Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game

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Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game review
Dan Lenois

Review

Nothing like klowning around in your free time...

Of all the niche horror franchises to adapt into a multiplayer horror title, Killer Klowns From Outer Space is certainly an odd pick. And yet, at a glance, there's something oddly charming about the prospect of being chased around by a trifecta of murderous space clowns intent on getting in the last laugh.

illFonic has something of a track record with getting ahold of 80's era cult classic IPs and putting their distinctly unique asymmetrical multiplayer spin on things, as seen by their prior games, Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashes, Predator: Hunting Grounds, and Friday the 13th The Game. So needless to say, when they made it clear they intended to clown around a bit with their next endeavor, it certainly got my attention.

The performance is no joke...


On a purely technical level, Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game demonstrates reasonably decent PC performance. There are a few dips here and there in terms of framerate, mostly when rendering in areas with particularly dense foliage or lots of static props, but never to the point where it substantially disrupts the gameplay experience.



New Players? Yeah, we don't want any...


To say that the game lacks a decent new player onboarding would be the understatement of the year. By its very design Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game seems hostile to anyone actually attempting to learn how to play the game. On its main menu, the game explicitly claims to offer a tutorial.

However, when clicked on, it instead displays to the player a series of hastily thrown-together PNG images that provide barely the most superficial of details about how a match is intended to be played out. Much of it can be summarized as "Klown bad, klowns target humans. Humans: avoid klowns", something that anyone who even saw the front cover could probably infer.

The game does, to its partial credit, allow players to play private matches, and the devs even went so far as to enable AI players to help populate a match, to give players something to practice against. However, the only AI players supported currently are humans, meaning it is quite literally impossible for a single human player to practice as a human survivor, because the game was not programmed to allow for even a single AI klown.



Looking your best...


The customization here is great. The fully-animated cinematic finishers you can equip in order to kill humans in the most stylish way possible, the different outfits and emotes you can choose from as either klown or human, and the different item loadouts you can choose from, the degree to which the developers allow people here to truly play their own way is one of this game's greatest assets.



Learning on the job: Easier said than done


Whereas other asymmetrical multiplayer horror games usually follow a fairly simple core gameplay formula, ala Dead by Daylight's "repair the generators, activate the escape door, you win" approach, or even Evolve's short-lived "You kill the player-controlled monster, you win" gameplay flow, here in Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game, the game does not clearly indicate in its user interface, or through distinct visual/audio cues, what needs to be done in and in what order.

There are so many differing options to escape, each with their own convoluted means of activation, that the core experience becomes inherently more complicated, and thus, more difficult to learn through repetition.

In my time for this site, and even privately within my own friend group, I've somewhat designated myself as the go-to person when it comes to multiplayer horror games. I live and breath the scares. I have about as much experience in said genre as this game's developers could reasonably hope for. And yet, when I try playing this game, I feel like I have no clue what I'm supposed to be doing, and not in a good way, in that I could learn from my mistakes and improve with time.

Instead it seems like the game doesn't put nearly enough effort into communicating to me what is important for me to learn, and what isn't. It's this lack of clear, concise direction that, more than anything else, most worries me about this game's potential future.



Final Verdict:


Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game is wonderfully faithful in its aesthetic ties to the original IP. However as a game on its own merits, it struggles to give players the tools they need to learn and grow from the outset, and the inherently overly-sophisticated nature of its core gameplay loop, along with the limited roster of playable maps, lead to great concern over its potential longevity from here on out.

I'm personally rooting for the developers at illFonic, as they seem an extremely passionate and talented team. However, sometimes hard truths need to be said, and Killer Klowns is going to have to work harder to prove that they warrant players' hard-earned money.


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6.0

fun score

Pros

The titular klowns steal the show, decent maps, well-optimized.

Cons

Misleading "tutorial", lacklustre content offering, convoluted match design