Halloween is almost here, right? No? Well, whatever. The Humble Bundlers may have jumped the gun a bit with the Humble Spooky Horror Bundle 2018, but it's still a very solid collection of horror games, especially if you (for some reason) still haven't played BioShock. 

First things first, though: The $1 will get you White Noise 2, Layers of Fear, How to Survive, and How to Survive 2. Beating the average gets you to BioShock territory—specifically the outstanding BioShock Remastered, plus Detention and Yomawari: Night Alone. I'm not familiar with either of those, sorry to say, but they certainly look interesting.   

Top your payment out at $15 or more and you'll also score Friday the 13th: The Game, which unfortunately is kind of a dead issue these days, and Dead by Daylight, which is most definitely not—in fact, it's in the midst of the Scorching Summer BBQ event. 

The bundle also includes free bonus content for Star Trek Online and the White Noise 2 soundtrack. It will be available for purchase until 11 am PT/2 pm ET on September 4. 

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info.

Friday the 13th was actually quite a bit of fun when it came out last year—with the right group of players, at least—and showed real potential for future improvements, too. Sadly, publisher Gun Media has now confirmed that potential will never be realized, as new content development has been permanently ended. 

"I wanted to address a few questions that I’ve had sent to me personally, as well as questions we’ve received through the official F13 channels. These questions vary but all have a similar tone/request. 'Is there a chance of any content being added to the game if a ruling on the dispute occurs in the near future?'," Gun Media founder and president Wes Keltner wrote on the Friday the 13th forums. "The answer is no." 

"Development on games can’t just pause indefinitely and pick back up again; it doesn’t work that way. Especially when you have no idea when that future date will occur. We can’t keep building content that may never see the light of day. That’s bad business." 

The problem arose from a legal dispute between the creators of the original film, and the ensuing question of who actually owns it. I expressed hope at the time that a resolution of the lawsuits might see development resumed, despite how long the legal battle has already dragged on, but it was a faint hope at best, and this outcome really isn't surprising. 

Keltner added that it's also not possible to add new content, like original locations or counselors, even if it's unrelated to Friday the 13th. "We can’t add any content, whatsoever. Nada. Not even a new tree or rock," he wrote. "We can only focus on console dedicated servers, bug fixes, and maintenance." 

"I know this isn’t the news you wanted to hear and I wish the situation were different. But it’s the painful truth."

Gun Media has announced that because of a legal battle over the rights to the franchise, development of new content for Friday the 13th: The Game has been put on hold. The trouble is rooted in an ongoing dispute between Victor Miller, the writer of the original film, and Sean Cunningham, the producer and director of the film and current rights holder. 

As the Hollywood Reporter explained last year, Miller is attempting to reclaim his right to the property under a provision of US copyright law, while Cunningham says that the concept, creative direction, and financing of the film all came from him, and that Miller wrote it as work-for-hire and thus has no legitimate claim to it. And while that dispute works itself out, Gun Media said in a statement sent to 1428 Elm that it has no choice but to hit the pause button on future Friday the 13th game development. 

"We’ve now been forced to accept that the lawsuit makes future content for the game, including alternate play modes, new playable Jasons and Counselors, and new maps, unfeasible now or in the future. Although the listed content types will be affected, we remain committed to launching dedicated servers on our console platforms and providing the continued maintenance and bug fixing important to supporting our fan base," it said. 

"So what does this mean exactly? There will be no additional content added to Friday the 13th: The Game. This includes 'Uber Jason', The Grendel Map, Jason Kill Packs, Clothing, Emotes and new Counselors." 

The statement makes no mention of what about the legal situation has changed to spur this sudden postponement, but Miller's claim on Friday the 13th goes all the way back to June 2016 and so it could be simply the apparent endlessness of the whole thing that drove Gun Media to finally throw in the towel. It's possible that new content creation will resume if and when the legal battle over the game has been resolved, but the Gun Media statement has a certain ring of finality to it—if nothing else, you probably don't want to hold your breath while you wait. I've emailed the company for more information and will update if I receive a reply. 

