Dead by Daylight

Dead by Daylight is an online asymmetric multiplayer survival horror video game developed and published by Canadian studio Behaviour Interactive. It is a one-versus-four game in which one player takes on the role of a Killer and the other four play as Survivors; the Killer must hunt and impale each Survivor on sacrificial hooks to appease a malevolent force known as the Entity, while the Survivors have to avoid being caught and power up the exit gates by working together to fix five generators. The game has featured crossovers with many different horror films, television series, and video games.
The game was released for Windows in 2016; PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2017; Nintendo Switch in 2019; Android, iOS, PlayStation 5, Google Stadia, and Xbox Series X/S in 2020; and Steam Deck in 2023. Swedish studio Starbreeze Studios published the game on behalf of Behaviour from 2016 until 2018, when Behaviour bought the publishing rights. Italian company 505 Games publishes the Nintendo Switch version, while Austrian company Deep Silver publishes physical copies for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions. Cross-play was added to the game in 2020 to allow play with people on other platforms, while cross-progression followed in 2024 to allow players with accounts on different platforms to share everything they had unlocked across each account. The game ran on Unreal Engine 4 from 2016 to 2024, when it upgraded to Unreal Engine 5.
Dead by Daylight received mixed reviews upon release, but was a commercial success; it has since attracted more than 60 million players and improved its ratings. In 2023, it was announced that production companies Blumhouse Productions and Atomic Monster had begun developing a film adaptation.
Dead by Daylight is an asymmetrical horror game where one player is the Killer and the other four are Survivors. Matches are referred to as trials. The Survivors' objective is to escape the trial by repairing five of seven generators scattered throughout it to power the two exit gates. The Killer must impale all Survivors on hooks before they escape, which will cause them to be sacrificed to a malevolent force known as the Entity. If only one Survivor remains, an escape hatch opens at a random location on the map; if the Killer closes the hatch or an exit gate is opened, the two-minute "Endgame Collapse" begins, with the timer being extended if there are any incapacitated or hooked Survivors. When the timer ends, any remaining Survivors are immediately sacrificed to the Entity.
When hunting Survivors, the Killer must capture them by either striking them with their weapon twice and picking them up off the ground while they are in the dying state (one strike injures Survivors and a second strikes puts them into the dying state) or by grabbing them in one move by catching them unexpectedly while they interact with objects such as generators. Although Survivors can attempt to pull themselves free of the hook the first time they are impaled, there is only a 4% chance of success and failed attempts lead to a faster death. They can also be saved by other Survivors. If they are hooked a second time, they enter a phase in which they must resist the Entity as it attempts to take them out of the game by performing skill checks until they are either killed or rescued. If they are hooked a third time, they will be sacrificed to the Entity.
The Survivors' movement options consist of sprinting, walking, crouch-walking, or crawling if they are in the dying state. They must elude the Killer by losing their line of sight in a chase or by successfully hiding from them. Most Killers can move at a pace that is moderately faster than that of a sprinting Survivor but are slower in other movements, such as vaulting obstacles, which can buy Survivors time. Survivors can throw down wooden pallets placed at key locations on the map, and if the Killer is close enough to the pallet when the Survivor throws it down, they will be stunned for a brief moment. The Survivor can then vault over the downed pallet, but most Killers cannot, and must either spend time to break the pallet or go around it. The Killer also has an aura-reading ability, constantly revealing the location of generators, hooks, and sometimes Survivors. Every Killer has their own unique power that can be altered using add-ons obtained through gameplay. A significant amount of the gameplay revolves around chases, with Survivors using their environment and wits to outmanoeuvre the Killer and escape them or at least buy time for their allies to complete objectives.
