We Speculated That This May Happen: Friday The 13th: Resurrected Hit By Cease And Desist, Project Canceled

I'm not going to lie, I was pretty excited when we reported on a new fan-made Friday the 13th mod being announced. The original Friday the 13th: The Game was one of my personal favorite asymmetric horror games. It was sad how the game ended up being trapped in the middle of a lawsuit that had nothing to do with them personally.

Since that ownership lawsuit dragged on, the original game was basically frozen in place, unable to make additions to the game until the suit was settled. When if finally had been settled, it was way too late for the game to make a comeback.

While you can still play the original (but you cannot buy it anymore), it just isn't the same as it relies on peer-to-peer connections that aren't that stellar.

I was very happy to see Friday the 13th: Resurrected try to return to better performance through their upcoming F2P mod, better server architecture, and other planned improvements.

However, on the latest Always Online podcast, while I expressed how happy I was, I also shared the concern that there were copyrighted characters, locations, and more in use here, and I was concerned that the project may be halted if lawyers stepped in.

Well, lawyers stepped in.

The official Cease and Desist is dated April 5th, but the team released it in full on their X (formerly Twitter) today since they say Horror Inc released it publicly in their Discord anyway.

The C&D, unsurprisingly, claims that the use of images like Jason Voorhees in the game, its advertising, and more constitutes infringement and that the team had to have known this was the case as users brought it up in their Discord.

They are requiring all assets be destroyed, the mod itself be destroyed, and that the files never be distributed before being destroyed and ask for this to be confirmed by April 12th.

Now I go back to being sad.

As you may be aware, we have received a cease and desist from @joshgeller2 who works for @GreenbergGluske and is Horror Inc's legal representative. With that, the project is most likely over but we do plan to work on other projects. We are still waiting for response from some… pic.twitter.com/Uk2QORRRvg

— Resurrected (@GameResurrected) April 8, 2024