasn’t always like that, apart from some light kissing and brief nudity in John Carpenter’s debut entry. Halloween: The Game, though, had other ideas. Between the knife slashes and mad dashes to safety, a mini-game can give you a worthwhile buff among the terror – if you’re willing to get freaky in a closet.
Yes, Michael wants boing boing. Or at least the survivors of Haddonfield do. Illfonic’s new horror game launched its Deluxe Edition in early access this weekend ahead of its full September 8 release, and players quickly discovered that hiding in a closet or wardrobe with another character could lead to something considerably more intimate than hiding from a man with a knife.
Two players could ask each other out, agree to get frisky, then hammer buttons through a decidedly suggestive minigame to earn the ‘Stronger Together’ buff. You never actually see the characters have sex in Halloween: The Game, but the shaking camera, grunting, and rapidly filling heart don’t exactly leave much to the imagination. In the heat of the moment, so to speak, it’s funny on the surface. However, it gets problematic quickly.
Halloween’s older characters include Dr. Samuel Loomis, based on the likeness of the late Donald Pleasence. Not only has Pleasence been deceased since 1995, but he was also nearly 60 years old when Halloween was released in 1978. His character is in his 50s in the first movie, so sleeping with a 17-year-old Laurie Strode isn’t exactly going to fly. Given that it’s IllFonic, the team behind Friday the 13th, I can see where the goofiness stems from.
IllFonic has now confirmed that the mechanic has been removed in a hotfix, although its explanation isn’t quite as dramatic as the circumstances surrounding its disappearance. Speaking to IGN, the developer says that “players may have noticed that our latest hotfix removed the Two-Person Power-Up minigame. This was due to an unintended issue that allowed endgame reinforcement characters to engage with the minigame, which was a major oversight on our part.”
While it doesn’t confirm if it’ll reinstate this particular activity in the future, IIIFonic adds that “we have more content and minigames coming in the near future, but [our] current focus is our attention on immediate game needs.” Right now, other mini-games include tapping buttons in a rhythm-game manner and reflex-based skill checks. Most of these are activated during death, allowing players to earn buffs that can be applied to squadmates that are still alive.
It’s a nifty feature to keep you engaged until the match ends, but it needs some work. Halloween: The Game is rough around the edges, but sex mini-game aside, it’s genuinely a proper laugh with friends. If IIIFonic can iron out the kinks, I think it could have a decent lifespan, rather than petering out as so many of these games do.