Halloween: How to Play Offline With Bots

Halloween: The Game has an Offline Play mode, and IllFonic has never published a single word explaining how to use it. The mode’s existence is now first-party confirmed by a patch note; the menu path, the bot count, the AI difficulty options and whether you can pick Michael against bots are all still undocumented, by IllFonic and by everyone else.

That is an unsatisfying answer, so here is the useful version of it: exactly what is proven, exactly what is reported, exactly what is blank, and what you can do offline right now that is fully documented.

The proof that Offline Play shipped

IllFonic’s Early Access Hotfix 1, published September 5, 2026 for all platforms, includes this line in its fix list: “Fixed an issue where Offline Play was affected by the login queueing system.”

That is the strongest evidence available, and it is first-party. You cannot patch a mode that does not exist, and “Offline Play” is IllFonic’s own capitalization — which makes it the exact string to look for in your build’s menus.

Note the exact wording, though: “affected by,” not “blocked by.” IllFonic does not say what the interaction between an offline mode and an online login queue actually was, or how it presented to players. Whatever it was, the fix landed on September 5, during the Advance Access window that opened on September 4.

What the note does not do is describe the mode, name its location, or mention bots at all.

Where the “bots” claim actually comes from

The bots-instead-of-humans version of multiplayer is a pre-launch report, not a storefront feature listing. VGC, writing from a Gamescom 2025 session, reported that players who don’t want to play online would still be able to play the multiplayer mode against bots. JoBlo separately listed offline bot combat alongside the campaign and online PvP. Neither is first-party, and no page on halloweengame.com and no storefront has ever described a bots mode.

Post-launch, the best-researched guide on the topic reaches the same conclusion this page does: private AI matches exist, and the specifics are unverified. It explicitly tells readers not to assume the menu paths, bot counts, difficulty options or reward behavior until they’ve seen them in a live build. That is a guide writer admitting they could not find the answer, which is worth more than a confident invented one.

What is documented, and what is not

Question	Status as of September 9, 2026
Does a mode called “Offline Play” exist?	Yes — first-party, via the Hotfix 1 patch note naming it
Is “Offline Play” the bots mode?	Never stated. The patch note does not describe the mode or mention bots
Exact menu path and UI labels	Not documented by IllFonic or any guide
Number of bots supported	Not published
AI difficulty options	Not published
Whether bots can fill the Michael slot, the Hero slots, or both	Not published
Whether it runs with the machine fully disconnected	Not stated
Whether XP, levels and challenges track	Not published
Solo play as a listed capability	Yes — Steam lists Single-player, Xbox lists Single player

The last row matters. Both Steam and Xbox flag single-player support as a first-party capability, and PlayStation’s listing carries “Online play optional” and a player count of 1. Playing this game by yourself is not in question. What is in question is the shape of the bot-multiplayer mode specifically.

Does progression track against bots?

Unknown, and it has been unknown since before launch. VGC raised exactly this question after its Gamescom 2025 session and nobody has answered it since.

There is one first-party datapoint that people keep stretching too far. In IllFonic’s progression overview, XP is described as earned by completing matches or by playing the singleplayer story mode. That confirms the campaign feeds your levels — genuinely useful, and a real answer to a different question. It does not confirm that an offline bot match counts as a “match” for XP purposes. Read it as what it is.

For reference, the game runs four separate progression tracks: Profile Level (all XP regardless of role), Killer Level (playing as Michael), Civilian Level (per playable character) and Weapon Level (per weapon used as Michael). Prestige exists once you max a track, and IllFonic has not published the cap for any of them. Civilian Perk Cards are rolled with Perk Points earned from completing matches, not picked from a tree — so if bot matches do not pay out, they do not feed your perk rolls either. Nobody has tested this publicly.

If XP against bots is the deciding factor for you, the honest advice is to run one offline match, note your Profile Level before and after, and trust your own eyes over any site claiming to know.

The offline content that is fully documented: the campaign

If what you actually want is Halloween without other people, the standalone singleplayer story is the part with real documentation behind it, and it is substantial.

It runs a Prologue plus five numbered chapters — six playable sections total: Escape From Smith’s Grove, The Road To Haddonfield, Main Street, Returning Home, The Babysitters and Into The Shadows. You play Michael throughout, narrated by Dr. Samuel J. Loomis. There are 36 optional challenges (six per section, several of them mutually exclusive within a single run), 14 collectibles, three endings reached in Chapter Five, and a chapter select for cleanup. Completing challenges unlocks cosmetics that carry into multiplayer, per IllFonic.

Reported playtimes vary by source and none are official: one player’s stopwatched first run on Normal came to roughly 2 hours 10 minutes of pure chapter time, or about 3.5 hours including menus and retries; another guide puts a focused run at 1.5–2 hours and a completionist run at 10–20 hours.

One caveat that has never been cleared up: whether the campaign is playable with no connection at all is not officially stated. Both PC spec tiers list a broadband internet connection, while PlayStation’s listing says online play is optional. The Hotfix 1 login-queue fix suggests IllFonic is actively working on the offline path, but no first-party sentence spells out the requirement.

Three things that are not the same thing

The vocabulary around this game is a mess, and conflating these is how misinformation spreads:

• Offline Play — IllFonic’s own label, named in a patch note, otherwise undescribed.
• Private lobbies with AI — the reported bots-instead-of-humans version of multiplayer. Reported pre-launch, undocumented since.
• The singleplayer campaign — the standalone Michael Myers story mode. Fully confirmed, fully detailed.

A page telling you to “select Offline Play, choose your bot count and set difficulty” is guessing. If you find the real path in your build, you will know more than every published source on the subject.

We’ll update this page the moment IllFonic documents the mode or a credible hands-on report pins down the steps. In the meantime, our solo, bots and crossplay FAQ covers the surrounding questions, and the PC requirements breakdown has the full spec tables.