Asymmetric multiplayer slasher game Friday the 13th got its first slice of single-player in December when developer Illfonic added an offline mode with bots, and this week it showed off its next single-player mode: Challenges. The mode will place Jason in a variety of scenarios and ask him to murder everything in sight. Think a streamlined Hitman, but with a lot more blood.

In the video, which walks you through one of the tutorial challenges, Jason is tasked with killing two teens whose car has broken down on a quiet road. One slips off for a wee against a bush, and Jason takes his chance, picking him up and impaling him on a nearby branch. Ouch.

The other boy is trying to replace a tyre, and for whatever reason thinks that means he has to jack up the vehicle and lie underneath it. I think you can see where this is going.

Although the level looks incredibly easy, it's promisingly brutal, and publisher Gun Media says that future levels will be bigger and contain more enemies. Don't forget, this is a tutorial challenge, so it's bound to be one of the simplest.

We don't know exactly when the Challenge mode will make it into the game, just that it's coming for free.

Update: Friday the 13th publisher Gun Media originally said that keys for in-game rewards intended exclusively for Kickstarter backers had been stolen from one of its distribution partners and sold on eBay. It did not say which distributor, but Limited Run Games—which distributed the Kickstarter rewards—has since been in touch to confirm that the keys were likely stolen by one of its temporary contract workers. The culprit is not known, but the company no longer uses temporary contract workers.

Here's Limited Run Games' statement:

"Up until last December, we often utilized many temporary contract workers to assist with the various busy work that shipping thousands of packages on an irregular schedule requires. It's our best guess that one of these workers took it upon themselves to illicitly access the codes. This was not sanctioned by us nor Gun and neither of us knew it had happened until the community brought it to light.

"We stopped utilizing temporary workers in December when we noticed that our game inventory was off. Without those previous workers around, the inventory loss stopped. We don’t have any reason to believe that the person in question still works for us. Unfortunately, we don’t know who the specific culprit is. We foster a very open and friendly environment at our office and we never expected something like this to occur. These actions completely betray the trust we had in whoever this person is.

"We’re moving into a new office next week that provides deeper levels of security for our partners, our inventory, and ourselves. Rather than utilizing temporary workers, we’re now relying on the killer team of full-time shippers that we’ve built up, love, and trust. All of our employees know that we have a hardline policy against eBay and resellers. The actions of the person selling these codes were not authorized by us and do not reflect us or our values in any capacity."

Original story:

Keys for items intended exclusively for Friday the 13th Kickstarter backers were stolen from one of publisher Gun Media's distribution partners and then sold on eBay for more than $100 each, the company has confirmed. 

The sale of the keys was uncovered by the digging of one Reddit user who monitored the eBay account's activity. They initially assumed that the keys were being sold by a Kickstarter backer that had purchased extra keys, but they became suspicious when the account carried on selling the keys—for items including in-game outfits—for months, at upwards of $100 each time. The eBay user's feedback page shows that they made tens of thousands of dollars from the sales.

A Gun Media spokesperson commented on the Reddit thread to confirm that the keys had been stolen from "one of our distribution partners", and that any unredeemed keys have been cancelled.

"We previously assumed that backer-content keys being sold on eBay were the same as you; a fan who got in early and purchased extra keys. After reviewing the information that you have posted, it is absolutely clear that this is not the case. With some investigation, we quickly determined that the keys being sold come from a theft at one of our distribution partners. 

"The company has worked to resolve the situation, but unfortunately, both we and the company were unaware of the digital portion of the theft until these auctions were brought to our attention. While there is not a never-ending source for these codes, we will be cancelling any unredeemed codes that have been affected by this theft. Again, thank you for the effort you put into this, and for bringing it to our attention."

The eBay user's sales history also includes trading cards from distributor Limited Run Games and keys to Lawbreakers, another title distributed by Limited Run Games. The company also distributes physical copies of Friday the 13th. The Gun Media spokesperson did not confirm whether Limited Run was the "distribution partner" in question—I've reached out to clarify the matter.

Friday the 13th's asymmetrical multiplayer horror was made to play with friends, or at least with strangers that have mics and are willing to work together. But developer IllFonic is betting that players will want to muck around solo sometimes, and are adding a new offline game mode with bots tomorrow.

