Highlights
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Dead by Daylight are different games with few similarities, but they share a cat-and-mouse dynamic in the niche subgenre of asymmetrical horror.
- Dead by Daylight offers the option for fully collaborative gameplay with friends, but the effectiveness of that teamwork is often diminished in solo play with no urgency.
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre creates a sense of urgency by having victims gradually bleed out, requiring them to actively search for healing items or rely on teammates for survival.
It’s important to note how unalike The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Dead by Daylight are, and how few comparisons are actually prevalent when discussing both asymmetrical horror games. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is obviously more akin to Friday the 13th: The Game, having a handful of different optional objectives that victim players can work together to achieve in order to escape. But The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is far different in that regard, too, since it features three killer players—out of five available killer characters—in any given match who all have their own classes and abilities for victims to contend with.
That said, the cat-and-mouse characteristics are certainly shared between The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Dead by Daylight with comparisons being inevitable in such a niche subgenre of gaming. Dead by Daylight’s unending content stream continues to help it reign supreme as the only asymmetrical horror game that players consistently flock to, but The Texas Chain Saw Massacre does have an advantage in areas that Dead by Daylight simply lacks. One example is in regard to how The Texas Chain Saw Massacre urges victims along and doesn’t encourage them to be idle or play selfishly.
Dead by Daylight Suffers More When Survivors Do Nothing, But Hardly Anything Prevents That
Dead by Daylight is popular for the content it is able to put out and how frequently it puts it out. Many of Dead by Daylight’s most dedicated playerbase would still argue, though, that it has a lot of issues that balance patches cannot rectify. This is true of any asymmetrical horror game, but Dead by Daylight in particular has been known to be relatively toxic in terms of how survivors and killers tend to play.
‘Survive with friends’ (SWF) play is a great way to collaborate with friends and other players to help make team-based gameplay as a survivor that much more fulfilling for this reason, particularly because surviving solo in Dead by Daylight can be tedious and players end up needing to rely on their teammates anyhow. Dead by Daylight can definitely be played solo and off comms, but believing that other players are accomplishing goals such as repairing generators or breaking totems is not always a worthwhile hope.
If they’re not, then escaping is nearly impossible, but players are not necessarily punished for doing nothing all match until an exit gate is opened, and a timer begins running down. Therefore, until the final stage of a match—if a killer does indeed let it get that far—there is no sense of urgency for survivors besides knowing they are being hunted.
Texas Chain Saw Massacre Makes It Easier to Escape, But Harder to Survive
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre puts a wonderful sense of urgency in the victims’ laps by having them gradually bleed out as a purposeful mechanic. This way, if victims are idle or hoping others will simply complete tasks for them, there is a greater chance that they will bleed out sooner. If nothing else, a victim must search for healing items or hope that another victim heals them with one. Otherwise, their chances of escaping become greatly diminished. Escaping can be much easier in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre than in Dead by Daylight due to its amount of exit options, but time is always of the essence.
There are many more mind games involved in a 3v4 game than a 1v4 game, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre gives players many reasons to be on the move anyhow, though team-based play is more essential than anything if victims are to all successfully escape. The family of killers also has its own team-based element to rely upon, and pairing different classes and abilities together is paramount for a well-oiled machine to run on either side of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s asymmetrical gameplay.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.