Video Game / Friday the 13th: The Game

You and your friends will die.

...Find them, Jason! Make them pay for what they did to us!...

Friday the 13th: The Game is a 2017 Survival Horror/Asymmetric Multiplayer game based on the original Friday the 13th film series, developed by IllFonic and published by Gun Media. It was released on May 26th, 2017 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, while an "Ultimate Slasher Edition" was released on August 13th, 2019 for Nintendo Switch.

Up to seven players can work together as counselors at Camp Crystal Lake, who try to survive the night while being stalked and killed by the big man himself, Jason Voorhees. Or you can be a jerk and focus on getting yourself out of there, hijacking vehicles that other people have repaired while you had the keys. At the beginning of each match, the player characters are randomized and one person gets to become Jason, who has a variety of randomized and special abilities (including Villain Teleportation and heightened vision).

The remaining players must work to achieve one of several objectives, which include calling the cops, getting the parts necessary to fix a car and drive out of the area, calling a support character or (if the players are particularly coordinated or diligent) even killing Jason himself!

The game originally began development as a love letter to slasher films called Slasher Vol. 1: Summer Camp. After the producers received the rights to use the film license from Sean Cunningham (the original creator of the franchise), they raised more than $1.2 million from crowdfunding campaigns.

The game includes contributions from several key participants in the Friday the 13th franchise, including Cunningham, composer Harry Manfredini, effects legend Tom Savini, Tommy Jarvis' actor Thom Matthews and the big J himself, Kane Hodder.

In June of 2018, after a cessation of rights caused by a lawsuit between Victor Miller and Sean Cunningham over the Friday the 13th rights, the development of new content for Friday the 13th: The Game was permanently cancelled. A few months later in September, IllFonic departed as developers for the game and Black Tower Studios took over development for any future balancing and bugfixing patches. IllFonic would go on to create licensed asymmetric multiplayer games for other properties such as Predator, Ghostbusters and Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

In November of 2020, it was announced that the game would receive its final update that month and, with it, the dedicated servers for the game would be shut down with peer-to-peer matchmaking being used for Quick Play lobbies going forward along with a permanent increase to XP, CP and Tape Drop rates.

A few years later in June 2023, it was announced that the game would be delisted from all digital storefronts and stop being sold physically after December 31st, 2023 due to an expiration of license. The game's price was reduced to $4.99 with all DLC being priced at $0.99 to allow anyone who hadn't gotten the game yet to get it cheaply before it became unpurchaseable. The game is planned to still function until December 31st, 2024. Gun Media would go on to publish a new horror license asymmetric multiplayer game, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (2023).

Not to be confused with Domark's Friday the 13th: The Computer Game from 1985.

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Friday the 13th: The Game contains examples of the following tropes:

