Friday The 13th Updates Postponed To Finally Get Dedicated Servers Working
Gun Media and IllFonic have been providing regular patches for Friday the 13th: The Game ever since the title launched last year. The last major addition gave a terrifying new look for the game’s unstoppable killer Jason Voorhees, with plenty more being teased for the future. Now, the developer has announced plans to stop work on regular patches for the horror title, with all further Friday The 13th updates postponed for the foreseeable future.
According to a post on the official Friday the 13th forums, Gun Media Community Lead “ShiftySamurai” a.k.a. Daniel Nixon gave notice that the development team will be temporarily shifting focus away from patches to upgrade the game to the latest version of Unreal Engine. This would involve upgrading and adjusting every single asset in the game including the contents of unreleased patches, which is why they’d need to be withheld for the time being.
This wide-scale level-up will supposedly present more than a few benefits to the overall experience, including smoother play, potential physics improvements, and the resolving of numerous nagging issues that have long plagued the game. The biggest potential benefit fans may be the addition of dedicated servers for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, which would become much closer to reality following the update’s implementation.
Neither Gun Media or IllFonic have confirmed when we can expect the Unreal Engine update to be completed, but Gun Media’s Community Lead did give the rough date estimate of “April” for the long wait ahead. As for those dedicated servers, excited console players may want to manage expectations as they are even further from the finish line. While the new engine digs will make the long-awaited feature happen, Gun Media’s Community Lead confirms that they won’t be a priority until after the upgrade is complete.
The engine update patch is, however, a critical component in getting Dedicated Servers functioning on consoles, and is absolutely required for us to get there. Unfortunately, that does mean that our focus has to be on the update first – so we’ll need to wait until that’s wrapping up to start estimating the work remaining to get to Dedicated Servers, and provide you with that information.”
With current Friday The 13th updates postponed, fans are likely to be unhappy with this news. While this does unfortunately mean the game’s foretold content roadmap will be indefinitely delayed, the potential benefits of this update should definitely help repair the often-criticized gameplay quality in the long run. We just hope that the wait isn’t long enough to send the game’s player base running in terror.
What do you think? Are you upset by the news of Friday The 13th updates postponed indefinitely, or can you respect the long-term thinking of the developers? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to follow Don’t Feed the Gamers on Twitter to be informed of the latest gaming and entertainment news 24 hours a day! For more updates and patches from recent weeks, check out these next few links:
Eric Hall2712 Posts
Phone-browsing Wikipedia in one hand and clutching his trusty controller in the other, the legendary Eric Hall spreads his wealth of knowledge as a writer for Don't Feed the Gamers. Be sure to catch his biweekly "Throwback Thursday" segment for a nostalgic look at trivia from the past.
