For those who haven’t played Friday The 13th: The Game, this article contains spoilers.
Jason Voorhees is one of the most enduring figures in horror. Regardless if you love or hate the franchise, there’s no denying its impact on popular culture. Often overlooked is what went into making the 12-film series. Through extensive research and interviews, I invite you to take a closer look at the Friday The 13th universe. This is Crystal Lake Confessional.
In grade school, my friends and I would play a game we called Friday The 13th. One kid wore an old Jason mask portraying the titular character while the rest hid. After a count down from 100, ‘Jason’ would find the other kids. The rules were pretty simple: ‘Jason’ couldn’t run and if he found you, you were out. The last kid standing would be up against ‘Jason’ where they would have to run to the safe house. ‘Jason’ could run at that point so if he got you, you were out. If you got there first, you survived the night at Camp Crystal Lake.
Despite being a souped-up hybrid of Hide n Seek and Tag, it was what we considered the fundamentals of the Friday The 13th movies (regardless if we had seen them or not). Most importantly, it was scary and fun.
Decades later, these same essentials would make up an actual Friday The 13th video game.
The idea of a videogame based on the slasher franchise wasn’t exactly new. There was a bizarre floppy disc/cassette game for Commodore 64 in 1986. But the most famous was the NES game by LJN and ATLUS. It was complicated, cryptic, and infamously frustrating and better suited for the ironic comedy reviews by millennial YouTubers years later. However, 2017’s Friday The 13th: The Game from Gun Media and ILLFONIC was something special. Something more in line with the game we kids would play in the backyard and playgrounds as dusk approached.
Friday The 13th: The Game is an asymmetrical online multiplayer game where up to 7 players (as Crystal Lake Camp counselors) are pitted against another player controlling Jason Voorhees. As Jason, the goal is to kill all or as many of the counselors as possible during the 20-minute match. As a counselor, you survive by beating the clock, escaping in a car or boat, or calling the authorities.
With over 14 playable counselors and 10 different versions of Jason as well as 5 different maps based on different locations from the film, Friday The 13th: The Game felt much like a living, breathing Crystal Lake playground.
After the release of Breach & Clear: Deadline in 2015, Gun Media CEO Wes Keltner and his partner Ronnie Hobbs pitched an idea of a survival horror game based on the slasher films of the 1980s. Tentatively titled Summer Camp would feature a group of players surviving a night against a crazy masked killer. If the game proved to be successful, each sequel would take place in a different slasher-inspired location. Impressed by Evolve and Left 4 Dead, Keltner and Hobbs reached out to Turtle Rock Studios for a lead on a development team capable of working on a game such as Summer Camp. Turtle Rock suggested ILLFONIC, who had then recently worked on Crisis III as well as Evolve. The studios hit it off perfectly and work began almost immediately.
As development started, Gun raised over 1 million dollars to make a series of maps, and character models. As well as a somewhat playable demo to send to media outlets, hoping to gain some attention from publishers. IGN picked up the story and published an article laying out the bloody plans of Keltner and Hobbs. Around this time, GUN and ILLFONIC were able to snag actor Kane Hodder (who played Jason in parts 7,8,9, and 10) to do motion capture for the character simply known as The Killer.
Also on board was other Friday The 13th alum such as special effects guru Tom Savini and composer Harry Manfredini to work on VFX and music, respectively.
Not long after the IGN article was published, Keltner received a meeting inquiry email from Horror Inc, along with franchise creator, Sean S. Cunningham.
At first, Keltner thought the email was from another internet troll. But it wasn’t until a second email came a month later that he realized it was the real deal. At the meeting, Cunningham was enamored by Keltner and Hobbs’ adoration of the slasher genre. But the meeting wasn’t just about fist bumps and admiration. Reminded of his own story getting the first film made, Cunningham offered Keltner and Hobbs the license to use the entire Friday The 13th franchise.
For Keltner and Hobbs, it was like a dream come true. Friday The 13th: The Game was officially in the making and with the support of the franchise creator!
Unfortunately, that was the only support Gun and ILLFONIC received for Friday The 13th: The Game.
