Despite a rocky start, Friday the 13th: The Game is doing well and fans are having a blast playing it. I’ve been playing for weeks now and am amazed that I haven’t tired of any of it yet. It’s such a gift for fans of this franchise and naturally that’s led me to wonder if other franchises could get the same or similar treatment. Most fans you talk to, I’ll admit, just want to see other characters from classic horror franchises added to this game. I get that.
On paper, that seems like the easiest idea. Just make new skins for Michael Myers or Freddy or Leatherface and slide them into this game, but that would be a huge copyright clusterfuck. A lot of what I hear when playing online is simply, “Well, if they got the rights for Friday the 13th, they can get the rights for something else.” But that’s just not how it works. It would be really great if it was, and probably should be that easy, but for a game to just toss in characters from other stuff.
If they were able to do that in a game, I would prefer something like the incredible, fan-made Terrordrome. Something that really lends itself to a combination of multiple horror characters.
A fighting game would be the perfect way to bring them together. I don’t want mini-games for each franchise just to try and fit them all into the same game, I want to see the great attention to detail that Friday the 13th got, but for other franchises that deserve similar treatment.
So in this list we’ll look at franchises that lend themselves to games and to the same sort of online multiplayer format that Friday the 13th has nailed.
Halloween
It’s the most obvious one, in some ways. Dead by Daylight has its Haddonfield map, which is about as close as we’re going to come to a Halloween game for awhile, but something that was really entrenched in that franchise would be fantastic. Instead of counselors, you could have babysitters who all start out in different houses on the same street. The person playing Michael could set one player as a “main” target and gain the most XP for killing them last. There are so many possibilities.
A few years ago, we were actually going to get a Chucky game, but it got cancelled after at least some degree of development had already begun. Now all we have is an iPhone game that’s a Chucky version of Temple Run. That’s not good enough for most fans, I think. An actual Chucky game would work, as absurd as it sounds. It’s harder to see him coming, especially if playing in an environment that gives him a lot of opportunities to hide.
Hellraiser
Hellraiser is so visually rich that it just lends itself to video games so well. It’s almost a no-brainer. A lot of people want to see it as an action game, but I don’t really think the franchise has ever suited that. I think a group of people searching for clues, getting sucked into the Cenobites’ lair, that could be interesting. Make it more of an investigation, with two maps converging on each other.
Scream
I’ve been thinking about this one for a few days now. When playing Friday the 13th, counselors often get separated and it’s hard to tell who has already died and who hasn’t. With that in mind, it would be great if one character in the match was the killer and you didn’t know who it was. They could just hit a button to switch between outfits and how long the match lasted would depend on how good they were at hiding it and how good the other players were at investigating. I think that would have serious potential.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
This one, I think, would be the hardest. The map’s a little more isolated. It would pretty much be the farmhouse and surrounding woods leading to the gas station, but I think an area based on Texas Battleland from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 would also be fantastic. The best thing, I think, is that this game would almost be divided into teams. Some people would play as the Sawyer—or Hewitt—clan, others would be trying to escape & survive.
Puppet Master
Puppet Master would be the most far-fetched thing on this list if it weren’t for one factor: it already exists. October Games has created a professional looking fan-made online multiplayer game that works. It’s fun and exciting, so why not a partnership with Full Moon? Why not just get the license? The work has already been done. Even if it never becomes official, I’m amazed by the work put into it, but still, it seems like a no-brainer to take the extra step.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
When a Friday the 13th game becomes a reality, this is the thing that immediately comes to mind next. Not only would an Elm Street game be great for fans, but it could do what the movies can’t. The Friday game brought back Kane Hodder as Jason, why not use a Freddy game to bring back Robert Englund? He could easily return to voice the character, even provide some motion capture. It’d be fantastic. Plus, the dream kills would be amazing. Other players could build up their dream powers as they level up, instead of teleporting around the map like Jason, Freddy could literally manipulate the map so that players would never be entirely sure where they were going. There are so many possibilities.
