Dead by Daylight's creative director would "love to" do more Chapter remakes after All-Kill Comeback

For Dead by Daylight‘s 39th Chapter, it’s taking a different approach to any of the 38 that came before it. Well, that’s somewhat true, because it’s the first case of Behaviour Interactive essentially remaking and building upon an old original Chapter, but naturally that involves treading on some previous ground. All-Kill Comeback sees the return of a fan-favorite Chapter with both reworked and totally new content, and the horror game’s creative director, Dave Richard, hints to PCGamesN that it might not be the last time Behaviour reignites some old flames.

All-Kill: Comeback revives Dead by Daylight’s 19th Chapter, originally released in 2021, and at a convenient time where K-pop is all the rage. As well as reworking All-Kill’s original Killer, the Trickster, this Comeback version features a brand new urban map and Kwon Tae-young, a new Survivor voiced by KPop Demon Hunters star Kevin Woo. It’s not only a nostalgic celebration of a past Chapter, but an opportunity for DBD to extend it and deliver all the content Behaviour wished it could have all those years ago.

“We were inspired to return to Korea because of the fans, really,” Richard tells us in a written interview. “We had been meaning to do a rework of the Trickster for a while, to make him both more interesting to play as and play against. And then there were the constant requests for the map, which we couldn’t do at the time because of bandwidth. And it’s such a rich world, we wanted to go back to it!”

Aside from All-Kill, we ask Richard if there are any other previous, mapless Chapters that the team would like to bring new arenas to. “Yes there are, and while it would be incredible to be able to have all Chapters associated with maps, I sadly can’t promise this,” he says.

As mentioned, the timing of All-Kill Comeback seems perfect, as Korean entertainment has had an increasing global presence. The release of KPop Demon Hunters last year also contributed to a huge spike in awareness and excitement. But Richard assures, even with this Chapter’s ties to Woo, that this was not a calculated plan that aimed to jump on a current, wide-reaching trend.

“I think K-pop has been popular for quite some time and KPop Demon Hunters has just been a massive boost to the genre,” he says. “We started working on this before the movie came out – so it’s truly a happy coincidence. For us we feel privileged to be able to put our horror spin on K-pop. Having worked with Woo as a consultant for All-Kill we knew we wanted to work with him again and the idea of having him voice the new Survivor came to us early on. We’re very grateful that he agreed to it.”

However, despite all the effort that’s been put into the new map, the Trickster rework, and the new Survivor, there has been some disappointment that All-Kill’s original Survivor, Lee Yun-jin, has not been blessed with proper voice work. When All-Kill Comeback drops later this month, she will remain a silent character. “In an ideal world I would love for every character to have voice lines but again I can’t make any promises,” Richard says.

As this is DBD’s first time fully revisiting, reworking, and expanding an existing original Chapter, we’re curious to know if this is part of a new strategy going forward. Is All-Kill Comeback a one-off? Or might we start to see more nostalgia trips sprinkled in among the totally new original Chapters and the licensed ones.

“I personally would love to do it again with more original Chapters as I feel there’s so many stories left to be told,” Richard teases. That’s not a commitment, folks, but if the game’s creative director likes the idea of reinvigorating old storylines, locations, themes, and characters, then you could certainly see a world where more of them happen.

Interview conducted by Danielle Rose.