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

By Brad Jones Published October 15, 2016

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.

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Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…

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Gaming

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
Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed is an asymmetrical multiplayer game where four Ghostbusters try to capture one ghost that's haunting a specific map. They must track the ghost down before capturing it with customizable versions of tools like the Proton Pack, Particle Thrower, and P.K.E. meter. This part of the game plays out from a first-person perspective.
Meanwhile, another player controls a ghost in third-person and tries to scare civilians in the area and haunt the building. There are several different ghost types with unique abilities. All ghosts can also possess objects to haunt the building, mess with the Ghostbusters, and restore the ectoplasm needed for its abilities. If the ghost completely haunts the building, the ghostbusters lose. Illfonic expects most matches to take seven to 10 minutes.

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."
Plot details are scarce outside of this being a "day in the life" story about how Winston is rebuilding the Ghostbusters. Still, the intention of having a more tangible narrative was one of the first clear signs that Illfonic was learning from its past mistakes.
Fixing past mistakes
Overall, Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed is a solid pitch, but so were Friday the 13th: The Game and Predator: Hunting Grounds -- on paper. Illfonic needs to deliver on the promise of this game's premise while fixing the significant issues that plagued its past licensed multiplayer titles. A more involved narrative is one of them, but matchmaking also seems to be better in this game.
One issue that asymmetrical multiplayer games often have is long queue times between matches. Illfonic games have been particularly bad in handling this, but the developer is taking steps to fix it in Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed. To start, players can choose to experience the whole game offline. While they will have to rely on the game's unproven A.I., this option should appeal to those just there for the story and give players a worthwhile experience if they can't get into an online match.

Computing

Intel’s 13th-gen CPU likely to bring big performance boost

Intel unveils the 12th Gen Intel Core processor

Intel is promising some important upgrades when it launches its next-generation Raptor Lake processor later this year, including a boost in core count that could lead to a bump in performance. The company confirmed up to double-digit improvements with Raptor Lake.

Raptor Lake will be the company's 13th generation of processors, following on the success of the company's current 12th-gen Alder Lake release. Like Alder Lake, Raptor Lake will continue with Intel's shift toward a hybrid heterogenous silicon design mixing high performance with high-efficiency cores.

Gaming

Is NBA 2K26 cross-platform?

A basketball character with a sweatband.

Football fans have the Madden games, baseball fans have MLB The Show, and basketball fans wait every year for the new NBA 2K entry. This year, we have NBA 2K26 with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Angel Reese, and Carmelo Anthony each appearing as the cover athlete on the various editions of the game. All the classic modes are back, including MyCAREER, MyTeam, MyNBA, The W, and more, but the big question is if you can play online with friends on other platforms like you can with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4, or is it limited like Madden NFL 26? Before you rush the hoop and grab NBA 2K26, I'm calling a timeout to fill you in on all the cross-platform details.

Is NBA 2K26 cross-platform?