He’s got his timing slightly wrong, but Summer is probably lovely at Camp Crystal Lake. That’s right, Jason is finally slashing his way through the fog to join the cast of Dead by Daylight killers.
Fans of asymmetric multiplayer horror games may remember that Jason had his own game, but it seems that Friday the 13th: The Game shutting its servers for good at the end of 2024 has opened the doors for Jason to join this juggernaut of the subgenre
For anybody not familiar with Dead by Daylight, the game features a single killer playing against a team of four survivors. The survivors must work to activate generators across a map in order to open the exit doors and escape, whereas the killer has to… well… kill them.
Whilst originally debuting purely with its own in-universe killers, Dead by Daylight gained a lot of momentum from its use of licensed characters, both survivors and killers. From the likes of The Walking Dead, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and even Jason’s best playmate Freddie Krueger from Nightmare of Elm Street, Dead by Daylight weaves their stories into its own, with intricate lore involving The Entity collecting survivors and killers in order to be kept fed (a very broad generalisation, please don’t @ me superfans).
Jason’s build feels like it’s pulled straight from the movies. “Omnipresent Evil” allows him to vanish from the map, giving a movement speed buff and allowing him to track survivors with visual cues, then reappearing around key environmental points like pallets or vaults, destroying them on re-entry. “Improvised Carnage” allows him to make use of scattered debris (placed in strategic containers around the map) that he can gather individually during his OE phase and then use as projectiles to stagger survivors.
This release also launches with “the Jason Collection”, a set of outfits paying homage to his long legacy terrifying audiences.
Jason hits the Steam public test build today (May 26th), but will officially release in the next chapter update on June 16th 2026, in perfect time to co-incide with the games upcoming 10th Anniversary celebrations!
