Something to look forward to: John Carpenter isn't just the horror legend behind greats such as The Thing, The Fog, and They Live (and Big Trouble in Little China, of course), he's also an avid gamer. As such, it might not come as a surprise to learn that the director will be collaborating on one of two new games based on his 1978 classic Halloween.
Carpenter once said all he wants to do is "play video games and watch basketball" because that's all he cares about doing. Now, IGN has revealed that he'll be teaming up with Boss Team Games, the publisher behind 2022's Evil Dead: The Game, which received mostly positive reviews, on two games based on Halloween.
The games are also being developed in conjunction with the producers of the Halloween franchise, with at least one of them being developed in Unreal Engine 5 and featuring Carpenter's input.
"As a huge gamer myself, I'm thrilled to help bring Michael Myers to life again in this game, and my hope is to scare you silly," said Carpenter, who is said to be "intimately involved" with the development of the project.
Both games are based on the original 1978 Halloween, so there shouldn't be any toe-curlingly cringeworthy cries of "Evil dies tonight!" which became a meme after it was yelled repeatedly and often inappropriately in Halloween Kills. And Rob Zombie's Halloween movies are largely ignored these days.
The games will allow players to relive moments from the film and play as classic characters. They are being developed in association with Compass International Pictures and Further Front, with the Unreal Engine 5 project still in its early development stages.
"Getting to work with iconic characters like Michael Myers and build on John Carpenter's original vision is literally a dream come true. Everyone at Boss Team is thrilled and honored to be working with Malek Akkad and John Carpenter to deliver a one-of-a-kind experience that fans of the movie and video games will love," said Boss Team Games CEO Steve Harris.
There was a previous video game adaptation of Halloween: a 1983 version on the Atari 2600 that put players in the shoes of a babysitter, presumably Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode character, as she tries to save children from a knife-wielding killer by leading them to safe rooms. None of the main characters in the game are named, and most versions never even had a label on the cartridge as a way to save money. The main similarity to the film is the iconic theme music.
Michael Myers, aka The Shape, is also one of the many killers to have appeared in Dead by Daylight.