There’s a face missing in the Halls of Horror, at least in Dead by Daylight. Myers, Freddy, and Leatherface are there, but one ’80s icon is conspicuously absent: Jason Voorhees. The killer camper from Crystal Lake is DbD‘s white whale. There’s perhaps no killer more coveted by the fanbase, but most believed his inclusion impossible. Friday the 13th had too many licensing issues. It simply couldn’t happen. Now, however, there may be a crack, one that could widen into a breakthrough. Here’s how MultiVersus might pave the way for Jason Voorhees in Dead by Daylight.
I’m hyped for Jason’s arrival in MultiVersus, and I’m not even a huge MultiVersus fan. Watching Batman and Arya Stark beat up Lebron is always surreal fun, but I’m lousy at fighters. If I want to suffer in a PvP game, I’ll play The Hag on Badham Preschool so the survivors can dance a jig around my Mud Phantasms. That said, Voorhees deserves more love. Other than his Mortal Kombat X cameo and Friday the 13th: The Game, Jason’s video game presence ranges from nonexistent to terrible. I unironically enjoy Jason X, and I’ll choose $10 budget, ketchup-for-blood horror over no horror every time.
That’s in no way to say that Jason will be bad in MultiVersus or that he would be in Dead by Daylight. After years of licensing issues preventing the machete-wielding menace from entering The Entity’s Realm, there’s a glimmer of hope. The next challenge, if Behaviour can strike a deal for Voorhees, will be to make him fun. That might be tough. Every killer in Dead by Daylight has a unique power, even if that power is “throw hatchet” (The Huntress) or “stare creepily” (The Shape). What would Jason’s power be?
How Friday the 13th Might Fit in Dead by Daylight
To be fair, Behaviour has made tricky killers work before. Forget The Unknown‘s blob-spitting grenade launcher. Ghost Face, Pyramid Head, and Wesker are all licensed killers that must have been difficult to translate into the Fog, yet Behaviour pulled it off. Just because I can’t imagine an easy way to turn Big + Relentless + Machete into enjoyable game mechanics doesn’t mean there’s no way to do so. It’s no secret that Trapper is the “we have Jason Voorhees at home” killer, just like Hillbilly is to Bubba, but at least Trapper has, well, traps.
Getting Jason Voorhees in Dead by Daylight could also mean getting Camp Crystal Lake. Thanks to his titular game from 2017, we’ve already seen how well that can work. Of course, all of this assumes that Friday the 13th‘s licensing issues are handled, at least for now. DbD just landed collaborations with Dungeons and Dragons as well as Castlevania, so it’s not exactly struggling for content. Still, adding that final iconic face to the Hall could cement DbD as the greatest horror-themed game of all time. Assuming Mrs. Voorhees lets us play.
Dead by Daylight is available for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