You'll only be able to control masked killer Jason Voorhees in the mode, and you can choose to go up against between one and seven camp counselors. You select exactly which counselors you want to face and the map you're stalking them on, as well as the difficulty level: easy, medium, or hard.

As the devs point out, it's a good chance for new players to learn the maps and practice Jason's hunting abilities. The AI will try its best to act like real humans, fixing boats, barricading doors and hiding under beds. 

The addition forms part of Illfonic's single player plans for the game. Still to come is a challenge mode that will plop players into various scenarios as Jason and ask them to murder everyone in sight. Like Hitman, but with more gore and the odd shower scene.

The mode is out tomorrow as part of an update that also raises the player level cap from 101 to 150. To give max level players a reason to come back, Illfonic has added some items you can unlock between those two lofty numbers, including new kills and skins for Jason and changes of clothes for the counselors.

The game will kick off a holiday event tomorrow too, but it's not all that festive: it will just increase your chances of finding rare gear and boost the rate at which you earn CP. For more on that, and the full notes for the update, click here. Tyler's review is this way.

Asymmetric multiplayer murder sim Friday the 13th is getting a mysterious new game mode called Paranoia, available free to everyone that owns the game. There's no release date (it's coming "soon"), or details of what it will entail. However, fans are speculating that the mode will disguise the killer as a camp counselor, meaning players won't know who the murderer is until they're getting stabbed in the neck.

The theory fits with the trailer for the mode (at the top of this article) and with the #whoisfiVe marketing campaign on the game's social media accounts. It could, fans say, refer to the fifth Friday the 13th film, A New Beginning, in which (spolier alert) the killer turns out not to be masked murderer Jason Voorhees but a copycat called Roy Burns.

It's not hard to imagine this working, with players constantly looking their shoulder as the killer tries his or her best to act natural. Perhaps survivors won't be able to communicate with each other when the killer is near, meaning they can't dob them in when they realise that they're about to get slashed. Paranoia is indeed what comes to mind. 

Friday the 13th is currently 50% off as part of Steam's Halloween sale. It will cost you $19.99/£14.99.

Yesterday at PAX West 2017, Friday the 13th developers Gun Media hosted a panel on the pros and perils of Kickstarter, where they spoke about their first time with large-scale community management—a task that literally almost killed executive director Randy Greenback.

Early in the campaign, the team quickly realized they needed a community manager, and since Greenback wasn’t actively coding or animating, the job fell to him. “It was like three full-time jobs,” Greenback said. “It was 18 hour days a lot of the time, answering every email, and at the end of it all I think I got pneumonia.”

“Yeah, he almost died. It’s not a joke,” Friday the 13th: The Game co-creator Ronnie Hobbs said. “We underestimated how much work Kickstarter was, in terms of updating the community. So it was poor Randy who had to do all that. It’s a very easy thing to overlook. ‘Oh, we’ll deal with the Kickstarter messages later!’ That is the bulk of your time, we had no one to do it, and we were ill-prepared for that.”

With a community liaison in place and the initial funding goal achieved, the team learned they had to placate their backers with regular updates. These updates took the form of interviews with the development team and backer exclusive proof-of-concept videos, and seemed to play well with the game’s community. But when it came time to show off the alpha build, screenshots of the unfinished game were circulated to a less-than-enthusiastic reaction.

"[Game development] is kind of like making a pizza,” co-creator Wes Keltner said. “You’re in the kitchen, rolling the dough, putting stuff on it, and somebody walks in looking for a slice. And you’re telling them you still have to put it in the oven, but they take a bite anyway and then they tell you it tastes like shit.”

“Even when we can’t show the game, backers are gonna want to know what they’re gonna get,” Greenback said. “One of the ways we did it, we kind of did overviews—top-down overviews of gameplay moments we anticipated would be in our game as best as we could. We had the core of the game ready, but it didn’t look good. If we had shown what we had at the time, people would’ve just been upset and freaked out that the game wasn’t going to come together.”

