Friday the 13th fans furious as studio moves on to new game
UPDATE: Publisher reassures fans it hasn't abandoned game.
UPDATE 25/07/2017 8.30pm: Friday the 13th: The Game developer Illfonic has spoken out to reassure fans it had not abandoned the title, after concerns raised by some in the community.
Illfonic released the following statement to Eurogamer:
"I wanted to address the concerns that IllFonic has abandoned Friday the 13th: The Game for Dead Alliance," Illfonic boss Charles Brungardt told us. "This is 100 per cent not true. Most major and independent studios have multiple teams working on multiple projects at the same time. This is critical for the survival of the studio, especially with the ups and downs with the game industry. Dead Alliance was started way before Friday the 13th: The Game. It was a co-development by Psyop Games and IllFonic then titled Moving Hazard. Psyop Games released Moving Hazard to Steam Early Access well over a year ago and it gained interest from Maximum Games for a console port. We've had a team who remained working on what turned into Dead Alliance for consoles that has always been separate from the Friday the 13th: The Game team. IllFonic still remains a small studio to this day but we are growing.
"With the recent success of Friday the 13th: The Game we have been increasing our staff on the title. We originally had about 20 internal team members working on Friday the 13th: The Game and are now up to about 30 internal team members. We also have opened a second office that sole purpose is to support development of Friday the 13th: The Game. In addition we are continuing to staff up more team members for continued support of the game. So we assure you, continued support for Friday the 13th: The Game has not been abandoned, in fact, it's quite the opposite."
It's word, finally, that will likely cheer Friday the 13th fans. Hopefully we'll see the fruits of this before too long.
The official Friday the 13th: The Game Twitter page also tweeted to assure fans the title is far from being abandoned.
ORIGINAL STORY 25/07/2017 1.29pm: Friday the 13th: The Game developer Illfonic has been accused by fans of abandoning the title in favour of its new project Dead Alliance.
Illfonic quietly announced in May it was working on the new first-person zombie shooter, due for release 29th August, but the majority of Friday the 13th fans did not realise at the time.
The news has sparked fears Illfonic will neglect Friday the 13th meaning the bugs and issues the game has had since launch may not be fixed, despite the fact the developer assured it would continue to update and add content.
On the official Friday the 13th forum, frustrated fans have been airing their concerns.
"This kinda flew under everyone's radar," said user |HeartBreaker|. "I understand that it's Illfonic working on it, but aren't they the backbone for this game? Is this going to stall production on F13 at all?"
Fellow forum user Super Ty said, "Well... there's probably gonna be a shit storm coming Illfonic's way once enough people realise this, and they don't release the patch, or at least some info about it besides the usual 'soon', 'we're sorry', and 'we're working on it' bulls***."
However publisher Gun Media recently assured players Friday the 13th would be getting free single-player content later this year. Whether Illfonic will be a part of this is still unknown. Eurogamer has contacted Illfonic and Gun Media for comment.