Survivors can unlock chests to find useful items or bring items at the start of the trial, such as maps that highlight the locations of objectives, keys that can be used for certain aura-reading abilities or re-opening a closed escape hatch, toolboxes for quicker generator repairs, med-kits for quicker healing, and flashlights that can be used to blind the Killer temporarily; the latter, if the Killer is carrying a Survivor, will let that Survivor escape. All Killers have an innate "terror radius" that surrounds them, although the size of the terror radius varies depending on the Killer, the state of the Killer's power, and what add-ons or perks they may have. Survivors inside the radius will hear a heartbeat, which increases in intensity with proximity to the Killer. They can also see a red light called the "red stain" emanating from the Killer's head onto the ground, which reveals the direction they are facing and can help the Survivors determine when the Killer is about to come around a corner. Some Killers have the ability to suppress their terror radius and red stain under certain conditions, enabling them to surprise unaware Survivors.
Survivor interactions with many objects in the game can trigger random skill checks. The player can either perform a good skill check which has no additional effect, a great skill check which speeds up the progression of the action the player is taking, or a failed skill check which usually notifies the Killer of the Survivor's location and may also cause a loss of progress. Great skill checks require more precision, and may not always be possible depending on the type of interaction or the perks being used by either the Survivor or the Killer. Killers have the ability to damage generators, which will slightly regress their repair progress and continue regressing progress slowly until a Survivor resumes repairing it for at least a few seconds, and may trigger certain perks.
If the Killer catches a Survivor, the Killer can pick them up and carry them to one of many sacrificial hooks scattered throughout the map. While being carried, the Survivor can attempt to wiggle out of the Killer's grasp by successfully hitting consecutive skill checks before they reach the hook. When a Survivor is hooked, they gain a hook stage up to a maximum of three stages; when they are hooked for the first time, they can wait to be rescued or attempt to unhook themselves. If they are left too long or hooked again, they will progress to the second stage, during which they have to succeed at skill checks before another Survivor rescues them. If a Survivor is hooked a third time or left long enough to progress to the third stage, they are sacrificed and removed from the match.
Once five generators are repaired, the exit gates are powered, allowing Survivors to open the gates and escape from the match. The game only ends when all Survivors have either escaped or died; thus, while some Survivors may escape and finish early, those still inside must keep playing. Players who have escaped or died have the ability to cycle through the remaining players' points of view as a spectator or return to the main menu.
If only one Survivor remains, repairing generators is typically not practical. When the other three Survivors have escaped or have died, an escape hatch will appear somewhere throughout the map. If the Survivor finds this hatch first, they may escape through it, but if the Killer finds it first, then they can close it. If the Killer closes the hatch, the exit gates become powered as though the generator objective was completed, allowing the remaining Survivor a way to escape the trial.
Survivors and Killers each have the option to use up to four perks in their loadout, which gives their characters special abilities. Perks differ between Survivors and Killers; a Survivor perk may not be used by Killers and vice versa. Examples of Survivor perks include a burst of speed when running from the Killer, the ability to self-heal without a med-kit, briefly sabotaging sacrificial hooks without a toolbox, and many more. Examples of Killer perks include seeing Survivors through walls, hindering the effects of struggling Survivors while taking them to a hook, preventing generators from being worked on, regressing generators, speeding up the recovery from a missed basic attack, and many more.
There are a number of "general perks" that start unlocked for any character to learn. Additionally, each specific character starts off with a set of three perks that are unique to them. Perks, add-ons, and items can be unlocked through the Bloodweb, a skill tree where each character can spend in-game currency. Advancing to level 50 in a character's Bloodweb allows the player to "prestige" that particular character. Doing so resets the character back to level 1 and unlocks the next tier (level) of the character's unique perks to every other character owned of the same role if there is a higher tier.
A group of four Survivors must elude one Killer obsessed with sacrificing them on hooks to a malevolent being called the Entity. The Survivors' perspectives are third-person, while most Killer's perspectives are first-person. The Survivors can only fight back by stunning the Killer or using items such as flashlights to blind them. Survivors can also vault over obstacles much faster than the Killer, providing a means of escape. Survivors use these obstacles and tools to help them elude the Killer for as long as they can. In order to escape, Survivors must repair five of the seven generators scattered across the map to power up the exit gates. They must then open the exit gates and escape through them; the final Survivor may also find an unmarked escape hatch to jump into, though the hatch can be shut if the Killer finds it first. Repairing generators can be made quicker with items such as toolboxes, or if the player repairs a generator alongside other Survivors, or if certain perks are equipped to help the process along.
