Last October, The A.V. Club reported on a Kickstarter for a brand-new Friday The 13th video game featuring the talents of special effects make-up legend Tom Savini, late era Jason Voorhees Kane Hodder, and the original film’s director Sean Cunningham. Today—Jason’s birthday, no less—Gun Media released five minutes of gameplay footage that has fans considerably more excited than producer Brad Fuller’s proposed Jason origin story.
Friday The 13th purists will be quick to notice that the Jason of the game (while a touch beefier) is just about an exact replica of Richard Brooker’s Jason as seen in Friday The 13th, Part III, and the location closely resembles that of Higgins’s Haven (also featured in Part III), right down to the outdoor lamps. (Presumably, Gun Media will offer a DLC of Roy, the impostor Jason from A New Beginning, at some point.) The cabin interiors themselves look like they were taken right out of the original films, and the Bon Jovi sound-alike featured on the counselor’s boom box provides a nostalgic blast for kids who had no boundaries growing up. The game designers appear to have done their homework—if watching and taking notes on ’80s slasher movies can be considered homework. The final product will more than likely be chock-full of Easter eggs if this trailer is indicative of the detail in the game. (The return of Tommy Jarvis has even been hinted at.)
The Friday The 13th game takes a cue from 2006’s Jaws Unleashed, in which the player got to take on the role of Bruce The Shark and feed on helpless swimmers. In the new Friday The 13th game, players will be able to play as Jason himself, stalking and killing hapless counselors, presumably in a variety of manners (although this most recent game play trailer only features Jason bashing victims’ heads against rocks and the sides of cabins). Egging Jason on will the voice of his decapitated mother, encouraging her favorite son to “find them and bring them to Mommy.” (Hopefully, there isn’t a quest mode where you have to track down Mrs. Voorhees’s sweater.) The map also seems to be considerably more useful than that of the LJN NES game released in the ’80s, and even features “teleporting” abilities for Jason, finally explaining how he always seemed so far away, only to end up right behind you.
What really drives the tone of the game home, though, is the use of Harry Manfredini’s iconic score. The game also gives players an option to take on the role of one of Camp Crystal Lake’s staff of camp counselors, and there is a very effective moment in the trailer that features a would-be victim hiding under the bed as Jason stalks the cabin. In the right atmosphere, this game looks like it could be undeniably creepy to play alone at night.
Pre-orders are now available at F13game.com, with an estimated shipping date of October 2016.