Eight years later and Dead by Daylight isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. The popular “kill or be killed” horror game from Behavior Interactive held a presentation on YouTube and Twitch today in honor of its eighth anniversary. To put it lightly, a whole lot was announced and players will have an awful lot to look forward to in the coming year. They put Nic Cage in the game last year, how could they possibly top that? Well, from a long-demanded game mode to surprising new killers, there’s plenty on the horizon. We’re here to break it all down.
Within the past year, the game surpassed 60 million players across PC and console, according to Behavior’s head of marketing communications Marie Claude Bernard. “We’re essentially responsible for a lot of jump scares,” Bernard quipped during a press conference ahead of the public presentation. Those millions of players will be treated to many more scares (and fun) as six new chapters will be introduced to the game across 2024. Two of them – both in July and April – will be survivor-only chapters.
Several Killers and Survivors – both licensed from existing franchises and original creations – will be making their way to The Fog. But Let’s get into the specifics of what’s coming our way in the coming year. For one, cross-progression is finally being introduced later this summer, which means that players will be able to progress across both console and PC, so long as they have their character connected to a Behavior account.
But let’s get to the big news: An entirely new game mode is coming that will change the way you play Dead by Daylight.
2v8 is coming to Dead by Daylight
“We’ve heard our community loud and clear and 2v8 mode will be introduced into the game by the end of summer,” said Matt Spriggens, design director of Dead by Daylight. This will be a new mode, not an expansion or modifier of the existing modes or anything like that. This is an entirely new way to play the game. Instead of one Killer, you’ve now got two. Instead of four Survivors, you’ve now got eight. Check out a preview of what’s to come.
The team explained that this mode “fundamentally changes the way you play Dead by Daylight” and that they “Wanted to make it more of a party mode.” Party on. This new 2v8 mode will take place on five maps when it launches, all of which have been made bigger to accommodate a bigger crowd. There also will be no perks in this mode. Instead, there will be a class system that focuses on abilities, with an emphasis on cooperative play.
Once a player chooses a survivor, they will be able to select and equip their class. “This will be their power for the match,” Spriggens explained. “It will really help identify to other players what their role is within the team.” A player could choose to focus on healing, objectives, or speed, for example, in choosing a class. “The intention here is to encourage specific types of gameplay within the match,” Spriggens added.
As for the Killers, there will be five original ones to choose from, not licensed ones such as the Xenomorph from last year’s Alien crossover. They will all behave differently, and they each have a specific team power that encourages cooperation. The Wraith’s cloaking ability, for example, will give the fellow Killer an undetectable status effect if they’re close enough. “For once, playing as the killer, you’re not all alone,” Spriggens teased.
There will also be no hooks in this mode, which gets at the notion that this will be very different from what players have come to expect from a traditional Dead by Daylight match. Behavior promises that we will learn more about the mode in the July livestream. There is no word on a launch date for 2v8 yet but stay tuned.
Get ready for a Dead by Daylight / Dungeons & Dragons crossover
Indeed, the next in-game crossover tied to a pre-existing franchise is Dungeons & Dragons. This represents the first time that the game has tackled dark fantasy, as it is often a little more straight-up horror. But as the teaser trailer reveals, there is a very horrific villain at the center of it all. Namely Vecna, a character fans of Stranger Things will be very familiar with. “I’m immensely proud of what the team has pulled off here,” said Mathieu Cote, head of Partnerships at Behavior. Check it out above.
Vecna, who we see in that teaser, will be introduced as the new Killer within the game. “He’s kind of one of the ultimate villains at the very top of what evil can be in D&D,” said Dave Richard, senior creative director on Dead by Daylight. Matthew Mercer (Death Stranding, Fallout 4), accomplished voice actor and noted D&D player, is voicing Vecna. He called the opportunity “nothing short of spectacular.”
A sard will be the Survivor for this chapter, but it will be something a bit different where there’s a customization option. You can “build your own hero,” an elf female or a human male. “Out of all the classes in D&D, they really fit well into a horror setting,” Richard said of the bard. There’s also a new map being introduced, and it is a dungeon named the Forgotten Ruins. It’s the first map with an extensive underground component in the game. “We thought that [Vecna] would want a place to call his own,” Richard said.
Vecna will have his spellbook and the player will have access to four spells. When Vecna is the Killer, the Survivors will have access to treasure chests that will activate a 20-sided die. Depending on the roll, something different happens. Even though magic doesn’t always gel with horror, Richard explained that this is “Magic of the dead, blood magic, something that makes it truly terrifying.”
The Dungeons & Dragons crossover arrives on June 3.
New Dead by Daylight games are coming
We’ll get into this more later in a bigger piece breaking down the games themselves, but the Dead by Daylight universe is expanding with three different, brand new games outside of the main game. First up, Mary Olson, studio director of Midwinter Entertainment, spoke a bit about what is only being referred to as Project T. This was the previously announced yet untitled PvE shooter game that will take place in the Dead by Daylight universe. In the game, you play as Trespassers who have been trapped in the Entity’s realm, specifically a place called The Backwater, where they’ll have to battle horrific monstrosities to stay alive.
Fans can help with Project T’s development process by joining the insider program by clicking here. The game does not currently have a release window but it sounds like it’s still a little ways off.
We also learned a lot more about the previously announced and much-anticipated single-player game The Casting of Frank Stone. Developed by Supermassive Games, it takes place in the small town of Cedar Hills, Oregon, where the legacy of sadistic serial killer Frank Stone cuts deep, and even messes with the fabric of reality itself. Players join a group of young friends as they attempt to unravel the mystery while trying to make a movie. We’ve also got a new trailer, which you can check out right here.
The Casting of Frank Stone is currently available to Wishlist on Steam, the Epic Games Store, the PlayStation Store and the Microsoft Store for Windows and Xbox Series X|S. The game is set to release later this year.
Lastly, we’ve got the roguelike game called What the Fog, which is available now on Steam. In the game, you’ve been sucked into a cursed board game and now you must work with a friend to survive. Players team up to earn Bloodpoints, repair Generators and unlock exit doors to escape.
Castlevania is also coming to Dead by Daylight
To close out the presentation, we were treated to the next in-game crossover, which will be Castlevania. The crossover will be coming later this summer, but no exact release date was revealed. Very little was said by way of specifics but we did get a very brief tease which you can check out above. “That’s obviously just a little taste,” Cote said.
Dead by Daylight is available on both console and PC, for those who wish to get in on the action.
