You’ve met the Victims cast, heard their back stories, and now you’ve seen the trading cards that reflect their unique Abilities and Attributes. But what exactly is an Ability versus an Attribute? And further, how do they work in game?
We know there’s bound to be some questions, and probably will continue to be up until you’re there for yourself, sneaking out of the basement of the old Texas farmhouse. With this Hub article we’re hoping to shed some light on the stats shared and how they operate and hopefully answer at least a few of those nagging questions for the community.
Character stats are broken out into five main Attribute categories: Toughness, Endurance, Strength, Proficiency, and Stealth and while each Victim has a base value for each Attribute, these values can be tweaked by way of the metagame and that Victim’s unique Skill Tree. Stashed among the various perks within the Skill Tree unlocks are Attribute Unlock Points. Snagging one of those will award a point that can be used to raise the value of any Attribute the player chooses. This is just one of the options players can use to build their Victim loadouts in unique ways. Of course, the base values play an important role in this, as pumping up a low base value will cost more Attribute Unlock Points than leaning into a specific Victim’s strong suits. More on the full metagame later. For now, let’s cover what these Attributes really are.
Toughness: Toughness is NOT to be confused with Strength. True Toughness is fortitude, built from character, and in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre it’s not simply a health pool. While Toughness does help you sustain more damage before becoming incapacitated, it also shortens your recovery time, giving you a higher all around survivability.
Endurance: Similar to Toughness, Endurance encapsulates more than just the stamina pool. Endurance in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre will help with the overall stamina while also speeding up your stamina regeneration rate, getting you back to full speed faster.
Strength: Strength determines how effective a Victim is at confronting Family members. Strength can alter the stun effect duration for actions such as sneak attacks, grappling in close encounters, and bursting out of hiding spots. Strength also assists Victims in certain interactions like escaping restraints, opening crawl spaces, and turning off the generator.
Proficiency: Proficiency is the gauge we measure a Victim’s ability to accomplish skilled tasks and interactions, such as lock picking. While higher Proficiency Victims can pick locks more easily, lower Proficiency Victims still can pick locks, they just might struggle a bit more with the interaction.
Stealth: Stealth is everywhere in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and as such, the Stealth Attribute is a bit more specific than the general Stealth that all Victims are capable of. This Attribute influences the Victim’s ability to perform actions silently, generating less noise while accomplishing tasks. This does not, however, affect the general Stealth used in game, such as hiding from Family members and staying in the shadows.
While all of our Victims have their strengths and weaknesses, players have access to the full metagame, which can be extremely powerful in terms of customizing your loadouts to feel unique and play the way you would like to. While metagame will never make a Connie into a Leland, players can tinker with builds to address areas of particular Victims they feel they need to boost.
Speaking of unique elements and our cast of Victims, let’s talk a little bit about Abilities.
Connie: Focused Ability
First up we have Connie’s Focused Ability, an Ability that allows her to pick a lock much faster at the cost of stamina and her Family proximity warnings, without consuming the unlock tool.
Sonny: Heightened Sense
Sonny, our intellectual, has the Heightened Sense Ability. Triggering this will give Sonny a situational awareness buff, allowing him to detect noise made by anyone nearby, pinpointing their location and tracking their movements.
Julie: Ultimate Escape
Ultimate Escape sure sounds like a hell of an Ability, and Julie, the sporting type, makes great use of it. When activated, Julie cannot be tracked by the Family while also getting significantly reduced stamina drain while sprinting for a short time.
Leland: Life Saver
Leland can throw his weight around, literally. Use the Life Saver Ability to bump charge a Family member, stunning them. Leland can use this Ability in a variety of ways to interrupt an otherwise fatal clash with Family for himself or his friends.
Ana: Pain is Nothing
Last but not least we have Ana, the fearless leader. Her appropriately named Ability, Pain is Nothing, significantly reduces the damage she’ll take from attacks and falls, like jumping out windows. Her additional buff is a temporary immunity to the effects of any poison.
All of these Abilities can be further tweaked and tuned in a breakout section of the metagame skill trees. Players can open up the Ability panel from within the main skill tree and add earned points to either speed up the cooldown timings, buff the Ability effects, or change key parameters of the Ability and how it functions. All of that will be detailed in a future Hub post.
We hope this glimpse into the details of what exactly these Victims are capable of has both helped to satisfy the curiosity while also sparking further speculation in you, our eager community.
Thanks for reading and we look forward to continuing the conversation here in the Community Hub, on our official subreddit, r/TXChainSawGame, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.