Killer Klowns From Outer Space The Game(2024)(Review)

As online gaming continues to dominate the industry, the asymmetrical online horror game has continued to produce interesting content using franchise IP as well as original IP for the better part of a decade. Illfonic is a gaming company who had brought us the beloved ‘Friday the 13th: The Game’ before a grueling copyright battle ended up killing it right when it was really succeeding. So with that in the rearview, they have teamed up with the Chiodo Brothers to bring us their newest piece, ‘Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game’.

The game setup is rather familiar. It is an online multiplayer game of 3 vs 7 – 3 clowns versus 7 humans. The clowns objectives are simple: hunt the humans and either kill them or wrap them up in a cotton candy cocoon to harvest for their ships. The humans need to escape by any means necessary. There are only a couple maps available as of the launch of the game, but they are large, fleshed out, contain lots of easter eggs, and use random-number-generators to spawn items and exits in different locations so each match is a bit different.

What makes this game different than the others is basically on one big change – the humans are encouraged to fight back. They can use weapons to fight and kill the clowns (especially destroying their noses to make them explode into a confetti cloud), whereas similar games such as ‘Texas Chainsaw’ and ‘Dead by Daylight’ rely more on the sneak and run element. And again like ‘Texas Chainsaw’, there are “klowntalities” where the clowns perform an over-the-top execution on humans when their health is low enough. They are silly and exaggerated while not being nearly as gorey as its predecesors. The clowns also have special abilities – such as one who can make a balloon-dog to hunt down humans, one that can lure humans with a wave of his finger, and more.

Each match is limited to 15 minutes, where at the end of the countdown a “klownpocalypse” occurs that covers the entire world with cotton candy and killing any humans who have yet to escape. Luckily there are many ways to escape, such as repairing a boat, hiding in a fallout shelter, and more. Each exit requires a human to get a few resources (gasoline and a key, for example) and is limited to how many players can use it before it’s fully occupied. This encourages team work while also making it so the entire team of humans cannot hide and wait for someone else to do all the work for them. The clowns can also place cotton candy on these exits (and continue to keep replacing it when destroyed) to make this even harder.

When the round reaches the last 30 seconds, the Terenzi brothers break through a cotton candy wall to reveal a special exit that the characters can escape from, which serves as a last-ditch effort and a funny happening. The clowns come in different classes (i.e. the Tank, the Searcher, the Brawler, etc.) and allows you to modify their special abilities and default weapons to encourage some moderation to the games. The humans are pretty similar with some varying traits such as stamina and health, which doesn’t create as big of a change as the clown modifications, but still lets the players choose their preferred playstyle.

Today, only a day after release, the game is a lot of fun. If you’re a fan of this style of games then this is a great addition to the family. It’s ridiculous, silly, and genuinely tense at times. As for the cons, the main issues are that things get stale after a few hours of gameplay. Once you’ve unlocked all the characters and really found the playing class you prefer, there’s not much more to do. And with there being so few maps at launch, the game gets a bit repetitive at a point.

But, it’s almost a given that we will eventually get new content in the near future. New maps, characters, weapons, etc, will make this game even better than it already is. Also, IT’S CROSS-PLATFORM! So you can play with your friends no matter what console or PC they choose to use.

If you’re a fan of the Killer Klowns franchise, or asymmetrical horror gaming, then there are no real cardinal sins here to detract from the experience. If you’re not a fan of either, then you may prefer one of the older titles to get your feet wet. It really plays most like ‘Texas Chainsaw’ with its style, but the humor, toned-down violence, and colors make it feel more welcoming from a distance.

3/5
“Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game” is now available on Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

‘Til Next Time,
Mike Cleopatra