Horror has been around as long as there have been humans who can envision it, creating nightmares for when the audience is awake. Video games are often a more interactive form of entertainment, and that means that players are that much more engaged with the experience. Dead by Daylight was released in 2016 and brought a new spin on the horror game genre with a new 4v1 competitive mode that was reasonably well balanced. In the five years since it was released, developer Behaviour Interactive has been expanding upon Dead by Daylight with new DLC and server improvements.
While it's a fascinating take on the horror genre, that's usually not what keeps players coming back. Nearly since its release, Dead by Daylight has been able to secure some of the most well-known names in horror. Some of the Killers seen hunting the Survivors in The Mist include Bubba Sawyer a.k.a. Leatherface, Freddy Kreuger, Pyramid Head, Ghost Face, and a few more. For every Killer, there are licensed survivors from their respective franchises to hunt. While that's a comprehensive list of characters, there's one big horror name that's still missing: Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th.
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Friday the 13th
One issue with Jason Voorhees is the fact that Jason already had a game that came out around the same time as Dead by Daylight. Released in 2017, Friday the 13th: The Game sees players take on the role of one of the camp counselors or Voorhees himself. Unlike in Dead by Daylight, the Counselors are a team of 7 people, nearly double the size of the Survivor group in Dead by Daylight who is constantly on the run from the various Killers.
Unfortunately, Friday the 13th is currently embroiled in licensing issues that are keeping new content from entering the game, so the devs have been focused on bug fixes and polishing. The number of players spiked in January of this year, but since then the player base has diminished to just over 200 players per month. A big reason that fans of Dead by Daylight haven't seen Jason Voorhees in the game yet is that IllFonic currently has a hold on that market. Putting Voorhees in Dead by Daylight could very well be disastrous for the Friday the 13th game, especially due to its lack of updated content.
Pending Lawsuit
An even bigger reason why fans haven't seen the hockey-mask killer has to do with something professional and is much more boring. It doesn't just stop at video games either, as there hasn't been a new version of Voorhees since 2009's slasher reboot Friday the 13th. Currently, the director and writer of Friday the 13th, Sean Cunningham and Victor Miller, are in an ongoing custody battle over who gets to greenlight new projects that include Voorhees. Some say this will be resolved soon, but as of writing, there has been no meaningful update in the case.
It should come as no surprise to horror fans that the one thing keeping Dead by Daylight players from getting another one of their favorite killers is the licensing that guarantees the 13th Friday the 13th movie, as well as video game content, will be made. While this is likely disappointing news to Jason's fans, there are many other killers to embody within Dead by Daylight. Seeing as the developers themselves want Voorhees, though, there might be in-roads there once the final verdict is reached in the case.
Dead By Daylight is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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