Dead by Daylight is an anomaly. While it’s less surprising that new live-service games often fail to retain players past the first few months after launch, many older titles are also feeling the pinch. This isn’t a concern for the asymmetrical horror multiplayer game from studio Behaviour Interactive, though, which is receiving a new iteration of its successful 2v8 mode, this time based on Resident Evil, and looking forward to a bright future in 2025.
“One of the reasons why Dead by Daylight worked as a game is because we didn’t release it thinking it was going to be a game as a service,” game director Mathieu Côté explains. “We released the game because we thought it was really cool and people would want to play [it] a couple of times. We were very surprised. We hoped it was going to be a success, but our plan was to release this game and move on to something else. That was it.”
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Almost nine years later, Dead by Daylight has more than 40,000 regular players on Steam, not counting those on Xbox and PlayStation. With over 30 chapters of DLCs throughout the years, dozens of new Survivors and Killers from different horror franchises have made an appearance, such as Dracula from Castlevania, Ghostface from Scream, the Xenomorph from Alien, and Nicolas Cage himself from… you know, real life, among many other familiar faces. All these new characters, modes, and other types of additional content have been an endless job for a team that started with 30 people and increased to 350. The development never stops, and they release something new every couple of months.
“[Dead by Daylight is] a great metaphor for what we do,” he explains. “No matter what happens, you’re always back at the campfire for another day.”
First As A Fan, Then As A Developer
While Côté was there from the beginning, senior designer Jean Escalante joined the team in 2020. He started as a fan who first played DbD during its closed beta before its launch in 2016. Before sitting down to play, Escalante didn’t get the game’s appeal at first sight, but he tried it anyway because his group of friends was interested in it. After playing some matches, the group jumped into other things and he just kept playing. Escalante even met Côté at Twitch Con in 2017, where the director gave him some Steam codes for cosmetics in the game.
In 2025, Escalante and his team are preparing the third iteration of the acclaimed 2v8 mode. It will be Resident Evil-themed, with Wesker (called “Mastermind” in-game), Nemesis, and the DbD’s own The Legion added to the Killers roster. The Police Department of Raccoon City will be featured as the main scenario, and there will be the classic green and yellow herbs from the RE series for Survivors to heal themselves and Killers to steal them.
This limited-time mode is only the beginning of DbD’s 2025 plans. While the team never really considers making them permanent additions, Côté recognizes the success that every unique mode, such as Chaos Shuffle and Lights Out, receives from fans. He plays with the idea of permanently giving players the chance to select the core game or an alternative mode from the main menu. Côté doesn’t think this will be integrated any time soon, but he enjoys the idea of having these other ways of playing in rotation.
“I’m excited for what this ninth anniversary looks like,” says Escalante. “For hopefully many more years, because I don’t think Dead by Daylight is going anywhere. If anything, it’s just going to keep getting better and bigger. There’s always other ideas for game modes and modifiers in our minds. We know that people love their horror franchises.”
Getting Your Players Hooked Is A Miracle
However, Escalante doesn’t take this success for granted. He reflects on a rising trend in the industry of players sticking to the same old games without jumping into new ones. That’s why he thinks it’s so difficult to establish a new live-service game today, or maintain a successful one. This is also a reason why Behaviour Interactive might have other projects in store, but a potential Dead by Daylight sequel is not one of them — they prefer to keep bringing new characters, perks, and modes for as long as possible.
Côté also feels appreciation for the fans and the series’ success. When reflecting on the nine years of Dead by Daylight, he feels “a ridiculous amount of pride.”
“I’m just grateful to have been part of that,” he explains. “You can work in the industry for 50 years and you’re lucky if you get one of those projects. It very rarely happens. It was sort of a perfect storm. It was a good time for us to come up with something, and we were lucky enough that we released something great, but also it was released at the right time and people actually noticed it.”
Côté recognizes the challenges that games as a service bring to the table, and he believes that one key thing is to know how to treat the people near you. Not just in terms of free time or a day-to-day basis, but also in how they feel about the work. The game is fictional, but it’s nonetheless composed of disturbing imagery and violence.
“Sometimes people just had enough,” Côté says. “There are other projects in the company. We can make you work on something else. I know that some people get off and they love it and the horror and everything. But some others, they’re like, ‘You know what? I’m a character artist and I’ve been looking at mutilated, brutally hurt people for the last five years. I need to make fairies and pretty butterflies, please.’”
Now I Want Stephen King In Dead By Daylight
When discussing the distant future of Dead by Daylight and what they would like to see, Escalante mentions the doll from the film M3gan as a Killer, and something related to the paranormal, like a haunted house, which they haven’t explored yet. Côté, on the other hand, would love to have Stephen King as a playable character, but he thinks it’s impossible because the author has publicly shared his hate towards video games.
Who knows what will happen in the future of the series? Maybe they’ll surprise us with a model of King for its tenth anniversary. In the meantime, the team at Behaviour Interactive doesn’t seem to think about stopping any time soon.
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