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'Friday the 13th: The Game' misses 2016 release date in favor of bonus content

Gun Media has announced that its upcoming slash-em-up Friday the 13th: The Game will miss its previously announced 2016 release window. The title is now expected to arrive next year, giving the development team the opportunity to work on some commonly requested features and content.

The game was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2015, where it accomplished the task of meeting its $700,000 goal, but it fell short of the $1.625 million stretch goal that would have added a fully fledged single-player campaign. However, Gun Media has now secured outside funding that will facilitate the development of a single-player mode.

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“After securing funding, we’re here to tell you that it is a reality and we’re making this game even bigger,” wrote studio head Wes Keltner in an update to Kickstarter backers. “It sucks that there’s a delay, but the wait won’t be too long and it’s going to offer more for fans in the long-run!”

A beta release of Friday the 13th: The Game is still planned for fall 2016, at which point Kickstarter backers and anyone that pre-ordered will receive four bonus keys to allow their friends to join the fray. A multiplayer release will follow in spring 2017, which will add the Packanack Lodge map and Tommy Jarvis as a playable character, before the single-player mode and bots for offline play are released in summer 2017.

It’s easy to see how more time in development will improve the finished product, but there’s a risk that Friday the 13th: The Game might be outpaced by a similar asymmetrical multiplayer title as a result of the delay. Dead by Daylight is a conceptually similar game that released in June 2015, and this week it was announced that Michael Myers of the Halloween franchise will be offered as a DLC character at the end of the month.

Before Friday the 13th: The Game releases, Dead by Daylight may be able to corner the market for a horror-inspired multiplayer experience. The team at Gun Media faces the challenge of setting the game apart from its competition over the next several months — but the addition of a single-player mode would seem to be a winning strategy.

Brad Jones
Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…
Ghostbusters gets an asymmetrical multiplayer game
Four customizable Ghostbusters prepare to capture some ghosts in Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed.

Illfonic is one of the most ambitious licensed game developers out there, but until now, most of its games haven't clicked with me. Getting to control Jason Vorhees in Friday the 13th: The Game was thrilling, but the game was glitchy and ultimately abandoned due to legal issues. Predator: Hunting Grounds had the backing of Sony, but it was even worse, with unbalanced gameplay, the lack of a compelling story, and long queue times.
While I was intrigued upon hearing that Illfonic was making a new Ghostbusters game to follow up Ghostbusters: Afterlife, my expectations were quite tempered because of the developer's shaky track record. That's why I was pleasantly surprised that Illfonic seems to have learned from its mistakes and made Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed precisely what fans would want from an asymmetrical multiplayer Ghostbusters game, even if its sustainability in players' hands remains to be seen.
After Afterlife
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It's part Friday the 13th: The Game, part Prop Hunt, and part Ghostbusters. Ghosts seem less powerful than Jason or The Predator did in their respective games, but that might be OK because killing the Ghostbusters isn't the primary goal. This is all wrapped in a cel-shaded style that fits the franchise, and it's clear Illfonic packed the game with detail as it recreated iconic locations.
Even if the game's final quality varies, Illfonic always tries to respect the IP it's adapting. That passion can be seen in how the Ghostbusters' Firehouse is intricately recreated and how Ernie Hudson and Dan Aykroyd are returning to voice their respective characters, Winston and Ray. The developers say that this game's story takes place after the recently released Ghostbusters: Afterlife, so it will be exciting to see how it impacts the series' canon and if future films respect it.
The story of Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed will also take a big step up from Predator: Hunting Grounds by not relegating the narrative to audio logs.
"We want to be better each time, so these are going to be actual in-game cinematics and controlled cutscenes with Dan and Ernie," Chief Creative Officer Jared Gerritzen tells Digital Trends. "It will have a fun story arc, and there will be something that happens to the Ghostbusters that will keep the player coming back rank after rank. It's not massive, but it's a fun story that gives the player a reason to be there."
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Is NBA 2K26 cross-platform?

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