#-L

• Achievement Mockery: Some of the progression camp badges you can collect are just bonkers if you're playing as a counselor, and require you to jump through closed windows 113 times, or survive a leap from a second-storey window 13 times.
• Action Commands: When your counselor attempts to repair something, a quick time event meter pops up that gets progressively faster as it fills up. Messing up the button prompts will likely prove fatal as the Jason player will have heard you and if they're competent, undistracted, will be bearing down on your location momentarily. For Counselors with a perfect Repair stat (or Tommy) this can be done in seconds without ever alerting Jason, but others such as Fox there's always a risk, and attempting to fix anything discreetly with someone like Tiffany or Buggzy is suicide. The potential for error can be mitigated thankfully, by equipping any Perk with a negative in repair speed.
• Adaptation Distillation: The game is one beautiful melting pot of all things Friday the 13th. The maps are Camp Crystal Lake (Part 1), Packanack Lodge (Part 2), Higgins Haven (Part 3), the Jarvis Residence (Part 4) and Pinehurst (Part 5), there's Parts 2, 3, 4, 5 (Roy Burns), 6, 7, 8, and 9 Jason, they're all mocapped by Kane Hodder himself, each counselor is modeled after a character or two from every film, the Jason's Shack and Pamela's Sweater elements from Part 2 are in full swing, the entire soundtrack is composed by Harry Manfredini, and there's Part 6 Tommy Jarvis played by Thom Mathews. Tommy can also kill Jason the same way he did in Part 4.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The Pamela Tapes go deeper into Jason's origins, including The Reveal that Jason was a Child by Rape, and that Elias Voorhees isn't his real father.
  • It also makes it clear Jason has always been supernatural, which explains his Made of Iron and Offscreen Teleportation abilities.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: One of the Pamela Tapes has her talking to a Dr. Jarvis, and then the following tape reveals that he was planning on naming his first son "Thomas".
• Alternate Continuity: Due to Continuity Snarl below and the fact there's nowhere to put this in the main timeline, it more or less has to stand on its own like the reboot or NES game. The fact it does so with ample Continuity Porn and homages, makes it an incredible love letter to the series, though.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Jason's map shows you the locations of everything, including the electrical cabinets and phonebox, so he's able to sabotage and keep an eye on objectives in spite of the large area with counselors running around.
  • There's no prerequisites to use the radio to call Tommy, other than finding it and the power being on. Jason doesn't know which substation feeds the mast, and even if he did, any counselor is able to repair it.
• Anti-Trolling Features: In the game's early days, the most common form of trolling was "betrayal" (aka "team killing"), which involves counselor players killing fellow counselors. This could be with a weapon, running them over with a vehicle, or trapping them in a bear trap when their health is low enough. Betrayals hit the responsible player with a penalty of a thousand XP, as well as earning only one XP at the end of the match. After a few patches involving weapon damage nerfs due to it being the most excessive and preferred exploitation, betrayal via weapons was converted to an exclusive setting for private matches in a late 2017 update, though it's still possible to betray counselors with vehicles and bear traps.
• Arc Welding: The Jarvis tapes reveal that Tommy Jarvis is being menaced by Freddy Krueger, connecting the aftereffects of Part VI with Freddy vs. Jason. He was also briefly institutionalized at the same mental health facility as Michael Myers.
• Artificial Stupidity: The A.I. of the counselors can be outright terrible to anticipate on the Single Player Challenges. Even if you know where, when, and how to do all the Skull objectives, you'll often get the computer bots messing around forcing you to restart and sit through the unskippable cutscene again. From Bugsy jumping in and out of windows endlessly, to Jenny sitting in the car but refusing to drive away so you can attack the vehicle. The worst offenders of this trope are challenges 6, 7 and 8 which are difficult, and on strict time limits.
• Asymmetric Multiplayer: With a team of seven as the counselors and one as Jason.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Killing Jason. It is by far the most difficult way to win the game as the counselors and requires an extremely well-coordinated team - and if your Jason is anything but a beginner, he'll know what you're trying to do very early on - but the satisfaction is incredible if it's successfully pulled off.
  • Jason's grab-kill animations. Using on individual (trapped) Counselors is both awesome and practical everytime, but against a group of them trying to escape around the four-seater its a waste of time since you can't melee attack someone you've just pulled out of the car, and often allows the rest to escape.
  • Jason's ultimate ability, Rage. It activates automatically when he's taken enough punishment from the Counselors and all his other abilities are heightened significantly. He's able to burst through doors and walls with ease. As of the latest patch, nothing except for the Shotgun, Pocket Knife, or Pamela's Sweater can stun him. The consequence however, is you've very likely lost your mask (and patience) by the time it activates and the Counselors now have the means to kill you.
• Batter Up!: The baseball bat is one of the weapons the counselors can grab. It does less damage than a machete or axe, but it has a higher chance of knockdown, which is generally more useful unless you're trying to kill Jason.
