The Texas Chainsaw Massacre game aimed to "elevate the bar" for multiplayer horror, but its ambition led to its downfall

The abrupt end to work on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre game just two years after its arrival was a sad moment for horror fans and publisher Gun alike. Its level of polish and distinctive 4v3 format stood out from the crowd, and went some way towards correcting the perpetual matchmaking imbalance faced by asymmetrical horror games like Dead By Daylight. Unfortunately, rising development costs meant updates were ultimately halted. Gun Interactive CEO Wes Keltner tells us the decision was made to avoid releasing "mediocre content" and to "prioritize my employees," but admits that he would handle investment differently if he could go back in time.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre game landed in a space dominated by the might of Dead By Daylight, although it earned plaudits from Danielle in our 8/10 review for its gorgeous environments, gameplay variety, and replayability. Publisher Gun Interactive described it as "a dream project" after Friday the 13th, and yet within two years it had called time on development. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre will not be receiving any further future content or support," the studio confirmed in May 2025.

TCM development began pre-Covid, Keltner recalls, and the initial build was focused just on PC and generation-nine consoles (PS5 and Xbox Series X/S). However, chip shortages put the new-gen machines out of many users' reach, and adapting to support older systems "would require millions of dollars we didn't possess." That funding was solved thanks to a Game Pass deal with Microsoft, "but it added an entire year to development," during which time "game development costs significantly increased."

Keltner estimates that the cost of development rose by a minimum of 35% "across every aspect." This trend continued beyond The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's launch, making long-term support an "incredibly challenging" prospect, especially with incoming revenue decreasing as the life cycle rolled on. "The math simply doesn't add up," he notes, "less money coming in, but a need to create new content that costs at least 35% more at a minimum."

In the end, he made the tough choice that this couldn't continue. "I was unwilling to release mediocre content while charging the same price, as I wouldn't want that as a player, and I knew our players wouldn't either," he explains. "While I understand many fans disagree, I also have a responsibility to my employees which is to ensure their paychecks, job security, and future are protected. These two responsibilities are often at odds, and when forced to choose, I will always prioritize my employees."

Keltner is reluctant to dwell on "what-ifs," but does note one particular element he would do differently in hindsight: Gun's "substantial investment in motion capture and animation." Every family member in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre uses bespoke animations, which were the result of extensive casting calls, travel costs to bring the chosen actors to the studio, and "approximately six weeks" of scripting, refining, and re-recording. In the end, he says the team spent "millions" on this element alone.

"We genuinely wanted to push the boundaries with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, aiming for a level of polish unseen in other asymmetrical horror titles," Keltner remarks. "Our intention was to enhance immersion and elevate the quality bar, and I believe we achieved that. However, I'm not convinced the player base felt that impact over other areas we could have used those resources."

Had Gun opted for more shared animations with just a few specific ones chosen "to highlight the differences between characters," he contemplates, more of the development budget could have been used on additional content or to fund post-launch support. "I'm not ruling out such an approach in the future, but I will certainly be much stricter with that portion of our budget."

While development was brought to an end, Gun made the decision to continue running dedicated servers, rather than transferring the system across to a peer-to-peer solution. Keltner says the team worked on the process of doing so "for many months," but that his confidence in the end result diminished with each build.

"When considering the number of active players versus the cost of dedicated servers, it became clear that perfecting the peer-to-peer initiative would take more time and continued investment, with the finish line feeling increasingly distant," Keltner explains. "Ultimately it was more cost-effective in the long term to keep the dedicated servers running than to continue spending money on a fix that wasn't progressing as expected."

Gun is now in the process of assisting IllFonic (the developers of Friday the 13th) on the development of its upcoming Halloween game, which is currently scheduled to launch on Tuesday September 8, 2026. Keltner says the studio is also working on several internal concepts, although these are too early in production to talk about specifics. He does give one small hint: "While most are horror-related, not all are."

Additional reporting by Danielle Rose for PCGamesN.