The Entity, an eldritch horror that exists between dimensions, is attracted to actions of great violence and malice. The majority of Killers, most of whom are serial murderers or victims of terrible tragedy, are pulled out of reality by the Entity and convinced or forced to do its bidding. In order to maintain its existence, the Entity requires sacrifices and demands that they hunt and kill the Survivors so it can feed off their emotions and steal a piece of their souls upon death. In order to continue this hunt, the Entity blocks off the gateways of death and puts the Survivors into a dreamlike state that leads them back to the Entity's purgatory-esque world to get hunted again.
The Survivors are pulled into the Entity's constructed world when they wander into the woods or explore abandoned buildings, disappearing from the real world without a trace. More recent Survivors have entered through other methods such as being taken right before they die or sending themselves there using witchcraft. They end up at a campfire in the woods, where they rest between trials until a Killer pursues them again. Each trial takes place in a series of realms constructed by the Entity of areas related to each Killer's history. Escaping from the grounds always takes the Survivors back to the campfire, and offerings can be created to be burnt at it and appeal to the Entity. Since the Entity feeds off of Survivors' hopes of escaping, it helps them just as much as it helps Killers, acting as an impartial observer of the hunt and stepping in only to claim those successfully sacrificed to it.
Each original Survivor and Killer also has their own individual backstory which explains their personality and their unique abilities, along with how they end up in the realm of the Entity. These backstories are expanded in "Tomes" where completing in-game challenges unlocks more information. These Tomes are released every few months alongside a battle pass known as "The Rift".
As of April 2025, the game has featured 42 individual DLC releases in total. Most DLC releases include both a new Survivor and Killer, except for eleven where only one character was introduced and four where three characters were introduced. 24 of the DLCs released have also introduced new maps that are accessible to all players. The DLCs can be acquired by either purchasing them with money or in the in-game store which was added to the game in June 2018. Non-licensed characters and cosmetic items can be purchased for free using an in-game currency called iridescent shards, also added to the game in June 2018. Three DLCs (The Last Breath, Left Behind, and A Lullaby for the Dark) have been distributed for free. Prior to the release of every DLC since Curtain Call, a Public Test Build (PTB) becomes available to players on PC, which allows the developers to test new content and receive community feedback on major upcoming changes.
Alongside original characters, the game licenses characters and settings from several different franchises. 20 of the currently released DLCs have featured licensed Killers and Survivors from films, television, and other video games. The game's success has been attributed, at least in part, to the game's collaborations with these franchises, being nicknamed the "hall of fame of horror" due to its wide cast of horror icons from popular media.
In addition to DLCs, other collaborations have resulted in purely cosmetic items being added to existing characters. Collaborations with Crypt TV, Attack on Titan, and Junji Ito added cosmetic items to original characters in order to make them resemble characters from those franchises. Cosmetic items have also been added from video game franchises such as For Honor, Meet Your Maker, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Rainbow Six Siege, and Naughty Bear. Collaborations with real people have resulted in cosmetic items inspired by heavy metal bands Iron Maiden and Slipknot, as well as actor Nicolas Cage being a playable Survivor.
In August 2021, Behaviour announced that the Stranger Things DLC (including individual characters from the DLC and their cosmetics) would no longer be available for purchase after November 17 and that the Hawkins National Laboratory map would be removed from rotation. All characters from the DLC, as well as their cosmetics, remained usable by players who purchased them before the removal date. No official reason was given for the chapter's removal; observers hypothesized that Netflix, the owner of the Stranger Things license, decided to not renew the license for the game with Behavior due to its focus on their own Netflix Games brand. All Stranger Things content returned to the game in a surprise move on November 6, 2023.
In October 2021, NFT company Boss Protocol released an NFT using the Pinhead character model from Dead by Daylight. This led to criticism from players, with the DLC being review bombed to a "Mostly Negative" rating on Steam. However, Behaviour later clarified that it had agreed to give access to the Pinhead character model to anyone who held the rights to Pinhead, and that Boss Protocol had subsequently created the NFT without Behaviour's involvement. Two months later, Boss Protocol lost the rights back to English author Clive Barker, who created the character. Doug Bradley reprised the role of Pinhead for the game. Due to licensing issues, all Hellraiser content was removed from the game on April 4, 2025. Pinhead and his Chatterer cosmetic are still available to players who purchased them before this date.
