Dead by Daylight turns 10 years old today, and for its anniversary, the team at Behaviour Interactive has announced a ton of things coming to the game, both in the short and long term. We’ve rounded up all of those announcements in one place in case you missed the stream, and you can find that stream below, too. Combined with those announcements are additional insights from my recent interview with the team ahead of the anniversary showcase. Here’s everything DBD fans need to know about what’s coming to the game.
New killers: Jason Voorhees, Art the Clown, and Frank Stone
This one was actually previously announced, but the studio showed off more about Jason, who comes to the game on June 16 as its latest crossover killer. Executive producer Jose Ramos told me in a pre-stream interview that the conversation about finally bringing Jason to DBD “accelerated in the past couple of years,” after the license was in limbo due to a well-documented Hollywood legal feud.
Jason’s kit includes an ability that lets him quickly phase from one area of the map to another, meant to mimic the slasher’s way of almost magically appearing in front of his near-future victims.
Additionally, DBD is crossing over with Terrifier, the ultra-violent indie horror series starring Art the Clown. This collaboration will follow later this year, as the team told me it likes to do four chapters annually, with half of them being licensed crossovers. Look for Art’s unforgettable face to pop up in DBD this November.
In 2027, Frank Stone, the killer at the heart of DBD lore and the focus of Supermassive’s DBD spin-off game, The Casting of Frank Stone, will also come to the game.
Chorus of Sin, a “community-driven” chapter, is coming on August 25, too.
New survivor: Shane Wiigwaas
DBD is also adding its first indigenous character. That character, Shane, was molded into form thanks to a “very, very precious collab” with a representative of the Anishinaabe tribe who helped Behaviour forge who Shane is “for specifically this community,” creative director Dave Richard told me.
Shane will come to the game as part of DBD’s next chapter, The Life Road, on June 25.
New map: mall
A new map is coming soon in the form of a mall that appeals to two of the most requested aesthetics players have clamored for. Ramos explained to me how the mall came to be.
“Every quarter, we run a survey and we open it to the community in game and on social media, and each time we have more than 100,000 respondents. [One] of our questions recently was about our map strategy, like, what are the themes that you would love to see eventually come into the game? And when we did that survey, number one was a mall, that’s the one thing they wanted to see. Number two was Backrooms.” The mall map is meant to appeal to both those who requested it specifically and those who wanted a liminal-space experience in DBD. Based on my Instagram algorithm, that’s a perfectly reasonable fit.
Though Ramos noted that the map is not a true Backrooms-like maze of shifting, yellow corridors, neither as a collab nor a specific homage, it is meant to capture the vibe of liminal horror much as Backrooms content does. Richard also noted that, though the map is coming soon, it following on the heels of the Backrooms movie is merely a coincidence.
New collabs and cosmetics
In addition to the two new licensed killers coming to DBD, more cosmetics, including some other licensed crossovers, are on their way. This includes The Walking Dead outfits for the Rick Grimes survivor that will make him look like Glenn or Negan.
Cheryl from Silent Hill will also get a new look that transforms her into Silent Hill f’s Shimizu Hinako, and The Spirit will get a new alternate skin that turns her into a nurse from Silent Hill.
Even more cosmetics will tie into things like Scooby-Doo survivor characters and Diablo clothing options, introducing those series into DBD for the first time, while The Huntress killer will get a new alternate style tied to Iron Maiden. Intriguingly, Ice Nine Kills, a band already represented in the upcoming Halloween game, will get its own cosmetics collection in DBD, too.
New game modes
Though the team isn’t rolling out anything quite yet, it mentioned that a zombie mode is one of several ways DBD may change over time. Since Behaviour has no plans for a Dead by Daylight sequel, it prefers to grow DBD into new experiences over time. Ramos expanded on the team’s thinking in this realm.
“We feel like we have barely scratched the surface of what [DBD] can be in terms of experiences, and bringing gameplay innovation, bringing new modes, is actually one of the core things that we want to bring in the future.”
He mentioned a few specifically, like a 1v1 experience and a zombie mode, adding that these experiences are “just the beginning. We want to keep exploring game modes and options. We like the asymmetry, so usually speaking, we like to keep exploring that aspect, but there is so much we can do. So, of course, 4v1 is a staple, and we don’t want to put it on the side, or whatever. It is the staple of what we do, and it is a core experience, but bringing in new modes, exploring new things, which potentially could be a good fit with new types of collaborations, as well, absolutely, 100% is something that is going to happen.”
Ramos added that some of these things will take a while, but the team is sharing them sooner as part of a revised approach to transparency with the core DBD players, specifying that though things like the mall and several new characters will arrive before the end of the year, something like zombie mode is “probably years away.”
Maybe most exciting of all is that DBD will be getting a new set of modding tools for the community to create custom content like their own maps and modes. These tools are meant to debut in 2027.
Revamped onboarding and visuals
In the absence of any sequel plans, the team knows it has to manage DBD to keep it appealing to players for many more years to come. To that end, DBD will be getting a visual overhaul, with new attention paid to character models, map details, and other aspects of the game’s look.
This fresh coat of paint is targeting 2027 and will alter the minimum and recommended PC specs, though the team didn’t have specific benchmarks to share just yet.
Additionally, the team says it understands that new players can sometimes feel overwhelmed by all there is to learn about the game when they’re trying to catch up with the entrenched community. Behaviour is actively exploring ways to improve onboarding for new players, with Richard noting that the task is “one hell of a challenge.” He said the game needs to better communicate that it can be fun well before players reach a mastery level, as some high-level streamers may showcase, and the team is approaching this in a few ways.
“There’s obviously the first-time user experience. The ‘here’s what the game is about, here’s what you should expect.’ You know, expect that it’s about the chaos, as well, that it’s ever-changing, that it’s about the horror, and you know, not necessarily about winning by killing everybody or escaping all the time, so how to find the fun in the game.
“And then through other steps in the future, through changes in the progression, to changes in how the perks are designed, and how we will transform the game, so that its density becomes more manageable.”
Ramos added that one small step the team is taking as part of the bigger plan is to add something called the gameplay showcase, which will act as a way for players to see how killers’ special abilities work in the menus before they jump into a game, removing the current issue of players needing to jump in cold and test them out in a live environment to understand how they work.
Dead by Daylight movie
The previously revealed DBD movie has officially landed its director, as the team announced Thordur Palsson will helm the project, with a script from Alexandre Aja and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick. Palsson previously worked on The Damned.
Johnson-McGoldrick and Aja also come from a horror background, with the former having penned The Conjuring 2 and the latter working on things like High Tension and the remake of The Hills Have Eyes.
A few other announcements were made at the show, and you can find all of them organized chronologically in the image below.
For more on my deep dive with the DBD team, you can read why there may never be a Dead by Daylight sequel, and why DBD has gotten more violent over its 10 years.
