If you’re reading this, I have to assume you’re a horror fan. Whether you’re into horror, horror movies, or horror games, you probably remember what drew you to the genre.
For me, it was Friday the 13th: The Game. Before, I was terrified by the very thought of horror. The idea of ​​sitting down to watch a scary movie was not a pleasant prospect, in fact it felt more like a punishment. Well, that’s what I originally thought anyway. Eventually, my love of video games overcame my discomfort at the idea of ​​gory media.
Friday the 13th: The Game started life as a Kickstarter that raised nearly a million dollars. There were many reasons why this project caught the attention of the horror community, including the involvement of some true horror legends. There was Sean S. Cunningham, who directed Friday the 13th, and makeup and prosthetics wizard Tom Savini and Kane Hodder, famous for playing the legendary killer Jason Voorhees. The idea was to create a game that would match the movies where a man in a hockey mask kills people at Camp Crystal Lake. And sometimes in New York. And space. It gets complicated.
As a horror newbie, none of this meant much to me at the time. But the finished game worked very quickly when I played it. When I first entered the lobby, I was struck by atmospheric music that evoked a sense of dread. From the very beginning, the game beautifully prepares you for a night full of tumultuous slaughter.
In game form, Friday the 13th is an asymmetrical horror film like Dead by Daylight. You can play as Jason or one of a number of camp counselors trying to escape him and the map itself before the unthinkable happens.
I don’t really have to tell you how to play Jason, do I? You hunt and kill them all. However, there are different paths to success as a consultant. You can find a fuse and get the camp electricity working, which means you can call the cops. You still have to avoid Jason long enough to then run to one of the two exits on the map where the police will be waiting for you. Harder than it sounds.
Additionally, you can use vehicles to escape, namely a car and a boat. Jason hates especially when using a car. Maybe it’s because you fixed it right under his nose, or because you can bring other advisors with you and all escape together. Whatever the reason, this big boy teleports in front of you as you run to force you to crash. That is right. This man is not afraid of cars, he is afraid of cars him.
You can also simply wait for hours and that would count as a win for the advisor. Apart from that, there is one more way to win the game which I will talk about later. It’s complicated, but boy it’s satisfying.
As a newcomer to the series, I fell in love with this game almost immediately. I loved the semi-real world environment, which for me added a lot more tension to the experience than fantasy would have. It wasn’t like Dead by Daylight where you were taken by an otherworldly entity and thrust into terrifying hells to be sacrificed over and over again. Instead, I was somewhere familiar and familiar, and it was this familiarity that let players know that Jason wasn’t just a nightmare lord, but he could get you where you felt safest.
This sense of familiarity also worked beautifully with the music, which was often low on the soundtrack as you ran around collecting supplies, but would shake violently like an old TV looking for a signal when Jason appeared. the closer he got the louder it would get.
Then there’s just the attention to detail. This includes the fact that certain advisors are better at certain things. Some have extra stamina, some are less likely to panic and are better at skill checks and sneaking around the map. I myself preferred more sneaky and clever characters. I would prefer the goth girl AJ Mason, whose stats are based on this playstyle. (She was also played by Marisha Ray from Critical Role and it took me way too long to figure that out.)
The various skills and stats also relate to the tactical thinking and risk-taking that the game has always required. Sometimes you had to choose between taking health damage by climbing out of broken windows or facing Jason. Or you might set traps for him. Or maybe…?
The result of all this was a multiplayer game that created real stories. In other words, let me be overly dramatic for a moment.
Imagine this: I was the last counselor on the map, things looked dire, but I was current Final Girl, dammit, and I made it out alive. I retreated inside the cabin, barricaded the only door in place and strategically placed a trap on my side of the door.
I opened the windows to prevent Jason from breaking them and killing me if I had to jump out and run. I was crouched in stealth mode. I had a baseball bat in my hand.
I was ready.
Finally, Jason approached the cabin. I threw between rooms so he couldn’t knock me down with his throwing knives. He decided enough was enough, so he broke down the door and stepped into my trap. I think he knew it was there, but he also knew it wasn’t going to slow him down much.
I hit him with the bat and he fell. I didn’t see that! I then took a break and conserved my stamina by jumping into the nearest locked cabin through the open window.
Of course, we’re talking about Jason Voorhees, I couldn’t outrun him forever. He caught me in the trees and must have thought it was game over.
Little did he know… I had three pocket knives ready.
He raged, cried, got on voice chat and asked me to stop ‘making it up’ (true story).
I was ready to dance until dawn.
But then he disconnected, which was far less sticky.
As you might expect, the game had its bugs and had servers that were like the Wild West and had wild glitches. But glitches, like many others in this game, could be beautiful. You could end up on rooftops, get to places Jason just couldn’t get to, and sometimes fly up and off the map to meet up with Jason X in space. Sometimes a lot of trees inside buildings appeared on the map. It was surreal and beautiful in a way.
And it was funny too. The glitches could be annoying for both the player and Jason’s advisor, but I found it hard to be too scared of Jason when he’s riding on the hood of your car and can’t get off. These are the kinds of memories that only video games can create. Film and novels won’t get you there.
Yet silly and broken as it could be at times, Friday the 13th stayed true to its source material, and that’s never more evident than in that final complex victory method I teased earlier. If you work really well together as a team, you can do better than escape Jason – you can finish him off.
It’s treacherous. To do this, you have to remove his mask, have the counselor act as Jason’s mother, and then talk him into a vulnerable state. If Tommy hits him, it’s over. You won. Horror stories are weird.
Things like this are a reminder of how much love went into making this game and how much room it had to grow. But fate had other plans. Just as Jason likes to ruin summer vacations, rights squabbles and lawsuits lead to DLC being canceled and development halted. Friday the 13th is almost playable today, but it’s glitchy and broken and I wouldn’t recommend it.
But listen, isn’t that classic Jason too? Just when you think he’s dead, he comes back to life. And maybe this series, which opened up the whole world of horror to me, will still have a chance to make it as a game. If so, I’ll be waiting there. And I’ll stock up on pocket knives because you never know.