Bad news for all fans of Friday the 13th: The Game. A legal dispute means there will be no new content. The game will remain online but will not be developed further.
For fans of the asymmetric horror slasher, it is a dark day. In the official forum, Illfonic employee Wes Keltner stated that work on new content for the game has been halted. The reason is a legal dispute over the copyright of Friday the 13th.
Legal dispute blocks Friday the 13th: The Game
What is the legal dispute about? The situation is complicated. The author Victor Miller, who wrote the original Friday the 13th, is currently attempting to reclaim the copyright to his work. He had sold the rights for the film adaptation, as is customary. In the USA, an author can reclaim the rights to their works after about 35 years to potentially benefit from what they once created. This can occur when works initially have little value but turn out to be more valuable after many years.
What is the problem? As long as the case is unresolved, Illfonic cannot make any commitments. If Miller succeeds in reclaiming the rights to Friday the 13th, he would also have legal claims against any future releases based on the franchise. IllFonic would then need to negotiate new contracts. As long as the situation is unclear, it is not worthwhile to invest work into the game.
What does Illfonic say? In the official forum, the developers stated: “Game development cannot simply be paused indefinitely and then resumed; that’s not how it works. Especially when there’s no idea when it could continue. We cannot build new content that may never be released. That’s just a bad business move.” It even gets clearer: “We cannot even add a new stone or tree.”
However, work on Friday the 13th: The Game is not completely halted. The team continues to manage dedicated servers on consoles as well as handle bug fixes and maintenance.
New content for the game is thus canceled until further notice.