• Bear Trap:
  • These can be found and used by counselors to slow Jason down briefly, but any careless counselor can step on them by accident, injuring them and immobilizing them for a moment.
  • Jason also has his own crudely-made ones (each version of Jason has a different amount), which can only be used on outdoor ground areas, but they're covered with leaves to conceal them from view, and they hurt the counselors more than the traps counselors set, on top of taking them a bit longer to free themselves.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In-Universe, this is Tommy Jarvis's reason for showing up: he hears the call for help on the radio and shows up with a shotgun. If all the steps are done correctly, he's capable of killing Jason.
  • Arguably the best time to actually use a weapon against Jason is for these situations. When he's got a victim in a Neck Lift, he can't defend himself, and a good hit will make him release his victim.
  • Characters such as Jenny or Chad, who are physically weak, but incredibly lucky with weapons, means they have a chance to be an unlikely hero if rushing to save someone else.
• Boobs-and-Butt Pose: A female appears "skinny dipping" in such a pose in one loading screen. She's wearing white bottoms and has her arms up to cover her Sideboob.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Pocket knives. Compared to some of the weapons you can find, it doesn't seem like much, but if can be a life saver if Jason has you otherwise dead to rights. Not only can it get you out of what would otherwise be an ensured kill, it stuns Jason and can let you potentially get away. They can also be used to disable Jason's bear traps without activating them.
  • Jogging. It's not as impressive-looking as running, but it is often much more practical, due to not burning through stamina, being nearly as fast as running, and being less noisy as well.
  • On the Jason side of play, throwing knives — particularly for slower versions of him. It's not as impressive as the environmental kills around the map, but it circumvents having to actually catch the counselors.
  • Also for Jason: slashing his victims. It's not as showy as grab kills, but it can circumvent pocket knives and is much more ideal for dealing with a group of counselors who gang up on Jason, since he can't be stunned as quickly as if he is hit while grabbing a victim.
  • Another one for Jason: running. Sure, it's not as cool or intimidating-looking as doing The Slow Walk, but Jasons that can run are able to keep up with fleeing counselors much more easily and can quickly close the distance between them in a pinch.
  • The map, which doesn't provide any new in-game abilities, but helps players strategize and be more efficient in their actions.
• Broad Strokes: The Alternate Continuity seems to replace all the movies with the Counselors taking the place of Jason's other victims. Word of God is that the Single Player Challenges reflect what the Counselors would normally be doing with a few exceptions (like Buggzy in a wheelchair) if not for Jason interrupting them.
• Camp: The single-player challenges run on this, emulating the B-movie style of the original film series.
• The Can Kicked Him:
  • It is entirely possible to get killed in a bathroom. You can also hide in an outhouse, and if Jason catches you in it, he can instantly kill you by slamming his weapon through the door.
  • One environmental kill Jason can do is drowning a person in a toilet's water.
• Canon Welding: According to the Jarvis Tapes, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Hatchet, and Shocker happen in the same universe as Friday the 13th.
• Car Fu:
  • Subverted. Trying to employ this against Jason will wreck the car as Jason slams his fists against it, forcing it to stop. Jason will be completely unharmed by such an attempt and the driver and passengers will be stunned briefly, leaving them extremely vulnerable.
  • However, you can run over other counselors, though there is a -1000 XP penalty, making it certain that you'll earn either no or very little XP for the match.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late:
  • Played with, as one of the ways for counselors to survive is to call the police, wait for them to arrive, and then make their way to where the police are. Of course, Jason can kill the counselors before the cops can get there or even as the counselors make their way to them.
  • The players can call the police much too late in the game, and the match itself will run out of time before they would even have a chance to arrive.
  • There's also the possibility that Tommy Jarvis can arrive just as the final person dies. Then Jason can kill Tommy.
• Chiptune: Retro Jason's soundtrack to fit the game he's from.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: In the single-player mode, all A.I. counselors automatically spawn with a pocket-knife, first aid spray, and possibly other items and weapons, to compensate for the fact that the computer A.I. is significantly dumber than a human player.
• Competitive Balance: Jason may be a Mighty Glacier, but the counselors can fight back. If the counselors work and coordinate together flawlessly, Jason's at a disadvantage; likewise, if they don't and unpredictably hide around the map, Jason can still have a hard time finding and killing everyone before the time limit expires.
• Continuity Porn: There's massive numbers of homages and references to the original films throughout.
• Continuity Snarl: A proof that Tropes Are Not Bad, there are a lot of characters from different parts of the timeline. Tommy Jarvis wouldn't be an adult at the time the game is set, Shelly and Fox die in Part 3, and this doesn't fit with the fact that Crystal Lake was shut down after Jason's first murder spree (which lasted from Part 2 to Part 4). That's not including all the various Jasons which wouldn't make sense in the game's context. It's all Rule of Cool and Rule of Fun anyway, so it doesn't matter.
