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For 2025's Friday the 13th (and the series' 45th Anniversary), I thought it would be great to revisit this game, even though it has been delisted from Steam itself and the online servers, as well as peer to peer connections, are gone. However, much like Jason himself, there are rumours of a return. Whether or not that will happen is honestly pure speculation and theory. Ever since the infamous lawsuit between Victor Miller and Sean Cunningham regarding the rights to the Jason character and the Friday the 13th franchise killed further development on the game years back, the rumour mill for a "JASON LIVES"-esque rival come around every few months, if not weeks.
It says a lot about this series, as immortally iconic as it is, that even with the game effectively, by all means, dead -- fans such as myself are too stubborn to admit the slasher is finally buried. A part of our minds, and hearts, are dedicated to believing that the game is merely shacked with chains and submergered beneath the far-from-crystal-clear, murky waters of Lake Lawsuit. With the lawsuit itself finally coming to an end, we are keeping our eyes open, at the cost of sounding like every delusional doom-sayer from the films.
Jason had a good run, or rather, a good fast sprint. However, the curse of Camp Blood also comes back to haunt his games.
The first Jason video game was just as infamous, as it came from LJN, (Laughing Joking Numbnuts, as many of you AVGN fans will know them as).
But what isn't as well known, is the fact that the game itself was fully developed in Japan by Japanese developers, LJN was merely the producer and publisher. Of all people, Friday the 13th on NES was produced by ATLUS and was personally supervised by founder Hideyuki Yokoyama. One of the prominent planners of the beloved (and among my favourites) Shin Megami Tensei series, Ryutaro Ito, was a tester on the game and recalled in a twitter post in 2024 that the game was intentionally crushingly difficult, as was the norm for games developed exclusively for the North American market. This was done to inflate their value, by artificially making the game fairly hard to beat in a timely manner.
The game is both loved and hated, but it is certainly iconic. So much so that this game referenced its obscure, purple-Jason colour pallette for an ingame skin and also sampled one of its songs, composed by Hirohiko Takayama.
While the game never had a true release in Japan, Taiwan or Eastern Europe, it was abundant in bootleg markets and it was not unordinary to find it stashed alongside bootleg consoles that played legitimate Famicom and NES cartridges due to a loading-apparatus that overrode anti-piracy measures at the time.
This Friday the 13th game had a lot more going for it. Not only did the man behind the gore, and arguably one of the first inventors of Jason as we know him, Tom Savini - work on the game's kills and gave critical input on their conceptualization, but he also designed an exclusive Jason skin for the game. Series founder Sean Cunningham had turned down so many singleplayer pitches for a game (which is a damn shame) but was enthralled with the asymmetrical, multiplayer concept of this one. What was originally pitched as a Dead by Daylight like game by a small dev-team that merely wanted Jason to cameo for their 'Summer Camp' original IP, ended up getting the swole-chihuahua, err... the whole enchilada.
Not only did they get Tom Savini and Sean Cunningham, but some original actors from part 3 and also Kane Hodder himself, who without a doubt, played the absolute best Jasons in the zombie-arc of the films. Kane Hodder's mocap performance is absolutely top notch and truly captured the character better than the original films did! It is hard to hate on the game too much, because artistically, it has more DNA from the original films than 99% of all game adaptions out there. Henry Manfredini, the composer for most of the series, also returned for the game's soundtrack. That being said, getting the rights for the likeliness of other actors, specifically most of Jason's victims, proved impossible and impractical. Most of the counselors Jason slaughters throughout this game are made for the game, but their cringe inducing stereotypes and even more intolerable dialogue, incredibly fitting of the era and setting, makes you really enjoy chopping them up!
Much like the movies, this game was most fun with a carefree few hours set aside with friends or even strangers. The game has a profound roughness and jank to it, but the developers obviously were passionate, at least in the beginning. I could go on about the multiplayer, but it is gone, for real this time. You had to be there. But the few games I did play in my short tenure with this game before I revisited it back around 2018, it was absolutely a blast. One of those cases where the few matches I did play were so good, I didn't want to sully my nostalgic memories of them. And now, I don't even have the opportunity to even try. Funny how that works out.
The offline mode locks you out of a fair amount of content, specifically the Kane Hodder zombie Jasons. AKA, the best ones. There are challenge modes too, that act as a fairly minimalist and subpar, mediocre mini-campaign that doesn't last more than an hour.
I personally installed the Definitive Edition mod, that restored content that was developed but legally unable to be patched into the game via content updates and walked around the mostly unfinished Grendel space ship from Jason X as Uber Jason himself. As an avid fan boy and defender of this film, (we wouldn't have Dead Space without it and Event Horizon, you know!) this is always a treat and I am so sad the developers were not able to put it into the game themselves. (As well as the S.S Lazarus cruise ship from Jason Takes Manhattan as an alt Virtual Cabin.)
But oh yes, The Virtual Cabin! An interactive, digital museum of the game's development, but also with plenty of little aspects about the series itself. It is an entertaining little romp through, although you could get the same experience for free, walking around your Jason merchandise at home and reading IMDB's trivia page. However... the mode has a lot of secrets.
For those who still have it, but never tried it, look up a walkthrough for the Virtual Cabin and play through the secret puzzles! It won't take more than an hour or two, but it is an incredible look at something we have yet to have. The very thing Sean Cunningham is strangely so apathetic about, a singleplayer Jason game.
It is actually very similar to aspects of the secrets in Call of Duty Black Ops 1, Cold War and 6, complete with some meta tricks and twists along the way. Other parts play out surprisingly similar to the Krypt from Mortal Kombat games. Honestly, great sources of inspiration! And it works so well.
Honestly, I have a lot of fun revisiting the virtual cabin and the more you explore its secrets, you really can see the developers were proud of it too and had way more fun with its small sequences than they should have. Not to mention, there is something special about being stalked by Jason in a FPS, P.T-esque horror sequence and he has the ability to slaughter the player a few times, with unique animations. Honestly, Virtual Cabin itself deserves a sequel! And after all the nonsense you work through, the very thing it teased at the end (and honestly, it should be obvious given the name of the mode itself) was extremely mind blowing at the time, and almost worth it for the experience alone. Even though what it teased and promised did not come to be, the pure, unadulterated fan service provided in those few hours are a MUST for any Jason fan. If anything, watch a playthrough online.
Jason Voorhees, a man with a Detroit Red Wings hockey mask who is more recognizable (and probably worth more) than the Detroit Red Wings themselves. We all await good news regarding this 45th Anniversary of this series.