Hold onto your butts, because I have a bevy of new Friday the 13th: The Game details from yesterday’s Reddit AMA that should give you a much clearer picture of what Gun Media and Illfonic are looking to accomplish with Jason’s return to video games.
The spotlight has been directed almost exclusively on the game’s 7-on-1 asymmetrical multiplayer mode, leaving the single-player to fly almost completely under the radar — until now.
What we learned this week about the game’s solo offering is that it will feature “references to some of the very intense moments from the films as well as brand new hand-crafted scenarios that we’ve designed along with Sean S. Cunningham, Kane Hodder and Tom Savini to give you the best Friday the 13th experience possible,” and that it will star a “wide variety of characters from the films.”
As for the size of the world, the Camp Crystal Lake environment is the only one that’s in there right now, but that could change depending on how successful that Kickstarter campaign is.
“Right now, we’ve got one map that is one medium sized open world area of Camp Crystal Lake. We have stretch goals to include more parts of the game, can’t wait to reveal them as we get further along on the Stretch Goals. We might even have a few other locations from the film series.”
Speaking of which, even if the crowdfunding campaign fails to raise the $700k it needs by Friday, November 13 — that’d be impressive, seeing as it’s raised $553k already with 15 days left — it won’t necessarily mean the end of Friday the 13th: The Game. Gun Media promises to “do whatever it takes to make sure it gets made. It won’t be as big, it won’t be as epic, but it will be made and we will make it as fun as possible!”
Lots of folks have asked me what the gameplay will be like, specifically in regard to what the camp counselors can do to keep Jason from ventilating their abdomen with his machete.
“We’ll be giving you a chance to call the cops by repairing a phone box,” explains Gun Media. “We’ll offer ways to tackle Jason head on and survive through the night! We will not have daytime, its all happening at night. We’re looking at sleeping bags as being a hiding place. Jason will have an ability to find you with a mechanic. Finding good hiding spots will make it more difficult for him to find you, a sleeping bag is a good example. The thing is, if he finds you…well, you know the rest.”
And yes, you can defeat Jason.
“You can either defeat Jason (very hard/unlikely), find a vehicle and repair it to escape from Camp Crystal Lake or find and repair the phone line to call the cops and survive until they show up (you’ll also have to reach them.)”
Just make sure you stick together until you’re surrounded by an entire department’s worth of police officers, because “Everyone can live and die independently of each other. You are entirely responsible for your own survival. Working with/against/ others or working by yourself all has pros/cons.” So make sure you split up immediately, because that will confuse Jason’s machete.
We may soon be seeing some of this in action, as Gun also hinted at some new gameplay footage that will be coming “very, very soon.”
Friday the 13th: The Game developer Illfonic is taking character progression seriously by rewarding players with “bonuses for particular tasks. A bit of that comes with your creativity during play, of course.” Each character class will have their own ability tree that gradually gets unlocked by accumulating XP, just like in an RPG.
Once you’ve chosen your character and outfitted them to your liking, that means it’s time to pit them agains the big J.V. Multiplayer rounds usually last between 10-20 minutes, and while that can obviously change based on player skill, that should give you a good idea of what kind of a time investment will be required to play it.
15 minute-long matches is about in line with the majority of asymmetrical multiplayer indie horror games, including Damned, The Flock, and Depth.
If you’ve played a multiplayer game in the last decade or so, you’re aware of the surplus of dicks we have to deal with in any game that can be played online. Gun and Illfonic are aware of this too, and they’re taking precautions.
“We’ve done a lot of work with hacking on games so we have plans there but don’t discuss our plans with security to the public for obvious reasons, as far as other game specific issue we will have a strong support system waiting to deal with troublesome players.” If only we could send Kane Hodder to every dickhead’s house in a full Jason ensemble complete with a real machete. He doesn’t have to use the machete, but he doesn’t not have to either.
The team hopes to get a public beta on consoles — it’s only been confirmed for PC so far — so everyone can have a chance to play Friday the 13th: The Game before its release next fall. Whether or not that happens is dependent on Microsoft and Sony, so keep your fingers crossed.
And finally, what about life after Friday the 13th: The Game? Gun is interested in supporting the game with DLC and possibly even a sequel, but when a Redditor referenced the game’s original title — Slasher Vol. 1: Summer Camp, implying it’d be the first of multiple volumes — and what that might mean for their next project, to which Gun responded with a cheeky “We did say we were Volume 1 for a reason!”
Make of that what you will.
