WWE World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk is still mourning the loss of Illfonic’s 2017 Friday the 13th asymmetrical horror game that ended at the close of 2024. The “Best in the World” wrestler is also a known horror buff, and he considers the discontinued Friday the 13th video game to be the best game of all time.
Punk has held the title in his second run since claiming it from Jey Uso at Saturday Night’s Main Event at the start of November, but his legacy extends far beyond the belt. Wrestling since 1997, he’s made himself a major name in the industry with successful stints in WWE, ECW, AEW, TNA, and Ring of Honor. Following CM Punk’s firing from AEW in September 2023 over a backstage incident and an injury suffered in his WWE return to action in the 2024 men’s Royal Rumble match, he’s been regularly featured in major feuds with the likes of McIntyre, Seth Rollins, Gunther, and John Cena, and his present status as champion marks him as likely the biggest star currently on the RAW brand.
New Friday the 13th Game Might Not Be What You Expect
Horror Inc. and Jason Universe’s newly announced upcoming Friday the 13th game may not be the game Friday the 13th fans expect or widely desire
CM Punk Calls Old Friday the 13th ‘The Greatest Video Game Ever Made’
Punk recently appeared in a 33-minute interview on the YouTube channel My Mom’s Basement with Robbie Fox, discussing a wide variety of topics, including the wrestling business, acting roles, and his favorite movies and games, particularly ones from the horror genre. After Punk called for a reboot of the Friday the 13th movie franchise, Fox pointed out Punk’s appreciation for Illfonic’s discontinued game, of which he had been a serious and dedicated player. Punk responded, saying, “I think it’s the greatest video game ever made, and they abandoned us. And I’m still very, very angry about it. Yeah.”
To be fair, Illfonic didn’t shut down the game’s servers of its own volition. Launched on May 26, 2017, the game originally played out in 8-player matches, with one character selected to be slasher movie icon Jason Voorhees and the other seven as his potential victims. It received middling reviews from fans and professional critics alike, but a single-player mode was later added, and it had a large enough community to warrant a port to Nintendo Switch in August 2019. However, just over a year after that port arrived, the game’s public servers were shut down over licensing issues with franchise creator Victor Miller, leaving only the single-player mode and peer-to-peer matchmaking for multiplayer. Friday the 13th‘s online features were shut down entirely at the end of 2024, and although the modding community tried to release a playable version called Friday the 13th Resurrected, their efforts were halted indefinitely over a cease and desist order for copyright infringement.
This isn’t the first time that Punk has expressed grief over the game’s shutdown. On the day the multiplayer aspects were turned off forever, he made a post celebrating the game’s legacy on his Instagram account. Sharing a photo he took of his television screen, on which Friday the 13th slasher Jason Voorhees is shown as depicted in the in-game artwork, he added the simple caption, “Goodbye, sweet prince,” with a crying face emoji.
A new Friday the 13th game has been confirmed by Horror, Inc., and early impressions of it suggest it will have a similar type of asymmetrical playstyle to Illfonic’s 2017 entry. Punk was not asked whether he’s excited about that game, nor did he bring it up himself, but his celebration of the horror franchise played a big part in the interview. He did address the upcoming A24 and Peacock television series Crystal Lake, but he seems to be reserving his judgment of it for now, as not much is known about it at this time. “I think we’ve been starved for any kind of Jason Voorhees content for years and years and years, and it’s not fair,” he commented.
