Despite it being demonized as “torture porn” when the first movie landed back in 2004, Saw has become one of the most long-lived horror franchises, and is still releasing new installments to this day. As of right now, there are nine direct sequels; Saw 3 is the highest-grossing at over $164 million, but the most recent, 2023’s Saw X, became the most critically well-regarded. Despite another sequel being canceled over creative differences, the franchise still shows no signs of stopping. Last year, Twisted Pictures sold its stake in the box-office juggernaut to Blumhouse Productions, and in October, it was announced that series co-creator James Wan would return to control the next movie’s creative direction.
Aside from becoming a horror franchise that can stand alongside classic series like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween, the Saw films have had a huge multimedia presence. There are Billy the Puppet dolls and plushies, a Saw II prequel comic book, a shocking number of theme park attractions, and, of course, multiple video games. The original two games, Saw and Saw II: Flesh and Blood, were developed for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era by Konami. Now, 16 years after the release of the last title, the Saw franchise is returning to gaming, but this time with a massive twist that completely recontextualizes the series' long timeline.
Bloober Team, the Polish video game developer responsible for the Silent Hill 2 remake and the upcoming Star Trek horror-adventure Shadow Frontier, revealed at the Summer Games Fest that another Saw-based game is on the way. Saw: Genesis is yet another asymmetric multiplayer (a style of gameplay popularized by Dead by Daylight and replicated in countless licensed games such as Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Evil Dead), only this time, three players will be forced to escape dangerous traps set up by a fourth player instead of trying to outrun a hands-on masked murderer. It’s a well-worn (and arguably overdone) format for horror games, but the truly shocking news is that the game is set a century before John Kramer became Jigsaw.
Not all the details have been revealed yet, but we do know that the game centers around a character named The Judge rather than Jigsaw, the main architect behind the franchise’s many idiosyncratic slayings. The Judge is a World War 1 veteran who seeks to “rehabilitate humanity” by putting people in traps that force them to choose between death or grievous bodily injury, testing their dedication to survival. It’s quite literally Jigsaw’s entire M.O., but the similarities don’t stop there: the Judge has a female version of Billy the Puppet, as well as a bear-masked counterpart to Jigsaw’s pig-masked apprentices.
In all fairness, serving in World War 1 would probably be enough to drive most people to extreme ends.
It’s a jarring reimagining of the lore established by the (admittedly very convoluted) film series, but it’s also an intriguing take that avoids upsetting the already overstuffed film timeline. The precedent of apprentices and disciples has already been established by the movies, and there’s an incredibly small likelihood that the game will be considered canon anyway.
The idea of a precursor to Jigsaw operating in the aftermath of the Great War also allows Bloober Team to engage with the concept of deathtraps in a unique way by using the aesthetic of 1920s technology. The biggest hurdle Saw: Genesis faces isn’t really about rewriting canon, but the curse of licensed asymmetric multiplayer horror games all turning out kind of lousy. Hopefully, it’s an obstacle that the game can clear, because Jigsaw’s ethos — the idea of forcing victims to fight for their own survival — is perfect for an interactive horror experience.
Saw: Genesis does not yet have a release date.