• Creepy Cemetery: The Higgins Haven map has one, which includes an axe, med-spray and Pamela Voorhees's tombstone. Also contains an H20Delirious headstone that says "Died laughing to Death" with a teddy bear placed next to it.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Many, and several of which are taken straight from the movies!
• Cut Phone Lines: As the phones are needed to summon aid, Jason can destroy the phone lines. Notably, the phone starts disabled and must be repaired (after finding a fuse), and Jason can break it once it's been repaired. Of course, a Counselor can fix it again, and Jason can then break it again...
• Dangerous Windows: Unlike the trope image, Jason can't grab counselors through cabin windows, though is able to throw knives through, and smash them, so the broken glass causes a little damage to anyone climbing through.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Both averted and played straight for the Switch port. Aside from the main menu, the actions of the A and B buttons are flipped from pretty much every other game released on a Nintendo system (with A now being for "cancel" and B being for "confirm". This is reasonable for people that played the game on PS4 or Xbox One (where the confirm/cancel buttons are placed differently than on a Nintendo controller), but for Nintendo fans, it can be pretty disorienting (not to mention it screws up the Konami Code needed to access the debug menu in the Virtual Cabin).
• Dead Person Impersonation: The female counselors can find Pamela's sweater in Jason's shack, and can use it to pretend to be her like Ginny in Part 2. Doing so will stun Jason in place for a few moments, but will only work once. This is one of the steps needed to kill Jason.
• Death by Cameo: Rob Dier appears in the intro for every map... and promptly becomes Jason's first victim.
• Death or Glory Attack: Attacking Jason in any way tends to be this. If you connect and have hit him enough, you might knock him out long enough for you and others to escape. However, Jason is much faster on the draw with a weapon and can just grab the counselors mid-swing, so it's quite likely to backfire.
• Destination Defenestration: Players can dive through windows to make a quick escape… although if the window is closed or high up, it can be very dangerous. In addition, one of Jason's context kills has him chucking his victim through windows. This looks really cool when Jason throws them out an intact and/or second story window... out an open first-floor window, not so much.
• Deus Ax Machina: A possible weapon for the counselors can be found lying around is an axe, which deals the most damage to Jason. If everything is done correctly, it's one of the two possible types of weapons that can be used by Tommy to deal the final blow and kill Jason.
• Developing Doomed Characters: Played straight with the Single Player Challenge Mode.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Mastering the controls and supernatural powers of Jason in a nutshell.
• Distress Call:
  • Repairing the phone box will let you call the police, allowing counselors to walk out of one of the level exits to escape. They take a few minutes to arrive, and you have to actually get to the exit with Jason likely on your heels…
  • Making a call on a CB radio will summon Tommy Jarvis, once two other Counselors have been killed (one of the "dead" players is randomly chosen to respawn as Tommy).
• Don't Go Into the Woods: Downplayed. While being in the woods and off a path raises your fear level, you can stop it by turning on your flashlight.
• Event Flag: One from the films is key to actually killing Jason: he can only be killed after his mask is knocked off. This is the case in every film except the ninth, where Jason's mask is removed at the climax.
• Excuse Plot: Played straight for the multiplayer, as it skips past all the typical Developing Doomed Characters and gets straight to the murder.
• Fanservice: Most of the female counselors are attractive young women that you can put in swimsuits that draw attention to their hips and butts. The men are also very buff and well-toned.
• Fan Disservice: Those pretty girls in revealing swimsuits aren't immune to a pig splitter into the crotch, being punched through the chest, or a healthy decapitation. Still, the source material for the game was practically built on this trope.
• Final Girl: Finish the game as the Sole Survivor while playing a female counselor, and you're it. Name-dropped in an achievement titled The (Unlikely) Final Girl, which you get for achieving the feat while playing as Tiffany.
• Flare Gun: One of the available items. Not only can it be used as a weapon, it will also reveal Jason's location on the map display of every counselor if he's in the vicinity of the player who shot the flare gun.
• Forgot About His Powers: Hilariously, this can happen to any Jason player who has unlocked Rage in the thick of the action, because Jason himself doesn't get the audio cue from Pamela and so may accidentally waste time attacking barricaded doors instead of easily smashing through them.
• Frying Pan of Doom: Another possible weapon.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • The Jasons from Parts 2, 3, and 4 are still human, as only Parts 6 through 9 are undead. While this is reflected in them being less durable than the undead Jasons, they're still very much capable of surviving just as much punishment as their zombie counterparts (unlike their relatively realistic toughness in their films), and they still hear Pamela's voice saying they can never die.
