• Video

Evil Dead: The Game interview: Blending the licensed milkshake

'We tried to make everything as accurate to the movies and television show as possible,' says Saber Interactive CCO Tim Willits.

Ozzie Mejia

April 22, 2022 4:00 PM

1

One of the most exciting licensed games on the horizon is for 80s classic Evil Dead. The Evil Dead franchise will get its first game in almost two decades, but it took a lot to make this happen. For one thing, getting all the rights together was no easy task. Video Editor Greg Burke learned more about the subject after a discussion with the folks at Saber Interactive.

"We worked with Boss Team Games, as well, and they've definitely helped us with the license, to give them credit," Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits told Shacknews. "We tried to make everything as accurate to the movies and television show as possible, so it made it 'more easy' for the licensers to accept it. We had to get Kelly [Maxwell] approved and... the real actors had to approve their real characters in-game. So we tried to make it look as beautiful as possible. We threw all the references in. The actors know this world even better than [Narrative Director Craig Sherman] and they were very appreciative of the attention to detail that we did and that really helped us get four different companies to all agree."

The effort to capture Evil Dead in all of its glory was a multi-step effort. As Willits noted, part of that has been getting the actor likenesses, including Bruce Campbell and Ray Santiago. It also included capturing the musical essence, which meant locking up Army of Darkness composer Joseph LoDuca to work with Saber's music director Steve Molitz.

The Saber Interactive team also discusses the game's 4v1 survival component and how it differs from other similar games on the market. If you're looking to learn more about Evil Dead: The Game, be sure to check out our recent preview. For more interviews like this, subscribe to Shacknews and GamerHubTV on YouTube. Evil Dead: The Game will release on PC (via the Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on May 13 with cross-platform play supported.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?