Friday the 13th composer Harry Manfredini says a new video game is in the works

The copyright lawsuit between original Friday the 13th producer/director Sean S. Cunningham and screenwriter Victor Miller brought a stop to any further content being added to the Friday the 13th video game that came from IllFonic and Gun Media and was released in 2017 – which is a shame, because I love that game and have spent hundreds of hours playing it. To me, that was the perfect video game to go with the Friday the 13th franchise. But now that the copyright lawsuit has come to an end, franchise composer Harry Manfredini has revealed that a new video game is in development!

William Lockwood of Rely on Horror recently crossed paths with Manfredini at a Crystal Lake Reunion event at Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco in Blairstown, New Jersey, the filming location for the original Friday the 13th, and Manfredini “revealed that he will be working on a new, as yet unannounced Friday the 13th game being developed by a different company than the previous one produced by Gun Media and featuring ‘more realistic looking’ characters. The game will supposedly be done in a different style to that of the previous asymmetrical multiplayer title. He didn’t know many other details about the game beyond his involvement, but it’s still exciting to know that there’s something new on the horizon for the series.“

It definitely is exciting, as I’ll take as many Friday the 13th games as I can get. I just wish we could also get an update of the IllFonic / Gun Media game while we’re at it.

Manfredini provided the score for the first six Friday the 13th movies, then returned for Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X. He composed music for the IllFonic / Gun Media Friday the 13th video game – and as he told Rely on Horror, “instead of composing a traditionally structured soundtrack, he created what he called ‘modules of material’ or pieces of music that would dynamically adapt to each player’s specific actions. He emphasized the fact that the game’s score is actually determined by the player’s choices, not by him and that each player has a score unique to their experiences and is only audible to them.” We’ll have to wait and see what sort of approach the new video game will take to its music.

Victor Miller came out the winner of that copyright lawsuit and now holds the U.S. copyright for the first Friday the 13th movie. So he has teamed up with fellow rights holder Rob Barsamian, his lawyer Marc Toberoff, A24, and showrunner Bryan Fuller to develop a Friday the 13th TV series called Crystal Lake for the Peacock streaming service. Fuller has previously said that the show will have two different scores: one from Manfredini, and one that’s more modern.

Are you glad to hear a new Friday the 13th video game is in the works? Let us know by leaving a comment below.