  • While Roy is treated exactly the same as any other playable Jason during the game, in the source material, he wasn't strong enough to make cars stop with his knee, shrug off mortal injuries, and do feats of strength associated with Jason. He also still hears Pamela Voorhees' voice as his Mission Control, despite being motivated by the death of his son. Though he does have lower health and damage resistance than other Jasons.
• Generation Xerox: The tapes reveal Pamela Voorhees and Dr. Jarvis had a long, hostile discussion over Jason's death. Little did they know their children would become archenemies decades later.
• Gorn: Many of Jason's myriad finishing moves are quite violent and gory, including (but not limited to): using a tree to rip off a victim's arms, tearing out a victim's jaw, punching a victim through the gut, hacking off a victim's arms with a machete, and good old fashioned decapitation.
• Grave Humor: One map has a grave-site dedicated to displaying names of the crowdfunding backers, most of which having different text about the character's fate. Highlights include H20 Delirious having 'laughed to death' (with his grave also having a teddy bear sitting next to it), Chuck Parente having his life ruined by Achievement Hunter, and Brandon A. William being 'Jason Fodder'.
• Guide Dang It!: The game's tutorials do the most rudimentary of jobs explaining the various strengths and weaknesses of the various Jasons, Counselors, and Perks. It's up to the player to do a lot of Trial-and-Error Gameplay to find out what works best in which scenario.
• Harder Than Hard: While there are no difficulties in the multiplayer, actually trying to kill Jason is this compared to the normal goal of escaping him. This is appropriate, as Jason in the movies is a nearly impossible-to-kill juggernaut, and thus he wouldn't be Jason if it was easy to kill him. The process requires immense coordination, is easy to derail, hard to pull off, and Jason will know exactly what you're up to. Because it's so rare, players playing Jason will sometimes let it happen just to see it.
• Holding Your Shoulder Means Injury: Severely injured counselors will limp while grasping their left shoulder.
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: A calendar in-game proves that it is indeed a Friday the 13th.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game
• Improvised Weapon: The counselors can use just about anything they pick up as a weapon against Jason, though some are better than others. Jason himself can use various objects for kill moves, though only for kill moves. Part VI Jason uses the piece of fence as a spear he did at first in his film as his weapon.
• Infinite Flashlight: All counselors start off with a flashlight that works for the whole round. While having it turned on can be dangerous due to Jason possibly spotting a counselor trying to sneak through the woods or inside a dark building with no power, having the flashlight on in the outdoors and dark buildings helps reduce a counselor's fear, which makes it harder for Jason to find them with his Sense.
• "Instant Death" Radius: When your counselor character's within grabbing range of Jason, unless you're carrying a pocket knife or an armed friend's nearby, you're brown bread.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Care and attention is required as both fleeing Counselor and pursuing Jason can easily get caught on fences positioned on slopes that can't be smashed through. Unlike doors or walls, Jason can't destroy furniture. These obstructions can be exploited by some players if the Jason player is inexperienced with the Shift mechanic and out of throwing-knives.
• Interface Screw:
  • As fear takes hold of the counselors, their vision will become increasingly impaired, their minimap may disappear, be unable to select items, and they will stumble more often while moving.
  • Jason's teleporting abilities cause an Ominous Visual Glitch when used near counselors, and his "Stalk" ability disables the in-game musical cues that warn players when Jason is close. If you're running or driving away from Jason shifting/morphing after you, as the static effect happens, it may cause you to crash or get stuck on an obstacle.
• Jump Scare: Jason's Stalk ability allows him to mute the music that activates when he appears for a max of three minutes if he stands still, but burns through from movement and using his other abilities. Since the music and its intensity is how players judge their proximity to Jason, denying it to them is a powerful tool, and creates great scares when Jason either appears out of nowhere without any warning or the ability wears off and the soundtrack suddenly goes from silent to "HE'S RIGHT NEXT TO YOU" shrieking violins. According to Word of God, the franchise's usage of this trope was the inspiration for this ability and how it works.
• Konami Code: Used to access the "debug menu" in the Virtual Cabin, which is necessary in order to reach the Jason X Easter Egg.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The game's mechanics do this. The player knows how close Jason is because they can hear the music. The killer can weaponize many classic horror tropes, such as Offscreen Teleportation, Joker Immunity, and even the Jump Scare. Even the game's limitations are sometimes suspiciously apropos — when was the last time you saw a horror movie character able to defeat an Insurmountable Waist-High Fence?
• Level Grinding: For the first-time player, the default Jason characters you can play as can be awkward and cumbersome to get used to, even when you're familiar with his abilities. Especially against more experienced players as the counselors who can swarm you or they all escape alive. If you want the more powerful and undead versions you're going to have to work for it.
• Limited Loadout: The Counselors cannot carry more than three items (not including weapon/vehicle part in-hand) at any one time. Likewise, they cannot equip more than three upgradable Perks per match.

