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Evil Dead: The Game - The Final Preview

Ash Williams and the rest of the Evil Dead gang haven’t been resurrected to star in a video game since 2005’s Evil Dead: Regeneration, but that’s all about to change when S-Mart’s top of the line returns on, fittingly, Friday the 13th next month, in the aptly-named Evil Dead: The Game. After playing it, it’s clear that the new Evil Dead game draws heavily from the survival-focused shooting and looting established in the Left 4 Dead series in addition to the character-centric, skill-based horror survival of Dead By Daylight. This monster mashup certainly nails the right beats for frenetic fun between friends, and at launch, Evil Dead: The Game will support out-of-the-box crossplay for all modern Xbox and PlayStation consoles, as well as the Epic Games Store.


Each skirmish in Evil Dead: The Game only lasts about 20 to 30 minutes, and it concludes when the party secures and defends the map’s Necronomicon after clearing a series of objectives, like fending off the Dark Ones with your very own Kandarian Dagger. If you have no clue what any of that means, that’s perfectly fine; Evil Dead: The Game does a great job explaining what everything is via its comprehensive tooltips. A single map can sling the party from point of interest to point of interest before the clock lapses to zero – but don’t let the user-friendly UI convince you to let your guard down; there are more than just a few twists on this dark road.


And that can be a problem if you happen to jump over one of many possible jumpscare traps. Yes, you heard me right, there are jumpscare traps in Evil Dead: The Game, and they can be found just about anywhere. Going hand-in-hand with these jumpscares, if your fear gauge gets too high, you might just find yourself shooting at your teammates under the Kandarian Demon’s demonic influence. Which is to say, there’s nothing to fear but fear itself. But hey, don’t worry, you’ll probably be fine if you stick with your group.

Yes, you heard me right, there are jumpscare traps in Evil Dead: The Game

Speaking of shooting your teammates, Evil Dead: The Game sounds like it’ll feature more than enough ranged and melee weapons to stuff down a deadite’s maw – equaling approximately 25 at launch – and that’s including survival-horror classics like the machete and the crossbow. Series purists will be satisfied to discover that Ash’s boomstick and chainsaw are included as well. That said, melee combat feels most satisfying when you manage to nail a finishing move on a deadite, and since ammo is so limited, you’ll spend plenty of time in kissing range of the army of darkness.


Aside from doing battle against the possessed hordes, you and your party will spend plenty of time scavenging for loot – including the special skill-enhancing Pink-F, which is used to upgrade your skills and abilities while on the field. For instance, you can invest your Pink-F points into resisting fear or increasing your melee weapon effectiveness until the match ends.

There’s something to be said about pushing your opponents out of vehicles, possessing nearby trees, and leaving too many jumpscare traps to count.

There are 13 members of this cast, brought together from all three original movies plus the 2015 TV comedy spinoff, Ash vs Evil Dead, and they’re divided up between four classes: Leader, Warrior, Hunter, and Support. Each character has a distinct set of abilities within their overarching class; Cheryl Williams (a Support character) can lay down a healing aura that restores the party’s health, whereas the Support version of Ash Williams can restore his own health with each heavy melee attack. It looks like there’s enough versatility here to keep things interesting over several playthroughs, and it even seems like the leveling system (which is accessible from the Collections menu) allows for a significant degree of customization between skirmishes.


Meanwhile, playing as the Kandarian Demon in Evil Dead: The Game’s PvPvE mode is way more fun than it has any right to be, given that it rarely puts you in any kind of direct combat engagement with the survivors. There’s something to be said about pushing your opponents out of vehicles, possessing nearby trees, and leaving too many jumpscare traps to count. Everything costs a certain amount of a refillable resource pool, but if you play the map (and your class’s special abilities) just right, you can out-think the four survivors. If you’ve played Doom Eternal’s online Battlemode as a demon, this isn’t too dissimilar from that. There are nine demons across three different classes, and they too can be leveled up.

At the end of the day, Evil Dead: The Game looks like it’ll deliver plenty of thrills through its co-op and PvPvE modes that pay homage to games like Left 4 Dead and Dead By Daylight while interweaving its own twists inspired by Sam Raimi’s classic horror series. If you and your friends have been searching for a new haunt, this could be the “groovy” new survival horror game you’ve been waiting for when it releases next month.

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