Three months after launch, Gun Media still has communication issues with its community. According to community lead Ben Strauss, several backers misunderstood their chosen reward tier, and emailed the team looking for restitution. “There’s still confusion with some of our rewards to this day,” Strauss said. Apparently, “over 1000 backers” still haven’t received the codes they were promised in exchange for backing the game. “People who backed the game never contacted us, never followed up, never completed their surveys, and we really want to give them their stuff,” Greenback said. “They either don’t know they have a code waiting for them, they forgot, or they don’t know how to collect it.”

Although the team’s early brush with community management was more of a learning experience than anything else, Gun Media still found the feedback invaluable. “We had to figure out, do we change course or stay the same based on community feedback?” Hobbs said. “So be prepared for actual feedback and to put it in your game in some sort of way.”

Friday the 13th players will be drowning in free updates very soon: there's a brand new map, a new Jason and smaller versions of current maps to facilitate faster rounds waiting in the wings.

IllFonic, developer of the asymmetric multiplayer slasher game, yesterday laid out its plans for the next wave of content without actually setting a date for when any of it will arrive. It was coy on details of the new map, only saying that it will arrive "sooner than you might think" and will be "ripped straight from the films". Interesting—any ideas? 

No unmasking of the new playable Jason either, we just know that he exists. 

There is more detail on the reworked maps, though. I like the idea: players will get smaller versions of Higgins, Packanack and Crystal Lake designed for a faster pace of play. So, perfect for those who find the current rounds too long, or simply want to switch it up. 

IllFonic is at pains to say it "didn’t simply shrink the maps and call it a day"—it's changed spawn and item locations, for example. They too are coming "soon".

There's free 'Emote DLC' incoming that will add eight emotes to help players communicate with their teammates. A thumbs up, saying no by waving your hands—the usual. (On a side note, I'm not 100% sure on where the line lies between free DLC and just, you know, a thing that's in the game. I don't know whether this will be downloaded automatically or you'll have to do it yourself. We'll have to wait and see.)

There's full patch notes for the next update in that Steam post as well, detailing bug fixes (plus a new site for reporting future bugs), map changes and gameplay tweaks.

I've saved the most expensive for last, because there's a $4 ($2 with a launch discount) DLC package called the Spring Break 1984 swimsuit clothing pack on the way. Expect bright bikinis and budgie smugglers. 

If you haven't played Friday the 13th yet and don't know if you should, then why not check out Tyler's review?

Most people who have watched slasher flicks like Friday the 13th have probably put together, in their heads, some idea of what they'd do if they were ever trapped and hunted by a psycho killer. In most cases, becoming a psycho killer themselves likely isn't part of the plan. But in the Friday the 13th videogame, it apparently is. 

"The biggest thing we’ve heard from our community with the game are issues pertaining to rampant team-killing that has unfortunately been abused by players on all platforms," publisher Gun Media said in a recent Reddit post. "While the mechanic’s intent is designed to promote life-or-death experiences into each and every game you play, the reality has turned into more of a Battle Royale scenario to a point our team feels a change needs to be made." 

That's right, instead of one maniac murderer and a host of victims, Friday the 13th is maniac murderers as far as the eye can see, one of whom just happens to be properly attired for the job. (And a little better at it.) Because of that, the developers are taking away your toys: The next patch will disable counselor team killing through the use of weapons, including the shotgun and machete, in public games. 

There will still be some ways for counselors to do harm to one another. Player-driven cars will still be able to run down and kill counselors (that actually wasn't possible in the beta, but it led to "abuse" by players who would simply stand in front of cars to keep them from moving), and bear traps set by counselors will still do damage to other counselors who step on them.   

"Our team believes that the ability to hurt other counselors is something that this game should have as it adds tension and requires players to make tough calls. However, we do not believe this should be a mechanic that is abused by players to the point where the vast majority of our current communications from fans are complaints of rampant/unwarranted team-killing/griefing/trolling," Gun Media said. "We will include this mechanic in private matches for now, with the hope of better options in the future." 

There's no word on when the update will go live, but the publisher said on Twitter that three new map variants designed "to promote faster-paced gameplay" are also on the way, as are eight new emotes.