Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game Review

Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game. What a time to be alive, right?

In a few years gaming will likely have tapped the final keg of horror movie properties to borrow from.

The asymmetrical multiplayer genre has been a relative boon for franchises that never could be molded into sensible games. Like many, I was victimized by Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street for the NES. Those honest travesties of games failed as adaptations and pieces of entertainment. Splatterhouse mostly functioned as a Jason Voorhees-like. Alien: Isolation was a brilliant example of doing a horror property justice.

What’s next? A Jeepers Creepers game? Maybe Pumpkinhead. Or a game where one player takes on mutating forms of Freddy Kreuger as other players fight him as Dream Warriors. Actually… that’s a great idea, I’ll take my check now.

Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game makes more sense than it doesn’t. A bunch of murderous, alien Klowns offer a wholly different aesthetic than a masked killer. Deaths can be gory but also goofy. Scares and shocks can come in the form of a dumpy, smiling clown appearing around the corner.

I’ve played Friday the 13th: The Game–developed by IllFonic, who co-developed Killer Klowns with Teravision Games. I played and reviewed Evil Dead: The Game. Horror movies are my jam. There is a sick pleasure in watching the creative ways some writers and directors eviscerate people, or watching the pursued scrape through impossible odds. But playing those scenarios out can be difficult to translate to a moderately faithful game.

Somewhere along the way, game developers acquired the formula to placing a group of players in a map and splitting them up between the victims and the perpetrators. Likely spurned by the bombastic reactions of streamers, the formula has been mimicked several times in licensed franchises and as original ideas. Yet nothing has seemed to have the staying power like Dead By Daylight, a game I’ve never actually played or even watched for a meaningful amount of time. Friday the 13th was a victim of licensing despite seeming successful. Evil Dead got screwed by Embracer Group’s mismanagement. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is trying its best.

So, what hope does Killer Klowns have?

That question isn’t meant to be posed as a pessimistic one, rather a practical one. Fostering a community is essential for any game that relies on multiple players being present at once. Right out of the gate, Killer Klowns implements a 10-person lobby of seven humans and three Klowns. It’s not a brutal ask but one that comes with caveats. Does the game loop players into drawn-out matches? Are there bots? Is the moment-to-moment gameplay enough?

We see a wealth of F2P and GaaS titles permeate every inch of gaming, yearning for a slice of a player’s limited time. Battle passes seek to shackle us to one game, two if we’re masochistic. Does a game about murderous clowns who feed off humans and wrap them up in cotton candy pose a threat?

Killer Klowns‘ broad appeal isn’t necessarily in the property itself. IllFonic and Teravision Games worked to perfect the disgusting look of the Klown rubber suits from the 1988 film, making them look significantly more grotesque and comical. Weapons used by the Klowns mimic the ones wielded in the movie, they even die in an identical manner, spinning around like a top swirling in green energy.

Fans of the movie–which is an undeniable cult classic–will find enough in the game to have several knowing chuckles and flashes of remembrance. Killer Klowns is drenched in the cheese of the era, indicated by the humans’ exaggerated voices and the brightly colored hair and makeup that can be equipped. Certainly there are deep cuts that may take a hardcore fan or explorative player to recognize but that’s part of the enjoyment for any game based off a particular license.

Unfortunately, Killer Klows doesn’t have a deep swath of films to pull from, meaning that the breadth of movie-related content is a bit difficult to mine. Thankfully, the aesthetic isn’t victimized by strange attempts to make up a roster of Klowns because the movie already had several. Tools and skills were crafted for the game but if a player had never seen the film, they would likely assume everything found here was based on it.

Almost no effort is made to incorporate any sort of narrative during matches outside a growling voice offering vague directions. A few dozen audio logs can be discovered randomly in lootable containers. These seem to offer a few glimpses into the discovery and growing threat of the Klowns but in my 15 hours of playing, I only found about five. To gauge their importance, the files are tucked away in their own subsection of the main menu. But we don’t need a story when we’re running for our lives or trying to hear the footsteps of sneaky humans, right?