M-Z

• Machete Mayhem: Well, this is a Friday the 13th game, what did you expect? Although only a select few Jasons can use these, and even the counselors themselves can use a machete to defend themselves.
• The Many Deaths of You: There are a wide array of ways Jason can kill people, including (but not limited to): hacking off their limbs before burying his machete into their skull, tossing them through windows, crushing their heads against walls, impaling them on pitchforks, and tossing them into fireplaces and holding their heads in until they're roasted like a marshmallow.
• Merit Badges for Everything: There's 30 Counselor-exclusive badges, and 13 Jason-exclusive badges to collect. They serve no purpose outside of getting a 100% Completion. Worth noting that the progression count of these only goes up by one per match, so don't waste your time (and health) repeating said task. Some of them are not fun to collect, and others are almost impossible.
• Mission-Pack Sequel: A sort of Downplayed Trope example, as the Single Player Challenges came over a year after the original game, but were a free update to the main game. They allowed the player to take on the role of Jason and re-enact classic movie scenes with the game Counselors.
• My Car Hates Me: There are two cars (a two-seater and a four-seater) on the grounds that can be used to escape in... but of course, both are in no shape to drive and actively have to be repaired. There is also a two-seater boat in similar condition, needing gas and a propeller to work.
• Mythology Gag:
  • All of Jason's playable forms are given period-appropriate weapons; Jason Parts 2, 3, and 4 don't have his trademark machete, but instead a pick-axe, a plain ax, and a meat cleaver. Part 6 uses a piece of fence as a spear, as he did in his movie. Part 8 has a fire ax, which, while not onscreen, he did use to kill a deckhand.
  • Jason's teleportation takes the form of him becoming a mist, similar to how it was portrayed in Mortal Kombat X.
  • One of the ways Jason can dispatch counselors is by yanking them off of a canoe and into the lake, similar to how the decomposing corpse of Jason killed Alice in a dream in the first movie, or how the corpse of Pamela Voorhees killed Chris in another dream in Part 3.
  • How to kill Jason in the final game borrows from several movies. One of these steps is that one female counselor must steal Pamela Voorhees sweater, to distract Jason; a reference to what Ginny did in Part 2.
  • Numerous props from the films (like the teddy bear from The Final Chapter and the occult books from Jason Lives!) can be found in the cabins, along with cork board notices containing things like Sheriff Garris's number.
  • As of the October 13th 2017 (Friday the 13th for real) update, which adds both a Part 4 Jason Skin, a new counselor, and a new map based on the Jarvis family property, you can find young Tommy's bedroom, complete with all of his homemade masks hanging out on his desk.
  • Part 4's "The Jarvis" kill is how Tommy killed him in The Final Chapter.
  • The Part 7 Jason Kill Pack added three new kills, one of which being "The Pamela", which is a recreation of Pamela's death from the original film, complete with fingers grasping at the air.
  • The things you have to do in the Virtual Cabin in order to find the Easter Egg for Uber Jason and a preview of The Grendel is one incredibly long list of Mythology Gags through the many movies of the franchise.
  • The weapons that the counselors can use that do the most damage to Jason are the axe and the machete.
  • A lot of the unique kills in Single Player Challenge mode are reminiscent of the many kills in the movies. See for yourself.
• Negative Continuity: The Single Player Challenge Mode has this since it's mostly remakes of the previous Friday the 13th movies done as short slasher campaigns. However, either way, the Counselors get chopped up and slaughtered by Jason repeatedly only to be alive for the next Challenge. Despite this, the fans have started believing its Broad Strokes continuity elements like A.J. being with multiple boyfriends.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Each match begins with Jason popping out of the woods and killing a victim as the rest of the counselors huddle around a campfire. Cue Chad looking back and panicking in terror before everyone immediately scatters.
  • This also factors into the gameplay with the counselors' Fear mechanic: anything that can make a counselor freak out, from discovering a corpse to being chased by Jason, will erode at their ability to see or run effectively.
• One-Hit Kill: If Jason catches you in the water or in a hiding place, it doesn't matter what weapons you're carrying - you're dead.
• Our Slashers Are Different: Jason Voorhees is given the power of teleportation, is unkillable except under specific circumstances, and has variations on his powers depending on which Jason model used.
• Permadeath: If your Player Character gets murdered by Jason, it's game over. The only exception is if at least two counselors are dead (or escaped), and someone has radioed Tommy for help. The game will randomly choose one of the spectating players to come back as the hero.
• Pipe Pain: One of the many weapons the counselors can use to defend themselves from Jason
