The Best News For Saw: Genesis Is We Have To Wait Longer To Play It

Saw: Genesis was set to be the next asymmetrical multiplayer horror game to debut, but its 2026 early-access launch has been pushed to 2027, developer Bloober Team announced. 

The horror-focused studio said it needs more time to get Saw: Genesis to a place the team is satisfied with.

It's an interesting admission, since some teams use Steam Early Access for exactly that purpose: to get the game in good shape. But in the increasingly competitive and crowded space of licensed multiplayer horror games, a bad first impression may be more damaging than a reverse bear trap strapped to your face.

We've seen a lot of games like this since Dead by Daylight kicked off a wave of them in 2016, but my appetite remains insatiable because no two are really quite alike. It's exciting to see how studios transpose different horror movies' signature elements into interactive experiences, but when I checked out Saw: Genesis at Summer Game Fest, I came away underwhelmed. 

The 3v1 gameplay loop wasn't easy to follow in my hands-off demo. It's set about a century before the movies, with one person playing as a Jigsaw-like "Judge" who runs three others through his maze of torture devices and traps, trying to kill them all before any of them can escape the end of his trials. 

The team of three may have brief windows of opportunity to attack the Judge, though a really skilled Judge may never even give them a chance, lurking in corridors the victims can't access, slinking out to activate his next hellish device. Things like complex puzzles for the victims and best practices for the Judge were really hard to follow. Some understanding would come with more experience, no doubt, but the first impression was rough enough to make me think it'll scare off players for being so unintuitive right away.

Animations and visuals were lacking, too. I figured those issues could and likely would be polished over time, but if the core experience is unclear or convoluted, Saw: Genesis may struggle to compete for players' time, especially since its closest comparison is Red Barrels' already successful Outlast Trials. The delay feels warranted.

I've been rewatching the Saw series lately, and it's reminded me that these movies aren't very good. Many of the 10 of them are plainly bad. Even the first one, which I'd long remembered as a milestone in low-budget horror, now feels like it has too many plot contrivances and nu-metal music-video editing choices for my liking. 

And yet, I'm totally on board with Saw: Genesis if it works as a game. I don't have any reverence for the '80s B-movie Killer Klowns From Outer Space, but I had a blast with Illfonic's adaptation.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Saw: Genesis changes shape between now and the next time we hear about it. Even though it's horror season and a Saw: Genesis launch would've made sense on the calendar--"If it's Halloween, it must be Saw," I was always told--I like the idea of Bloober Team pushing it out a few months to try to clean it up. This is a studio that told me it's done making "shitty games," and while that's not a guarantee, Bloober Team surely hopes to follow through.