What is most successful about Killer Klowns is its simplicity. When playing Evil Dead, one of the big things I remember is hunting for increasingly stronger equipment to counter the growing threat of the Deadites. Here, players only have to be concerned with a handful of evolving threats throughout the course of the 15-minute matches.

The Klowns have three skills and two weapons that can be equipped. The three skills unlock over the course of a match and are on cooldown after use. One is a jump that can teleport the Klown to a designated spot on the map that has been uncovered from the “Cotton Candy Fog of War”–yeah, that’s what it’s called. The jump is useful to clear the distance from a Klown to a potential place where humans may be, such as an escape route or a kerfuffle between the two sides. Another ability called “LOL” heals the clown, increases their stamina, and causes them to do more damage for a brief time. Finally, a unique ability for each clown can be used but is the final to unlock. My favorite was the balloon dog that tracked humans, though I grumble about how it often lags behind the Klown when running. Another lays down traps for humans to stumble over while another is a hypnotic gaze that ensnares a player and pulls them in.

For the Klowns, these actions are done in service to either kill or capture humans. The secondary weapon usually serves the purpose of melting health off a human, lining them up for an easy capture or a flashy fatality that mimes a kill from the movie. Yes people, we have flesh-melting pies here. A Klown’s primary weapon is a cotton candy ray that builds up a meter on a human and will eventually wrap them up in a cotton candy cocoon. These cocoons can then be placed on generators which serve a number of purposes. Firstly, they produce lackeys that roam a general area and can alert the Klowns to the presence of a human or temporarily hop on one and stun them. With more cocoons attached to a generator, more lackeys will spawn of higher quality. Additionally, attaching cocoons reduces the time for the Klowns’ abilities to unlock. Finally, placing cocoons reduces the time it takes to get to the Klownpocalypse, an end-match trigger that will instantly kill any humans who haven’t escaped.

For players taking on the role of the Klowns, there’s an instinct to hunt for human players but unoccupied cocoons are also found scattered around a map. But it’s easy to get wrapped up in the process of trying to build up a lackey army. Not only is it time consuming because Klowns move slow with a cocoon–though throwing them is an option–but it gives the human players free reign to do their own tasks.

I found the process of playing as a Klown reasonably fun because you’re always active. Stamina drains a b
it faster but the base cotton candy ray does a good job of latching onto humans and slowly building up their meter. My favorite secondary weapon to use was the popcorn bazooka that not only damaged humans but temporarily tracked them through the use of white circular pips that are also used to indicate sound.

Humans, on the other hand, are tasked with staying alive long enough to escape. Each map contains multiple methods of escape. By boat, by teleporter, by tunnel, by Klownpocalypse shelter, each escape method usually is only able to allow three humans safe passage, meaning that sacrifices must be made. To unlock these escape methods, players are required to collect a couple objects scattered along the map. The boat requires gas and a sparkplug, the teleporter requires two sparkplugs, the shelter needs gas and a keycard, while the tunnel needs to be bashed open and a key to unlock the gate behind the barrier.

Klowns have the ability to coat these escape routes in cotton candy, adding another barrier for humans. Whether its removing cotton candy or filling up the boat with gas, human players need to complete a few timed interactions during the process. Time it perfectly and shave off a lot of precious seconds, fail and alert the Klowns. In the final moments of the match a Hail Mary method of escape opens up as well but both Klowns and humans are alerted to its location.

While human players can scour the map for items that make noise to distract the Klowns, guns, and melee weapons. The focus really should be on escape objects. While it was nice to have a few stamina and health regen items on hand, nothing felt as crucial as a sparkplug. This hunt almost trivializes everything a human is supposed to do outside of survive. Players can hide in dumpsters and wardrobes but that wastes precious time unless you absolutely know you can get a Klown off your tail.

