Look, I get it. We’re all excited for the just-announced Friday the 13th: The Game. Even if we hadn’t waited nearly three decades for Jason make his way back to us at roughly the same glacier pace he employs while stalking teens through a forest, his impressive debut wouldn’t have been as memorable if the team behind it wasn’t so passionate about the films. You might not have even noticed how familiar its concept is.
There’s more than one upcoming horror game that’s inspired by teen slasher flicks with an asymmetrical multiplayer mode in which a group of people find themselves behind hunted by a masked murderer.
About a year ago, a project by the name of Last Year raised nearly $90,000 through Kickstarter with the goal of delivering on a similar concept. The only obvious difference between the two is the Friday the 13th: The Game pits a team of seven against a blade-wielding baddie, where Last Year does that with a team of five.
A month later, the game’s Kickstarter page was taken down citing a copyright infringement complaint that had been submitted by Friday the 13th creator Sean Cunningham.
It’s easy to see a villain in that situation, but there isn’t one. Instead, we have a developer that borrowed a little too heavily from its source material, forcing the owner of that material to protect their creation. That’s it. Now, both games seem to have exciting futures ahead of them — including Last Year, which acquired substantial funding this summer.
Jason’s returning to video games, and that’s awesome. The only way his return could become even more awesome is if he arrived at about the same time as his only real competitor. Both games are expected to arrive next fall, so there’s a strong possibility we’ll see that scenario unfold next year.
