How To Fix Friday The 13th: The Game

We’ve all done it, sat there playing a game and thinking to ourselves “I know how they could done it better”. It’s easy to be an armchair game designer, especially when you have a bone to pick. You’ll also find that, when it comes to reviews, critics often neglect to offer up solutions or workable feedback. Instead they evaluate what’s in front of them and judge accordingly. However, in this feature, we’re coming in with a different approach, donning our game designer caps. Are we qualified? Hell no, but we can at least open the door to a valuable discussion instead of scoring a game and leaving it at that.

It’s one of the most unique and divisive titles of 2017 but if there’s one thing we can all agree on it’s that Friday the 13th: The Game needs some work. Sifting through early reviews of IllFonic’s teen-slashing simulator, it’s hard to get a grasp on just how good the game is. While most critics praise its ambitious multiplayer premise, few have been able to overlook its technical shortcomings.

Thankfully, with patch 1.04 having landed, many of these bugs have been ironed out alongside the game’s woeful matchmaking times. Still, there’s a long way to go if IllFonic wants to crown itself king of this burgeoning sub-genre.

For those who’ve yet to play Friday the 13th, here’s a very brief summary. Matches host up to eight players – one being Jason, the others being camp counsellors. As Jason your goal is to kill as many counsellors as possible while they attempt to escape. This can be done in several ways, each one requiring a degree of luck, patience, and co-ordination.

The most fundamental issue – by far – is balancing. As in the films, here Jason Vorhees is a relentless, unstoppable force that can tear through counsellors with ease. They, on the other hand, can use a variety of weapons, traps, and other defences to slow him down. In doing so, they can give their fellow counsellors enough time to repair escape vehicles or call in the police – in theory at least.

However, in practice, it’s far too easy for Jason to begin his killing spree. Although he spawns on the outskirts of each map, it’s only seconds before he earns his first power, allowing him to teleport anywhere. Clever Jason players can put this to immediate use, suddenly appearing in one of the map’s hotspots. Counsellors who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time can have their game cut short. If not killed straight away, Jason’s proximity will severely limit their capacity to scavenge items to make their escape. Thankfully, in order to level the playing field, IllFonic has plenty of options on the table.

Tweaking the rate at which Jason’s powers unlock and cool down would be the easiest change to implement. For at least the first minute or so, he shouldn’t be allowed to teleport wherever he pleases. There should be some kind of build-up or objective the Jason player needs to complete.

Other Jason improvements could include:

• A cooldown on his grab attack
• A lose condition (perhaps create an objective where Jason also needs to defend his shack/shrine?)
• Remove Jason’s camp map
• Limit teleport range
• Re-lock Jason’s powers if he’s KO’d by counsellors

Empowering the counsellors is just as, if not more, important. Of course they shouldn’t be anywhere near as powerful as Jason but, at time same time, there’s nothing fun about playing as axe fodder. Giving each counsellor a unique ability of their own could help solve this issue. Having a one-use special item or ability would give them a much-needed get out of jail free card.

Instead of simply stunning Jason or temporarily stopping him in his tracks, these powers could help in other ways, taking away his map, impairing his vision, boosting a player’s running speed, repairing broken barricades and so on. There’s a wealth of creative options there, helping to make each counsellor feel like an actual character instead of some screaming meatbag for Jason to mutilate.

The game’s time limit needs to be taken into consideration as well; twenty minutes is way too long. If counsellors manage to escape at all, it usually happens within the first five to ten minutes. Any time after that is pretty much clean-up, Jason scouring the camp for those remaining stragglers who don’t know when to call it quits. Knocking the limit down to 15 minutes would definitely help, skewing the objective more towards escape than survival.

The best way to experience Friday the 13th is playing with a group, all mic’d up and communicating with one another. Not everyone likes to chat online, however, and that’s completely fair enough. With potential language barriers to also consider, here’s an effective solution. Give counsellors a menu where they can view important information about their fellow campers, including their current health and what they have in their inventory.

On top of that, add a voice wheel or some form of nonverbal communication seen in other online games such as Overwatch. Being able to relay Jason sightings or item locations on the map would go a long way in making counsellor gameplay more tactical and enjoyable. As it is now, playing the counsellor is a luck-based scavenger hunt. If you don’t manage to cobble together the right combination of tools in time, you may as well offer yourself up to Jason on a platter.

Other counsellor changes could include:

• Making batteries and other repair components an inventory item
• More ways to kill Jason
• Perk that shows repair items on map
• Make hiding more of a viable tactic

While nerfing Jason and buffing the counsellors sounds like an easy solution, IllFonic has the unenviable task of achieving a balance between the two. Even the smallest adjustment could tip the scales too unevenly against Jason players. Still, if the developer’s recent response to player feedback is anything to go by, IllFonic certainly cares about Friday the 13th’s longevity. Whether or not it will actually take bold steps in reworking fundamental parts of its game remains to be seen though we can keep our fingers crossed. With such a smart premise, it would be a shame if it failed to reach its full potential having come this far already.