A clip of a sex minigame in the early access version of Halloween: The Game has gone viral, but it’s already been removed before the game is released.

After IllFonic’s asymmetrical multiplayer adaptations of horror films like Friday The 13th and Killer Klowns From Outer Space, it was hardly surprising to see the studio tackle Halloween next.

Simply titled Halloween: The Game, it launches on Tuesday, September 8 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, but those who’ve bought the deluxe edition are already playing it in early access.

If you wait till tomorrow, though, you’ll find yourself playing a slightly different version than the early access one, as IllFonic has already patched it to remove a sex minigame.

Halloween: The Game casts one player as slasher supervillain Michael Meyers, while four others play as civilians (either original characters or ones from the movies) looking to escape and survive.

As discovered and shared by streamer TheOnlyMonto on X, if two civilians wind up hiding inside of a closet, a prompt appears that reads ‘Ask Out’ and has a heart next to it.

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This then triggers a minigame that requires both players to mash a button to keep a line within a coloured section of a bar. All the while, the camera shakes and you can hear the characters grunt.

Succeeding at the minigame fills a heart in the middle of the screen, accompanied by the text ‘Stronger Together.’ Presumably, this provides some kind of buff to both players but it’s not clear what advantage it confers.

Regardless, it’s a very strange addition. While the whole ‘teens have sex and are killed’ is a common slasher movie trope, it’s not something really associated with the Halloween franchise, but more its legion of lower grade copycats.

IllFonic has already patched the minigame out but it sounds like this was less because it was never meant to be implemented but more because it didn’t work properly.

‘Players may have noticed that our latest hotfix removed the Two-Person Power-Up minigame. This was due to an unintended issue that allowed end game reinforcement characters to engage with the minigame, which was a major oversight on our part,’ reads a statement by lllFonic (via IGN).

The ‘reinforcement character’ Illfonic is referring to it is Samuel Loomis, a recurring character from the movies, who is one of the characters featured in the sex minigame clip.

Considering he’s in his 50s and the game uses the likeness of his original actor, the late Donald Pleasance, him being able to have sex with the teenage characters is hardly a good look, even if you don’t see anything explicit, and would likely get IllFonic in trouble with Pleasance’s estate.

It’s not entirely clear if IllFonic intends to add the minigame back in, only saying, ‘We have more content and minigames coming in the near future but current focus is our attention on immediate game needs. Keep an eye on our socials for updates as they become available.’

The whole thing is reminiscent of the *Hot Coffee* fiasco that plagued developer Rockstar and its 2004 game GTA: San Andreas. If you don’t remember that far back, the game had an unfinished minigame where you could have explicit, on-screen sex with the player character’s girlfriend.

Although it was never made playable, someone did mod it back in and it quickly sparked a moral outrage and legal troubles for Rockstar, with the studio forced to publicly apologise for it.

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