The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (TCM) is approaching its first anniversary. When it launched on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation platforms on August 18 last year, it also landed in Xbox Game Pass. That advantageous position helped the game climb to over 4 million players in its first month.
With the game soon exiting Game Pass, the TCM community has been… let’s say gloomy about it on social media. Some suggest the game can’t survive without the players coming from Xbox’s subscription service, and others, unaware of how Game Pass deals work, wonder why the game is leaving the service at all.
Wes Keltner–CEO, designer, and director at Gun Media–provided a statement to GameSpot regarding TCM’s time in Game Pass, as well as its forthcoming departure, in an effort to address the concerned fans. He also suggested the game may one day return to the subscription library, as some games have in the past.
“It’s hard to believe that it’s been one year since The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was released! We’ve had a blast creating new content and watching how the players engage and share the unique experiences our game creates. In a lot of ways we owe Game Pass and the team at Xbox for the awareness and success of the title so far. Now that our time with Game Pass is coming to an end, it’s time to focus on the future of Texas, and it looks very bright!
“Game Pass is a great program, especially for small teams like ours that are trying to push relatively new genres forward. It removes so many barriers to entry for players, and enables them to sample a variety of games and genres they may otherwise never touch. Some may not find horror multiplayer for them, but we found so many new players there. And while a great many subscribers use the program to “graze,” we’ve got an active and loyal player base that’s been there since launch on all platforms. And we’ll see a lot of Game Pass players convert to paid–especially since they get a discount from Xbox to do so. That’s a pretty cool deal if you ask me.
“We’ve enjoyed our time within the Game Pass ecosystem and who knows, maybe we’ll enter back into it again in the future. Being one of the most popular games in Game Pass this last year and winning the Xbox Excellence Award is usually a good sign that a game will not only return to that program, but also has a strong future full of new content and experiences. Bloody, gory, fun experiences. See you in Texas.”
As for specifics on the “future of Texas,” the TCM team has recently revealed the Content Pass, which offers a bundle of upcoming DLC at a reduced price when compared to buying the content individually ($20 versus $45). The pass includes two new characters (one for each team), four upcoming cosmetic packs, a new execution pack, which is exactly what it sounds like–gruesome new kill animations–and early access to a free new game mode, Rush Week, coming in the future.
Additionally, more paid cosmetic packs are on the way, as well as several free updates, including a new map and weather variants for three of the game’s existing maps.
Echoing Keltner’s thoughts on the game’s post-Game Pass roadmap, Gun’s Matt Shotcha told a concerned player, “[G]ames come and go on Game Pass all the time. That’s how the service works. It’s been a year, and a great one at that […] Don’t worry, we still have all the content planned we always did. Support and content are not inherently tied to Game Pass.”
In GameSpot’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre review, I called it one of the scariest games I’ve ever played, giving it a score of 9 out of 10 and added, “When you hear that chainsaw revving, it’s like nothing else in horror, no matter the medium.”