Much like Cunningham in 1978, Keltner and Hobbs were on their own. Not a single publisher was interested in funding a game based on a slasher IP. Especially one that hadn’t seen an installment in nearly 10 years. Thanks to crowdsourcing, Keltner and Hobbs were able to pull in enough money to make the game a reality. Without any CEOs or suits calling the shots, Gun was able to make the game they wanted to make. One that was just as gratuitous and gory as the franchise they were adapting.
And to call Friday The 13th: The Game anything but astonishing would be an understatement!
Aside from the core gameplay, every element of the game’s visuals was designed to showcase the tiniest of details. Locations matched set pieces from the film with meticulous detail. Randomly found in maps of the game were cassette collectibles. Each tape (written by Jason Lives director Tom McLoughlin) featured character interviews fleshing out previously unanswered questions in many of the sequels. Along with the interactive museum in single-player mode, Friday The 13th: The Game not only celebrated the lore of the franchises but added to it.
With over 80,000 players on its first day of launch, Friday The 13th: The Game was a bonafide hit. Things were looking good for Gun Media and the Friday The 13th brand. Until they weren’t…
In early 2018, a year after the game’s launch, Gun Media was informed that any further development or content had to stop dead in its tracks due to a lawsuit between the franchise creators. Despite Cunningham being the owner of the franchise, Part 1 writer and former collaborator, Victor Miller claimed he is responsible for the creation of the characters and lore of the franchise.
However, seeing as Miller had only written Part 1 and had zero affiliation with any of the sequels (which include adult, undead, and hockey mask-wearing Jason) Cunningham felt the sale, distribution, and ownership was solely on himself. Further complicating matters were the grounds on which Miller was hired to write the first film. Friday The 13th may have been written by Miller, but it wasn’t solely his idea. The duo brainstormed the story together and Cunningham paid him to put it to script. Thus making Miller a for-hire writer.
Further complications included international rights being sold back and forth as well as the franchise license being passed around between Paramount, New Line, Platinum Dunes, and now Horror Inc.
It was next to impossible to tell who owned what variation of what. The lawsuit was ugly and long and would go on for years.
Meanwhile, Gun Media is still a small, indie developer. Halting production and evolution of their breadwinner while waiting for a lawsuit to end meant no money could come in. Soon after the launch of the game on the Nintendo Switch, Gun Media was forced to move on from the project and close down the online servers for Friday The 13th: The Game. While still being able to play online matches via peer-to-peer, modders, server errors, and unpatched glitches made the game nearly unplayable. Finally, in June of 2023, Gun Media made the official announcement that the franchise license was set to expire in December of 2023. By 2024, Friday The 13th: The Game would be delisted and unavailable to play online or offline. It was officially game over for Jason Voorhees.
Friday The 13th: The Game may not have been perfect and it was most certainly not winning any Game Of The Year Awards. But for a few short years, those multiplayer lobbies were a hub for long-time fans of the franchise to hang out and play in the Crystal Lake sandbox. Whether it was hacking and slashing counselors as Jason or teaming up with the legendary Tommy Jarvis to send the man of the hour straight back to Hell, we were a community.
Even though I’ve been a fan of the franchise since I was a kid, it was playing Friday The 13th: The Game all hours of the night that inspired me to launch this series of articles and interviews.
The world in which Jason Voorhees lives (or un-dies) might be ugly, blood-soaked, and mean-spirited, but playing a session of Friday The 13th: The Game took me back to the days when my friends and I were running around in the yard with last Halloween’s mask and sticks for machetes. Screams were laughs, and being murdered meant taking a time-out for a popsicle or Kool-Aid. This game was made by Gun Media and ILLFONIC for fans like me because they too were fans like me.
But even though The Game was met with a bloody demise, the legacy of Jason Voorhees will never die. Somewhere at the bottom of Crystal Lake, he’s there in a docile state. Regardless of what medium, he’s out there waiting for his triumphant return…
Catch up with previous installments of Crystal Lake Confessional here.
Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – –Part 6 – Part 7