The new Friday the 13th game doesn’t need to be Dead by Daylight to succeed

Third time might be the charm for the juggernaut franchise starring Jason Voorhees, with San Diego Comic-Con 2025 bringing a brand new announcement: there’s a new Friday the 13th game in the works. The reveal came from Robert Barsamian, the executive vice president at the company Horror Inc. For those who don’t know, the company is currently handling the Friday the 13th franchise and the Jason Universe label.

During the SDCC panel, Barsamian said (as quoted by Comicbook.com): “I can tell you that a new sequel movie and a new sequel game are at the top of our list. It’s where most of our energy is going right now, and I can tell you we’re finally in a position to deliver on that. While we’re not officially announcing with our partners today, both are coming. They’re both in the works.”

Well, you would think this would get fans excited. As a fan of both Friday the 13th and horror, I should be doing cartwheels at the thought of a game set in the franchise’s universe. The reality is that hype has taken a backseat with some well-deserved apprehension at the wheel, instead. After all, has there been a license so adamant in shooting itself in the foot?

Friday the 13th: The Game from publisher Gun Media was pulled from sale on December 31, 2023, after its license expired. But even before the license had been effectively yoinked and tossed into the abyss, Friday the 13th: The Game faced trouble. Despite Friday the 13th director Sean S. Cunningham giving Gun the license to make the game a reality, and it launching to success in May 2017, not even a year after launch, it was hit with a snag: Friday the 13th’s creator Victor Miller and Cunningham were in a dispute over rights. This led to Gun cancelling the game’s DLCs and further expansions. It was only about to get worse: Miller won the dispute in Sept. 2018 and, inevitably, the game’s servers were shut down in Nov. 2020. While multiplayer was still available through peer-to-peer matchmaking, the slow death of Friday the 13th: The Game had begun.

This isn’t the only Friday the 13th game to be put through the wringer, however. Publisher Blue Wizard Digital also experienced the same with its free-to-play puzzler, Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle. It was also promptly delisted due to the “inability to renew Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle with the licensors.” Hell, Jason couldn’t even get his time to shine in MultiVersus before that was shut down, too. Two sad ends for developers and gamers both.

With such a checkered past, there is at least some relief that a third attempt at a Friday the 13th game may be the charm. But what could it be? The word ‘sequel’ has some fans speculating whether Horror Inc will take the lead of various other horror IPs within the gaming world, and once more thrust the franchise into the playground it thrived so well under. I’m, of course, talking about the online asymmetric multiplayer survival horror genre. Friday the 13th: The Game was well-loved — and its memes legendary — so I understand the impulse. But I can’t help but feel, if that is indeed the way the wind is blowing for the potential new game, that it would be a terrible error.

Behaviour Interactive’s Dead by Daylight is, without a doubt, the largest online asymmetric multiplayer horror game right now — and for good reason. While we can argue about whether it’s Survivor or Killer-sided until the cats come home, the reality is that Dead by Daylight has plenty going for it.it has plenty of spin-offs, from comics to video games to its own movie, and the community has reason to go back for more thanks to the game’s battle pass known as The Rift, and its seasonal events.

Most importantly, Dead by Daylight has a slew of IPs under its belt; the latest being AMC’s The Walking Dead. While the multiplayer horror game has suffered with its own license issues in the past, it is undoubtedly unmatched when it comes to the asymmetrical horror multiplayer domain. There’s nothing wrong with more competition, of course, and it really should be encouraged, but other horror IPs have tried to apply the asymmetric formula for themselves, only to lose their player base before they can even get DLCs or expansions over the finish line. A look at IllFonic’s Killer Klowns from Outer Space, a game that released in July 2024, compared to Dead by Daylight’s player base tells us everything we need to know.

That’s why I hope Friday the 13th ignores the call of multiplayer entirely and instead takes a leaf out of the book of the upcoming Hellraiser game — single-player. Just be a single-player game, I beg you.

Jason Voorhees is arguably one of the more terrifying slashers around. While the camp and fun of Friday the 13th: The Game is one of the many reasons why it was so successful in the first place, what would be better than playing as the Final Girl in a much grittier, darker setting? And there’s so much potential in what that setting could be. Sure, Jason’s most at home at Crystal Lake, but he’s also been to New York and even space. Jason isn’t precisely an entity known for being contained to just one setting, because it doesn’t matter where he is, he will wake up and decapitate you. He’s reliable like that.

A single-player game also just allows a real scare factor to shine through. I love Dead by Daylight, I love Evil Dead: The Game, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. But after a while, it loses the thrill of being scary because, by its nature as a multiplayer game, you just feel more at ease with your friends nearby. It doesn’t capture the same fear that Alien Isolation or, my personal favorite, Rule of Rose, does. You’re by yourself, there’s nobody but you and your controller, and the horrifying reality that behind every corner, something awful awaits.

And as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing more terrifying than the thought of being alone with Jason Voorhees only a few steps behind.