• Police Are Useless: Zig-zagged. Calling the cops is a strategy to survive before the time limit, allowing players to simply run out of the exit where the police arrive rather than have to drive away. They will arrive much faster if the one who calls them has the My Dad's A Cop perk. However, the police will just sit at the exit rather than come into the campgrounds and help out. They'll shoot Jason and knock him down if he gets too close, but they can't kill him. At the very least they don't shoot Tommy, considering he's wanted for escaping a mental institution, is carrying a rifle, and the 10-47 radio code for an armed suspect just went out. Even they appreciate with Jason prowling around they have bigger worries.
• Poor Communication Kills: If you radio Tommy Jarvis for help, yet through careful planning (and a lot of luck) you and all the other counselors should escape alive, Tommy will arrive on scene to confront Jason anyway.
• Precision F-Strike: On the tapes, the moment Pamela drops her grieving, motherly persona with an f-bomb marks her Sanity Slippage.
• "Psycho" Strings: When Jason is close to a counselor, these begin to play, and increase in frenzy and volume as he gets closer and closer.
• Randomly Generated Loot: The locations of items are randomized on each map. It's not uncommon to find yourself completely screwed over by the game when the houses you've spawned nearby have no weapons, no defence items, and no car parts, oh, and Jason's knocking down your door barely a minute into the match.
• Sackhead Slasher: Jason's Part 2 appearance, overalls, and a sack with a single eyehole tied around his neck with a bit of rope.
• Sadistic Choice: The Jason player in trying to kill 7 people (8 including Tommy) at any one time, is kept on their toes constantly, often teleporting round the map to ensure Counselors don't accomplish any objectives.
• Sanity Meter: The fear mechanic works in this way. The more frightened the counselors are, the more the game messes with you. The counselor's vision becomes impaired in a blurry, "tunnel vision" kind of way, and they stumble more often while trying to run. At maximum fear, your HUD disappears and it becomes much easier for Jason to find you. Your counselor will also pant, whimper, mutter comments to themselves, or scream — all of which Jason can hear.
• Scare Chord: Counselors who stumble onto something scary (like one of Jason's victims) when not being pursued by Jason get one of these to go along with a sharp increase to their fear.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • The most reliable ways to survive are to leave the map before the time limit. You can only do this by driving or sailing through an exit, or by calling the cops and walking through the exit where they arrive.
  • It is possible for players to dive through windows in and out of buildings to escape Jason. However, depending on whether or not the window is open, and what story it's on, this can end very badly. It may be the best option available, anyway. Note, there's an achievement for jumping out of a second story window that homages Trish's choice to do so in Part 4.
• Shout-Out: Nothing in-game, but several achievements reference other franchises.
  • The achievement for successfully trapping Jason 13 times is titled, simply, "It's a Trap!".
  • Escaping on the boat 13 times as a counselor nets you the "I'm on a Boat" achievement.
  • Coming back as Tommy Jarvis 13 times gives you the "Heeeeere's Tommy!" achievement.
  • Hitting Jason with a baseball bat 100 times awards you with the "Smash Bros" achievement.
  • Shooting Jason with a shotgun 13 times unlocks the "This Is My Boomstick!" achievement.
  • Successfully removing Jason's mask gives you the "Face Off" achievement.
  • Stopping a car as Jason 13 times rewards the "Slam Jam" achievement.
  • The Jarvis tapes reveal that Tommy was sent to Westin Hills Hospital after the end of The Final Chapter, but had problems due to trouble sleeping. He was also sent to Smith's Grove Sanitarium, and New Orleans where he heard a man constantly cry out for his father. Also, he mentions that Deputy Rick Cologne, the cop who survived Jason Lives moved to Ohio, changed his name to Pastore, and was killed by some guy called Pinker; a reference to actor Vincent Gustaferro.
  • Part of the Crystal Lake map is an area called "Hobb's End"
  • When choosing a Jason kill where Jason stomps on a counseler's face in the menu, the description is "Imagine a boot stamping on a human face."
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: If your counselor has low luck you may easily find yourself severely lacking in equipment needed to survive. To compound matters your teammates can grab all the good stuff and find a way to escape with them early in the match.
• So Much for Stealth: When you're out of stamina and weapons, hiding is sometimes all you can do against a powerful Jason player. Unfortunately this is usually only the briefest of reprieves. If Jason finds you under a bed or in a closet, its instant death. If you've been neglecting the counselor's fear level, they'll sometimes scream and giveaway your location.
• Sticks to the Back: Grab a gun, and it will seemingly hover behind your character.
• Stylistic Suck: The opening logos for the developers, done in bad VHS quality style, complete with audio and video tracking errors. Also, when Jason uses a teleport ability near a Counselor, their whole screen fuzzes out momentarily, like a bad spot on a VHS tape.
• Summer Campy: All of the levels are summer camps.
• Taxidermy Is Creepy: Most prominently seen in Higgins Haven, but scattered in the smaller cabins.
• Too Dumb to Live: If a counselor attempts to hide and Jason is nearby, the counselor will sometimes say something along the lines of "Please don't come here..." loud enough for Jason to hear them. You can prevent this by holding your breath, but it only lasts a few seconds, and when you stop, you exhale loudly enough for Jason to hear that. It's Anti-Frustration Features for Jason, who can't pinpoint counselor locations beyond "is in this cabin" (and some cabins have a lot of potential hiding places), but really, counselor — shut up!
