Friday the 13th Dedicated Servers Shut Down in 2020 – What This Means for the Game

I‘m a huge fan of asymmetric horror games, so like many Friday the 13th fans, I was disappointed when I first heard the news that dedicated servers were being shut down back in November 2020. This classic slasher game relies on online multiplayer, so I wanted to provide an in-depth analysis for my fellow gamers on exactly what happened and assess what this means for the future of the game in 2024.

Lawsuit Over Franchise Rights Forces Server Shutdown

The initial announcement from the game‘s developer Gun Media cited a lawsuit over the ownership of the Friday the 13th rights as the reason dedicated servers were being discontinued. They had been embroiled in this legal battle since 2018, making it impossible to keep investing resources into supporting and updating the game.

Many fans immediately worried this spelled doom for being able to play Friday the 13th online. But Gun Media clarified that while they could no longer justify the cost of dedicated servers with such uncertainty ahead, peer-to-peer multiplayer would still be available.

This legal situation is still murky though, with the court dispute between original Friday the 13th screenwriter Victor Miller and producer Sean Cunningham ending in 2022 but no new movie plans yet greenlit. As a huge horror buff, it pains me to see such a classic film franchise trapped in IP purgatory thanks to grown men squabbling over money!

Players Frustrated But Carrying On With Peer-to-Peer

The loss of dedicated servers meant Friday the 13th was losing its centralized community hubs across different platforms like consoles and PC. But thankfully peer-to-peer multiplayer through Quick Play lobbies has preserved online play.

Shortly after the shutdown, subreddit threads and Discord channels showed lots of grief, frustration, and uncertainty from players though. FPS drops, lag, bugs, and longer wait times quickly became more noticeable without dedicated servers to connect games.

But the player base has endured despite these headaches. Steamcharts shows Friday the 13th averaging around 1,500 concurrent players in 2024 – not massive but very solid for a multiplayer game without dev support. As long as enough people stick around, I don‘t see the peer-to-peer issues making matches impossible to find.

The lack of new content may cause player retention to slowly decline over time. But the core hide-and-seek gameplay is great fun with friends against other real human Jasons – not to mention all us fans who just love the films!

How Friday the 13th Compares to Other Discontinued Games

To put the Friday the 13th situation in perspective, I compared it to some other online games that have recently been taken offline:

MMOs like Babylon‘s Fall show even big-budget games can fail fast if the mechanics aren‘t engaging. So Friday the 13th making it to 3 years with multiplayer intact is fairly decent for an asymmetrical horror title in a niche genre.

It outlasted other mascot brawler platform fighters like Brawlhalla too. So while major updates and events are clearly no longer feasible, I believe Friday the 13th still has a path forward if the legal issues get resolved.

Can Friday the 13th Survive Long-Term Without Servers?

Despite the Peer-to-peer environment posing challenges, Friday the 13th seems poised to remain an active multiplayer game at least for another couple years assuming enough players stick around. The combination of a relatively low concurrent user count needed to sustain matches and a cult fandom dedicated to the IP gives me hope.

However, without the ability for Gun Media to invest more resources into the game, it will slowly fall further and further behind new releases in terms of mechanics, graphics, and features. So my concern as a gamer is that over time, technical issues, bugs, imbalance problems, and aging design elements will increasingly frustrate veterans and turn away new players.

I‘d love to see Gun Media or another dev studio return to support Friday the 13th again someday if the license situation improves. An influx of updates and content would breathe new life into the game for sure! But assuming that remains impossible, I worry Friday the 13th‘s long-term survival may ultimately depend on whether fans step up to address problems themselves via mods and community patches.

Only time will tell, but I know myself and many other classic horror fans will be playing matches and reliving our favorite movie kills as long as we can! For now, Friday the 13th endures – tattered and battered but not dead yet.