Terrifier: The ARTcade Game

Pixel Violence.

While I’ve played through countless Beat’em Ups throughout the past few decades, they have recently seen a huge comeback in the past few years, given the massive success of titles like Shredder’s Revenge, Streets of Rage 4, and more indie-driven releases like River City Girls and Maiden Cops. While each game finds new ways to dive into an old-formula, these titles have a personality all their own. Sadly, that can’t truly be said of Terrifier: The ARTcade Game, as it stands as one of the most forgettable additions to the genre in years. 

I’ll stress this at the start. I’m only aware of Terrifier due to its recent cultural impact, and have yet to see any of the films. While I’ll eventually watch them in preparation for the latest film, set to star WWE’s Rhea Ripley, I’ve instead looked to Terrifier: The ARTcade Game as my introduction to the series. While there is a lot that could be done to celebrate such a well-known horror film, especially in a Beat’em Up, what is here is a fairly thin approach that is simply too repetitive and feels immensely low-budget. 

The core idea of the film’s characters going on a killing spree to spite a film being made about them is a nice touch. This meta approach works at the start of the movie being filmed and is lightly woven through the game’s few environments. This four-player brawler features Art the Clown, his sidekick, the Little Pale Girl, Terrifier 1 survivor Victoria, and Adam Burke, who is apparently a minor character in both Terrifier 2 and 3. Again, as someone who has never seen the films, the game doesn’t really do a good job at making me interested in these characters and doesn’t even give them names in the character select screen.

Despite the live-action nature of the films and the very violent nature of them, this ARTcade Beat’em Up is very cartoony and pulls a visual approach for its action from another Beat’em Up, the Scott Pilgrim game. There is such a stark resemblance that it feels like there was an actual intent to do this. Sure, there is a lot of blood and dismembered opponents to rack up the body count, but the way the game is put together shares a lot of the same DNA. The difference, however, is that Ubisoft had a lot more going on with the game and its resemblance to the source material. 

The game offers a pretty long campaign, at least by genre standards. You can easily beat the game with a full team in one sitting, but it’s at least longer than a few Beat’em Up games of late that tend to wrap credits in just under an hour. And, with plenty of options unlocked after you’ve sliced and diced your way to the finale, there is some reason to tackle the campaign straight away. You also have an arcade mode, a versus mode between players, a wave-based mode, and a boss rush mode to round off the game’s basic offerings, plus plenty of artwork and music to track down. That said, these new modes still offer the same levels, bosses, and everything else you’ve likely already exhausted the fun out of during the campaign. 

In typical fashion, you’ll press through stage after stage, defeating countless waves of enemies, before you encounter a boss. From violent executives, one I believe named after an actual producer of the film series, to the movie’s own director, there is a decent variety of bosses, one of which is the series’ own protagonist, Sienna Shaw. 

The stages here feel perfect for the horror genre. From parks, a carnival, to even a stage that feels like a drug trip, complete with frames taken from the film floating in the air, a few stages allow you to find your own path, giving you one of two options at their conclusion. While not every stage allowed for this, the few that did were at least a welcome idea in a game that felt fresh out of them. 

As for a true lack of ideas, well, that is where combat falls into the next topic of conversation. A Beat’em Up can live or die from its combat, and given the theme of this horror slasher, “die” is exactly what it does. Combat has fewer options than most of Art’s victims have fingers. You have a light and heavy attack, a special, and two finishers. While you can run, jump, and dash, as well as use weapons, it is the limited combat that will constantly be on your mind. 

Combat is as basic as it gets. There are no combo strings or attacks or anything other than spamming light attack, hitting the occasional heavy, or waiting for the Y button prompt to appear so you can finish off your victim. For as cruel and varied as Art’s kills are in the films, each character only has two finishers. While the finishers are easy to pull off and can offer up some much-needed invincibility frames, you cannot perform finishers on the heavy threats, and only on the smaller fodder that can fill up most areas. 

This is limited even further by the fact that each killer has only one special move. Art launches a series of upward spears from the ground, Burke wields a steel chair, and the Pale Girl does a spin, making her likely the most useful for crowd-control. Victoria, however, has a projectile that is oddly hard to really line up, and despite her really nice look and pair of special attacks, she was the least used character of the four during my playthrough. 

The limited arsenal across all four characters means you will see every combat option within seconds of selecting each character. This added lack of options plays into many of the annoyances, like being unable to escape certain attacks and taking projectiles from afar when you are desperate to dodge. Enemies constantly block, forcing you to spam your special attacks to attempt to pick up a weapon, and often get shot while doing so. The game feels incredibly unbalanced at times, especially when playing solo. 

It's really easy to get ganged up on and have few ways to escape a crowd without relying on your special attacks. In most Beat'em Up games, enemies usually fly away from you when you die and return to the carnage. However, it is possible to be shot instantly when returning, and with having to spam the A button to get up, it is way too easy to accidentally jump when getting up, and take a few hits as a result. While you'll find health pickups here and there, these annoyances really suck the wind out of your sails.

While the Terrifier series has a massive cult following, I don't see the game having the same treatment. It is surprisingly shallow and feels as if no testing was done to have some balance to its difficulty. While playing with friends does soften some of the issues, there are just better games in the genre that provide far more variety than what they give you here. Terrifier: The ARTcade Game may have had great intentions to provide a fun game for its audience, but it simply falls flat and feels like a quick-to-market licensed game that doesn't do the film franchise any favors.

Developer - RELEVO Videogames. Publisher - Selecta Play Released - December 4th, 2025. Available On - Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC. Rated - (M) Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.