Well, damn, Friday The 13th: The Game. We come to you for scares, true enough, but there was no need for a fright like that. Those crazy devs.
If you’re a fan of the title, you’ll remember what a huge deal this one was prior to release. When IllFonic and Gun Media first pitched this one to Kickstarter, it was clear they had a special idea on their hands. An asymmetrical multiplayer title set on Camp Crystal Lake, one v seven, counselors versus Jason Voorhees, what kind of self-respecting horror fan could say no to that?
Predictably, the game’s funding campaign was a huge success, and it was hyped out the wazzoo prior to its worldwide launch two months ago. As with any much-anticipated title, it was a bit of a craptacular buggy, glitchy, error-filled mess right off the bat (see also: Grand Theft Auto Online, Pokémon Go), but that was really inevitable. Some weeks later, players still find issues with collision detection, shonky animations and frame rates, poor matchmaking and such.
Regardless of these foibles, though, the game is a lot of fun. How often do you get to set off firecrackers at Jason’s feet so you can distract him and run to safety, or stun him with a bash to the face from a baseball bat? Not all that often is how often. There’s huge potential if the team at IllFonic continue to support Friday The 13th: The Game. Yesterday, it seemed that this won’t be the case.
IllFonic is starting up the hype train for their latest title, zombie FPS Dead Alliance, and Friday fans fear that they’ll be abandoning the Voorhees-em-up in favor of it. Over at the official forum for the game, players are all kinds of pissed. Will this mean that all the post-launch issues are going to take an age to be addressed? The team promised that the game was a labor of love and they’d continue to support it, was that all just hollow talk?
If you are one of these incensed fans, it’s not all as bleak as it seems. IllFonic issued a statement to Eurogamer late last night, to try and assuage our fears:
“This is 100 per cent not true,” stated the dev team’s boss, Charles Brungardt. “Most major and independent studios have multiple teams working on multiple projects at the same time. This is critical for the survival of the studio, especially with the ups and downs with the game industry. Dead Alliance was started way before Friday the 13th: The Game. It was a co-development by Psyop Games and IllFonic then titled Moving Hazard. Psyop Games released Moving Hazard to Steam Early Access well over a year ago and it gained interest from Maximum Games for a console port. We've had a team who remained working on what turned into Dead Alliance for consoles that has always been separate from the Friday the 13th: The Game team. IllFonic still remains a small studio to this day but we are growing.
"With the recent success of Friday the 13th: The Game we have been increasing our staff on the title. We originally had about 20 internal team members working on Friday the 13th: The Game and are now up to about 30 internal team members. We also have opened a second office that sole purpose is to support development of Friday the 13th: The Game. In addition we are continuing to staff up more team members for continued support of the game. So we assure you, continued support for Friday the 13th: The Game has not been abandoned, in fact, it's quite the opposite."
NEXT: FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE GAME PLAGUED BY ONLINE LOGIN ERRORS
So that’s good to hear. Fans will just have to keep enjoying the game and keep their ears to the ground. After all, it’s easy enough to say that, to reduce the heat when the you-know-what has hit the fan. It’s something else entirely to put your money where your mouth is and prove it. Let’s wait and see what the company’s next move is as Dead Alliance approaches its Aug. 29, 2017, release date.