Once, I felt quite awful sitting in a boat waiting for other players to join. My captain lit a flare to alert others to the boat’s location and I watched two humans run down the steps, chased by a Klown. I couldn’t do anything because I had no gun or melee weapon. My captain left to aid the others and I panicked, accidentally taking off instead of leaving the boat to try and serve as a distraction. Riddled with guilt, I was able to play a number of mini-games that would lead to me granting items to players still left alive, a fun quirk that can also be done when dead.

Where I think Killer Klowns secretly shines is that it doesn’t make the Klowns inherently overpowered compared to humans. Regardless of what side players are randomly placed in, it’s always smart to group together. However, two humans with melee weapons can easily overtake a Klown. While their weakpoints are the red noses and can be stunned with a good thrown brick, Klowns can absolutely crumble with a few whacks of a melee object. And with more than one human, it’s hard cocoon one up, making a mallet or mace an important weapon in these instances.

The best times I had with Killer Klowns were those small skirmishes where a group of humans would actually assault me trying to cotton candy up an escape route, almost as if they had planned it. Watching a fellow Klown or another human come to the aid of their fellow resulted in this clumsy deathmatch of pink rays and swinging objects.

Killer Klowns is absolutely a goofy game that is not meant to be taken too seriously. Its uncomplicated goals and short match time mean that players aren’t meant to be stuck sneaking or assaulting for too long. It looks fairly good and has nice touches that give me a chuckle, such as the Klown shoes squeaking with every step.

Yet I think there is going to be a concern with player attach rate. As I said, there’s a lot of games out there vying for the attention of players. Killer Klowns promises updates along the future but it’s the package presented to players right now that is the most meaningful. Outside of the amusement park map, every other one blends together as a darkly-lit town or camp. There’s also not a truly meaningful upgrade and unlock path outside of cosmetics. When hitting level 50, players will have unlocked all Klowns, human archetypes, and weapons.

It will be easy to fall into a favorite Klown as the game doesn’t force players to play different ones. Unsurprisingly, one of the best guns and maybe the best Klown–Shorty, who has a smaller stature and can punch the crap out of humans–are the last to unlock. The human archetypes are extremely basic. One of the best starts with a knife that can slice themselves out of a cocoon. But because health and stamina drain so fast for either role, only the most coordinated players are likely going to try and make roles for each other.

Personally, I enjoyed knowing that most players would have a relatively similar loadout. It makes the game somewhat predictable like a traditional FPS. The cosmetic unlocks are fine but nothing astounding. Ultimately, it all boils down to creating an asymmetrical multiplayer experience that boils down the experience to what works best: sudden changes in a match that break out in potential chaos.

During my time with Killer Klowns, I did experience connection and technical issues. While these only seemingly occurred the day before early access, it is worth mentioning that after days of smooth lobbies, I would experience host disconnects and broken matchmaking. A handful of times, my gun stopped firing and I couldn’t use items but that often meant a disconnect was about to occur. Framerate was often extremely solid and I usually only experienced dips after the cutscene for killing a human played.

IllFonic and Teravision smartly incorporated bots into the experience. The human bots are dead stupid and literally walk around until a Klown is in proximity, in a way they are easy fodder for cocoons. The game isn’t afraid to populate players into an ongoing match, merely replacing them with bots that are likely already dead. It keeps momentum going in a game that absolutely requires a full 10 players.

Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game excels in its uncomplicated experiment with asymmetrical multiplayer. Rather than bog players down in multiple systems, IllFonic and Teravision choose kinetic gameplay that always has players doing something. Such a stripped-down experience is made memorable by the campy nature of the film, quick matches, and fast leveling. Of course, the circus elephant in the room is how welcome the community will be towards embracing a game that leans more into thrills and less into horror. Will the Killer Klowns wrap us up in its sugary embrace or scare us away?