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.
“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.
