Danny Gaines and Nancy Sawyer burst their way into The Texas Chain Saw Massacre this holiday season. Both additions add different playstyles for players to master. And with these additions comes the popular discussion of balance.
The latest update builds upon the legendary The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in a way that sets the tone going forward for the game of the same name. With the first DLC drop for the game at the end of November and the slew of holiday business, I got to spend quite a bit of time with Danny Gaines and Nancy Sawyer and plan to do a quick analysis of the state of the game. You can read my initial review of TCSM here.
Danny Gaines is the new Victim to join the host of young adults searching for their lost friend Maria. He boasts very well-rounded statistics, some fun perks, and a very interesting ability. His ability allows him to study anything mechanical in the sandboxes that Victims are tasked with escaping and can apply that knowledge to more meaningful methods to save time on specific exit tasks, keep them open longer, or keep them open permanently. His kit makes his play style very diverse from his compatriots, but it also offers some slight problems in terms of abuse and polarizing play. One of his ability tree perks allows him to instantly “inspect” an item, and, if you build Danny in a specific way, this can enable the ability to open an exit permanently in record time. I will speak more on this later, but for now keep this in mind.
Nancy Sawyer, the newest member of the Family, is a ragtag casserole of cannibalistic creativity. She has traps that she can lay in “shimmy” spaces that give her some Hitchhiker-like additions to her play style. She also has an ability akin to the Cook’s, where she can see one specific Victim for a tiny amount of time through their eyes. Her speed is a bit slower, and her weapon is a type of gardening tool that adds for some beautifully violent executions that really show her personality reflected in the game.
My personal favorite thing about Nancy Sawyer’s inclusion is her upgrade tree. This tree in particular features some diverse perks that can change how she works mechanically in the best way possible. Whether that is adding poison to her swings, getting a slight chance to self-duplicate traps, or making Victims wait 10 seconds to remove the gnarled barbed wire from their ankles. The number of unique perks in her tree make building her to your play style a thoroughly enjoyable experience. If her tree is any indication of the pass over perks Gun Media is planning, color me excited.
With an especially visceral level of lore behind each addition to the playable roster, and with a new map littered with immersion that cohesively fits into the 1970’s film, any diehard Texas Chainsaw fan can find something incredible to get lost in when it comes to the world and the context Gun Media is building upon.
The new map is none other than Nancy Sawyers’ home and junk filled yard. I didn’t get to experience this map as much as I would have liked but loved every second I spent on it. The map’s design flexed creative differences from the flow of other maps with a vertically-layered maze that made learning the ins and outs significantly more daunting than the other maps. Let me iterate: this is not a bad thing. The biggest criticism of the map I found is in two specific exits: the generator exit, and the house exit which allows you to bypass the electric barrier.
Victims who can push objectives quickly can abuse these two exits, which is my main concern. Since the generator is located near the center of the map, this makes turning it off a bit easier since it can simply be one locked door away instead of two or three like on the other maps. The top of the house exit is, ironically, right out of the front door, and it simply requires three lock picks if the family doesn’t have a Cook player.
Both characters have created discussions in the very divisive space that asymmetrical games attract. There is always a very prominent “us vs them” narrative that different players start verbalizing after focusing on one role in their play time in the genre, and TCSM is no different. Whether that is attempting survival as victims or slaughtering the opposition as family, players who play the game religiously will often yell, “(x) is OP, and this is unfair. Please nerf,” with a player reflecting the opposite experience begging the opposite to happen. I don’t plan to discredit any claims that TCSM players carry, but I would like to add to the discussion in my experience while testing these characters out.
With over 160 hours in Texas, I may not have the time sink some veterans have, but I like to think that I can offer some insight into the problem the game currently faces.
To be candid, I think if you take casual team A and pit them against casual team B, the game is relatively balanced. Maxed out characters are going to be devastating if you are versing them with anything less without coordination. The real issue with TCSM much like Dead by Daylight and others, is that the skill gap and solo-que can skew perceptions, make polarizing experiences, and can make balancing extremely difficult.
When leveling up Danny and Nancy, I spent most of my time solo-queueing, and what I came to realize from this experience is: solo-queueing as Victim is harrowing, and solo-queueing as Family was a mixed bag that was mostly a positive experience; playing in a group in either role would increase my enjoyment significantly.
I chose to categorize my experience this way because I don’t expect to win every match, but I do expect to have fun. Enjoyment is my number one expectation.
Granted, I adore TCSM, so I asked myself what factors influenced how I felt after a match. When I solo-queued as Victim, I realized that I had no way to test Danny’s abilities starting out, and it would take maybe 10 matches before I finally got to put mechanics to power description and have an understanding of how he works. Aside from that, even though I would try to communicate with my team, I found that less of my team actually functioned as a team when playing alone. This would lead to me possibly: sand-bagging teammates or vice-versa, running to an exit that a teammate escaped from to find it was no longer available, etc.
In short, communication deeply affected how my matches went. When there was communication, I found that I had a more enjoyable time and higher success rate of escaping, while I had less without it. This factor did transfer to the opposing role but was not as prominent as it was when playing the Victim role. Maybe this is because the role is played less, and more experienced players live on that side of the lobby screen.
Overall, I personally feel that if Gun Media finds a way to elevate the solo experience to bridge the gap between veteran players and groups, they might be able to better identify what elements need fine-tuned with data they can collect from player matches. This, and if the game featured a more in-depth tutorial that could lead a player to have a firmer understanding of mechanics such as: locking doors as Family, keeping generators and car batteries on, unlocking doors waking up grandpa, and noise follows you, etc. These are just examples, but giving this kind of information can bridge the skill-gap a bit while giving new players a means to learn the game instead of blindly diving into a match. Most players just want to get right into the fun, so a fully interactive tutorial can really help set the standard going forward and provide information that is otherwise accumulated through growing pains.
One of my favorite aspects of TCSM, is really how Gun Media is handling communication around the topic. They have had multiple streams where they could answer the communities’ questions, and if you look on social media, their team is constantly communicating with players. This level of transparency is rare in my own experience, and I hope to see more of it continue with other developers.
With a fully revved festive-chainsaw I’d like to say Happy Holidays and New Year. Expect more The Texas Chain Saw Massacre coverage in 2024.
I would like to extend a huge thank you to Gun Media for giving me access to Danny for this analysis.
