You’d be forgiven for assuming that staring into the face of death would bring a wearied band of unlikely massacre escapees closer together than ever before. But that doesn’t appear to have rung true for Friday the 13th: The Game, judging by its just-announced latest gameplay update.
The multiplayer survival horror – based on Paramount’s long-running slasher film franchise – first launched on Xbox One, PS4 and PC back in May, imploring its courageous players not to go gentle into that good night, but instead to beat back the deadly advances of the psychopathic Jason Voorhees until an escape route emerges. Simple, right?
Well, some members of the title’s devoted fan-base clearly didn’t get the memo on the cooperative nature of this desperate endeavour…
Takeaways:
- Developers IIIFonic plan to scale back each protagonist’s ability to commit unprovoked atrocities upon their unsuspecting teammates come Friday the 13th’s next update, or as they’ve taken to terming this approach on Reddit, “rampant team-killing that has unfortunately been abused by all players on all platforms”.
- As such, to avoid future online matches being “turned into more of a Battle Royale scenario” than the relentless quest for survival they’d originally envisioned, the team will ban players from damaging their fellow counsellors with machetes, shotguns or virtually any other wieldable weapon capable of inflicting brutal flesh wounds.
- All hope isn’t quite lost for the more sadistic members of society, though; no such restraints will be imposed on your arsenal in private matches – “for now, with the hope of better options in the future” – and better yet, you’ll still have the gratifying option of using traps or car crashes as fatal means of friendly fire.
Much as gameplay revisions along these lines are sure to split die-hard fans – provoking sighs of relief from those tired of pointless deaths and yells of infuriation from their perpetrators – the logic behind them is nevertheless sound, particularly if Friday the 13th has drastically departed from IIIFonic’s original creative vision based on recent online behaviour.
Even so, whether you’re a long-running franchise veteran who’s seen every film since the 1980s, played The Game to death – pun fully intended – and abhors this pacifistic update, or a newcomer who previously stopped playing due to the friendly fire issues, be sure to let us know your thoughts on the story via our comments section or on Twitter.