Editorials
5 Things We Want Added to “Friday the 13th: The Game”
We may not be getting a new Friday the 13th movie this year or anytime soon – if EVER, depending on how those pressing legal issues play out – but I’m suddenly not all that sad about that in the wake of the long-awaited Friday the 13th: The Game finally being unleashed just a few weeks back.
Honestly, it’s more of a treat than a handful of new movies would probably be.
I spent nearly the entirety of last weekend playing with friends on Playstation 4, and now that I’ve logged more hours that I should probably admit, I feel pretty comfortable saying that Friday the 13th: The Game has wildly exceeded even the high expectations I had built up for it over the years. To finally be able to play as Jason Voorhees, stalking camp counselors around the iconic locales from the films, is nothing short of a lifelong fantasy come true, and I’ve found it maybe, even more, fun to play as counselors fighting for survival while the masked maniac hunts me down.
Clearly made by hardcore fans, the attention to even the tiniest details is jaw-dropping (Jason, for example, can only run when you’re playing as a version of him that ran in the movies), and I just can’t possibly say enough good things about how lovingly the franchise was brought into the gaming world for its first video game since that goofy NES abomination from the ’80s. Say what you want about the gameplay issues that plagued the first week or so of release, but those are all being worked out so rapidly that the game is literally getting smoother by the day.
Speaking of which, Friday the 13th: The Game is sure to evolve in the weeks, months and maybe even years to come, getting bigger and better with DLC content that will very likely make what we’ve got now seem like it wasn’t much to be so overjoyed about. But what specifically would we like to see added to the game in the future? I’ve got 5 big requests, most of which I’m willing to bet will eventually come to fruition…
1) STORY MODE
From what we’ve heard, a single-player mode is soon coming to Friday the 13th: The Game, which will be nice because we’ll no longer have to wait on friends and/or strangers when wanting to plop down on the couch to play – even simple bots would go a long way in making private multi-player matches a whole lot more fun, while also cutting down wait times for public games. Going one step further, I’d love for a full-on story mode to be added to the game (which for now has a very simple “survive or kill” set-up), allowing you to recreate key moments from the Friday the 13th films as you play.
How cool would it be, for example, to play a mini-game that sees you chain Jason to the bottom of Crystal Lake as Tommy Jarvis? Or how about one that makes you chase Jason down to the Higgins Haven barn and stick an axe in his head, ala the final act of Part 3? There are countless memorable moments from the films to pull from (as seen above, you can already recreate the epic sleeping bag kill!), and it would be so much fun playing an active part in those moments, with cut-scenes bringing them to life when set tasks are successfully completed.
Story mode, from what I understand, is indeed a future priority.
2) MANHATTAN
Aside from story mode, my #1 request for Friday the 13th: The Game is a Manhattan map… for obvious reasons. One of the downsides of the game right now is that there are only three maps to choose from – Crystal Lake, Packanack Lodge and Higgins Haven – which can get a little bit repetitive. In order to spice things up going forward, a map that lets you roam around Manhattan would be huge – not to mention, it would finally scratch the itch that Jason Takes Manhattan left us with so many years ago.
We may not ever see the Jason Takes Manhattan film we truly wanted back in 1989 but being able to PLAY that movie would be a massive apology that would finally right one of horror’s all-time saddest wrongs. It kinda needs to happen, don’t you think?!
3) UBER JASON
At the time of writing this article, Friday the 13th: The Game allows to play as seven different versions of Jason – Part 2, Part 3, Jason Lives, The New Blood, Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell and, if you were able to snag it during the pre-order phase, Tom Savini’s brand new “Hell Jason.” We can only assume that the other Jasons will eventually be added as playable characters (NES, perhaps?!), but the one we want most is Uber Jason, of course from the futuristic Jason X.
The addition of Uber Jason has been rumored for quite some time now – Uber-Jason was, it’s worth noting, one of the most-requested skins in a poll held on the game’s website – and I just can’t help but think how much fun it’d be to see that bizarre version of Jason in Earthbound locales like Crystal Lake and Higgins Havens.
Of course, a Jason X map would also be awesome…
4) MORE MOVIE CHARACTERS
Other than Jason, the only character from the Friday the 13th films in the game is Tommy Jarvis, voiced by Thom Mathews and based on the character’s appearance in Jason Lives – you can play as Tommy, though he can’t be chosen from the character selection screen. All of the other characters are generic archetypes ripped from the slasher handbook, but my hope is that other fan-favorite characters from the movies will soon be added to the mix.
Personal requests? Alice from Part 1, Ginny from Part 2, Shelly from Part 3, Demon from A New Beginning, and Tina from The New Blood. Tina could come equipped with special powers that rival Jason’s, which would make playing as her extra fun – the existing characters in the game right now have no special powers, while Jason, true to the films, has special skills that allow him to detect where counselors are on the map and even teleport from location to location with the press of a button… he seemed to do much the same thing in the movies, after all!
5) CREATE-A-CHARACTER
Even if every Jason and all of our favorite movie characters are available in Friday the 13th: The Game, it would still be extra special if we could create our own characters to bring into the mix. Most games of this sort have create-a-character modes, which in the case of this particular game would allow us to live out a dream we probably all share: actually being in a Friday the 13th movie!
Personally speaking, the character of Kenny Riedell (above) already looks enough like me that playing as him feels like I’m playing as, well, myself, but how cool would it be if we could actually custom-make video game versions of ourselves to do battle with Jason? Certainly not a necessity, but a fun addition that would keep the game feeling fresh and exciting for a long time to come.
What would YOU like to see added to Friday the 13th: The Game?
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
You must be logged in to post a comment.