As Dead by Daylight turns 10, Behavior unveils game-changing overhaul that will "make the next ten better than the first"

It’s hard to believe that we’ve had ten years of Dead by Daylight. From its humble origins with just The Trapper, The Wraith, and The Hillbilly, it now sports a roster of 43 terrors, some of which hail from the biggest horror franchises ever. We’ve seen comic books, spinoff games, eerie K-pop songs – the DBD universe is its own living entity (pun entirely intended), and it just keeps getting better. With Jason finally making it into the fray, all eyes are on the game’s ten-year anniversary event. But, for Behavior, this is just the beginning of a new chapter (pun also intended): a chapter that’ll kickstart a new era of Dead by Daylight.

There’s a lot to cover here, but I want to start at the end. In a presentation I attended ahead of tonight’s reveals, Behaviour returned to a question that has been asked many times: will there be a Dead by Daylight 2? “We have always said that it’s not something we want to explore,” Executive Producer José Ramos says. “Starting over would be leaving too much behind.

“So, instead of building a sequel, what we’re going to do is evolve DBD itself.” “It’s not just a continuation of Dead by Daylight as it is,” Creative Director Dave Richards continues. “We wanted to grow into something that makes the next ten years better than the first ten.”

This endeavor manifests itself as a colossal new update that’s pensively slated to appear sometime in 2027. It’s a full, ground-up rework of the game’s visuals in an attempt to improve the overall feeling of “fear and suspense.” Character animations and models are getting an overhaul to help them better deliver “the emotions”‘ Survivors are feeling, with hair also being improved across the board. The difference is genuinely night and day: the side-by-side comparisons took my breath away.

Richards notes that the team is also upgrading “the whole rig,” allowing for improved movement and facial animations, as well as better environments. Maps will get better lighting and shading, but perhaps the most intriguing thing is the new dynamic weather system, which will change how the game plays. Fog and mist will look better, too, and The Entity itself will be more present. As is likely expected, this is accompanied by an audio update to make things feel more realistic.

Ramos stresses that all of the visuals we’ve seen today are still very much a work in progress, and that the update is being developed by a separate team from the core DBD squad. But, in the interest of “transparency,” the team has chosen to show them off now. Dates may shift, and some features may be added or removed, but either way, this really does feel like a new era for DBD.

But that’s not all. Alongside the overhaul – which Ramos is avoiding calling a “visual update” because that “sells it short” – Behavior is also adding creative modding to Dead by Daylight. “What better way to deliver fresh stakes than by putting [DBD] in the hands of the players?” he asks.

Ramos also confirms that the team is working on myriad prototypes for new modes, with a 1v1 experience set to launch “early 2027.” There’ll be “no perks, no items; just pure killer and survivor gameplay, mostly inspired by the competitive scene.” Matches are best of three, and to win, you simply have to survive the longest. “It’s the symmetrical version of the famous asymmetrical horror game,” Richards jokes, but as a competitive League of Legends player, that sounds great to me. The team is also working on a zombie mode, which Richards says is “still evolving,” with the aim of thrusting you straight into a “zombie apocalypse movie.”

This is all further down the line, however, let’s talk about the anniversary event. While Behavior remained tight-lipped on the gory details during the preview, it did go into detail about the new, non-Jason-related survivor, Shane Wiigwaas. The game’s first Indigenous character, he’s a lawyer who hails from the Anishinaabe community that primarily inhabit the North American Great Lakes. His cousin has been wrongfully convicted following a mysterious, black fog-shrouded disappearance, and he’s looking for answers. He is an action-focused survivor, and he’s voiced by the spectacular Dallas Goldtooth, of Reservoir Dogs fame.

Speaking of voicelines, Behaviour has also confirmed that it’s committed to adding voiceover to previous survivors, likely a result of the Yun-Jin debate that swirled in the wake of All-Kill: Comeback. The community has been asking for Survivor voiceover for a while, with OG Survivors coming under scrutiny following the addition of Nicolas Cage. Finally, Behaviour’s giving us what we wanted, but Ramos says that this is a “long-term initiative,” so don’t expect every original character to suddenly have voiceover when the anniversary update drops. “It will be a slow rollout which will start at the end of this year,” he says. “But it’s a big step towards making DBD feel more alive, personal, and connected, and we know that our community will love it.”

To further deepen the stories of some OG Survivors, Behaviour’s new shopping mall zone focuses on Dwight Fairfield’s past (perfect for Brian ‘Limmy’ Limond). Inspired by liminal spaces (think The Backrooms), the mall is an open area where some serious weirdness is taking place. Expect to be looping back on yourself, finding winding, seemingly never-ending passageways while trying to calculate where the Killer could be hiding.

As teased at Summer Game Fest, Behaviour’s Head of Partnerships Mathieu Cote says that this year’s final chapter is all about a “new horror icon that we could not ignore.” Terrifier’s Art the Clown (first released in 2016) will enter The Fog in November, bringing “a unique mix of dark humor and brutality that we love, in a way that stands out even among horror’s most iconic killers.”

On top of this, Frank Stone, the eponymous protagonist of Supermassive’s DBD spinoff game, The Casting of Frank Stone, is getting his own, unique chapter. That’s also slated for next year.

There are a few new collections to get excited about, too. There’s a brand new Iron Maiden collab that celebrates the band’s 50th anniversary alongside DBD’s tenth, as well as a new Ice Nine Kills collection and music video. There are new Legendary Walking Dead outfits (Glenn and Negen), two new Silent Hill outfits (Bubble Head Nurse and Hinako Shimizu), as well as myriad new original skins based on community art contests.

Perhaps my most-anticipated, however, is the Diablo collab, which I’ve been silently praying to Lilith for since Diablo 4 launched. Set to launch in October, it’s paired with a very different collab in the form of Scooby Doo, which I can’t say I’d thought about until now, but I think it just makes sense.

Phew. There are a lot of things happening here. A new and improved DBD experience, a new Survivor, new licensed killers; the list goes on. After a quiet couple of years fixing the game’s underlying infrastructure, Behaviour has come back in style – and it’s set to keep that ball rolling. I got into the nitty gritty with Richards and Ramos in a different interview, where we discussed these gory ten years as a whole; so look out for that. But, until then, there’s a lot for you to digest.