• Truer to the Text: The game is much more faithful to the feel of the Friday the 13th movies than previous efforts; the camp counselors are trying to escape Jason rather than trying to find him or get rid of him (although they can kill him with some effort), Jason can commit many of his infamously creative kills, and the game's visual filters intentionally try to recreate how one would view a movie or video in the 1980s to make the experience that much closer to the aesthetic of the movies. Also, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 Jason don't use his trademark machete, which he hadn't adopted as his weapons in those films yet. Instead they use a pickaxe, an axe, a meat cleaver, and gardening shears, respectively, weapons that Jason more accurately wielded during those movies. Part VI uses the piece of fence he used for the first part of his film as his main weapon, though his machete is still on him.
• Unsafe Haven: It will only take the Jason player seconds to break into any barricaded building, some cabins are indefensible, but sometimes as a counselor it's your only refuge. Fighting the Implacable Man alone out in the wilderness is suicide.
• Useless Item:
  • You can only equip three Perks to your chosen counselor, so you have to know which are effective or are plain garbage on that person. The game of course doesn't tell you this. Many of the Perks status buffs sound impressive on paper (especially if you win an epic or legendary) but prove highly situational in a fight for survival.
  • Jason's mask can also be picked up when knocked off. Welding it was originally meant to be one of the requirements to kill Jason with, but that idea was scrapped after the beta so it only takes up inventory space.
• Video Game Caring Potential: The game encourages counselors to look after each other to increase their chances of survival.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • The whole point of playing Jason is to hunt, terrify, and murder the counselors in gruesome ways. You can customize the outlandish methods you have available, and the game rewards you for using a variety of methods.
  • A selfish counselor can screw over the other counselors to improve their own odds of escape. Players can drive off in the car without waiting to pick anyone else up, abandon allies when Jason appears, and outright murder other counselors to take their supplies. Murder, however, incurs a penalty that negates the benefits of survival.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: The game subtracts 1,000 XP for "Betrayal" in any match in which you murder your fellow counselors. That's more than most matches award in total, and XP is used for unlocking characters and purchasing counselor perks and Jason kills, so it's a harsh penalty.
• Villain-Beating Artifact: Pamela's sweater is absolutely necessary to defeat Jason and has no real use apart from that (technically, you can use it just to stun Jason, but that's a terrible idea, because you can't move while using it and the sweater can only be used once per game).
• Villain Protagonist: You play as Jason in both of the game's single-player modes; the Hitman-style Challenges mode as well as the single-player practice mode with A.I. bots for the camp counselors.
• Villain Teleportation: Jason has two "teleport" abilities:
  • Morph, which starts unlocked at the beginning of a match, allowing Jason to pick a spot on the map and teleport there instantly.
  • Shift, the second ability to unlock, moves Jason forward rapidly, allowing him to catch up to fleeing Counselors.
• Walking Swimsuit Scene: The "Spring Break" costume DLC gives most of the counselors some variety of sexy swimsuits.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: Each version of Jason has a signature weapon, based on what he used in the movies:
  • Part II Jason uses a pickaxe.
  • Part III, VIII, and IX Jason, as well as "Retro Jason", all use an axe.
  • Part IV Jason uses a large meat cleaver called a "pig splitter".
  • Part V Jason uses gardening shears.
  • Part VI Jason uses an improvised spear made from a fence post.
  • Part VII Jason uses his signature machete.
  • "Savini Jason" uses the Devil's pitchfork.
• We Need a Distraction:
  • Turning on radios and lighting firecrackers will set off Jason's Sense, providing a distraction. The drawback is you can't do it from a distance, so you have to set them off and then run.
  • Some groups will have one member distract Jason while the others try to get a way to escape running. How well it works depends on how smart Jason is. Can crossover with Heroic Sacrifice if the distracting player gets killed in the process.
• Wham Line: The Jarvis Tapes not only indicate that the movies are connected with other horror movie series but also indicate that someone else is haunting Tommy:
  Dr. Marino: I'm still trying to find out how has been lacerating himself while sleeping...
• Writing Around Trademarks: The description of Part IX Jason mentions "the other horror icon's cameo at the end", without calling him by name, and mentioning that it "set the stage for a future movie showdown."
• Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb: One of the loading screen images shows a good example of this, as well as Sex Signals Death.

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...that's my good boy. Mommy has a reward for you...come home, sweetie...

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