Cosmetic items from Attack on Titan were added to the game in July 2022 and removed from the in-game store in July 2023.
† This symbol denotes DLCs that unveiled licensed characters.
Notes
Dead by Daylight received "mixed or average reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic. GameSpot awarded it a score of 9 out of 10, saying, "At launch, Dead by Daylight suffered because of its reliance on peer-to-peer hosting and absent social features, but over time it rectified these issues. And while a brief and premature tussle with skill-based matchmaking turned the new player experience into a bit of a horror show (a problem which is now [was] fixed), thanks to its community of players Dead by Daylight is without peer in the asymmetrical competitive multiplayer arena, and has grown into one of the most robust horror experiences around." Luke Winkie of PC Gamer awarded it a score of 88 out of 100, saying, "In the five years since Behaviour Interactive released Dead by Daylight on Steam, the game has developed razor-sharp mechanical intrigue, an ultra-complex web of versatile builds and strategies, and a diverse suite of characters, each equipped with relative strengths and weaknesses."
During its first week, Dead by Daylight sold more than 270,000 copies. The game sold more than 1 million copies within 2 months. On November 16, 2017, more than 3 million copies were sold. As of May 2019, the game sold more than 5 million copies. In August 2020, the game reached more than 25 million players across all platforms. This number reached 36 million by May 2021, 50 million by May 2022, and 60 million by November 2023.
Due to Behaviour catering to Japanese players with the release of Japanese-themed chapters and expanding the lore of its in-game universe, which Japanese gamers tend to favor, Japan has become one of the biggest markets for the game. The Entity Café, a Dead by Daylight-themed café, opened on the fourth floor of the Tokyo Skytree in August 2021.
Original Dead by Daylight characters and items have appeared in other video games. In Payday 2, Dead by Daylight initially launched with an optional "Deluxe Edition" for an additional price which granted cosmetics for Payday 2 as well as a discount for Payday 2 owners who pre-ordered the game. The Ubisoft fighting game For Honor featured a crossover event called "Survivors of the Fog" from October 21 to November 11, 2021, which featured Dead by Daylight-inspired cosmetic items and a limited-time game mode that featured the Trapper as an AI-controlled enemy. From October 21 to November 7, 2022, PUBG: Battlegrounds featured a crossover event with Dead by Daylight which saw the traditionally battle royale game introduce a new mode in which players would repair generators and escape from the killer, alongside cosmetics that emulate certain survivors and killers from the game. The mobile port of Battlegrounds, New State Mobile, also received a similar event. By playing at least one match of the special PUBG game mode, players were given a unique code to unlock cosmetics in Dead by Daylight. Other video games in which Dead by Daylight characters or cosmetic items inspired by the game appeared were Deathgarden, Meet Your Maker, Move or Die, Rainbow Six Siege, and Balatro.
On June 19, 2019, Behaviour Interactive Inc. announced the plan to release Dead by Daylight on iOS and Android for free in an attempt to make the game more accessible to players around the world. A different development team was formed that was fully dedicated to optimizing the game for the mobile experience. Dead by Daylight Mobile was initially slated for launch in 2019, however the developers had to push the release to 2020, citing their need for more time to work on bugs and optimize. On February 27, 2019, Behaviour announced that the mobile versions will be published by Chinese video game publisher NetEase Games in Southeast Asia, Japan, and Korea. It was released in EMEA, the Americas, and South Asia on April 16, 2020. In December 2022, Behaviour Interactive announced that an improved global version was being co-developed by Behaviour and NetEase Games. The old global version was removed from mobile storefronts on December 16, 2022 and the improved global version released on March 15, 2023, after being delayed from a February 2023 planned release. This new version included enhanced graphics and would come to feature exclusive game modes, features, and skins only available in the mobile version of the game.
In its 48 hours of release, Dead by Daylight Mobile outnumbered 1 million downloads. By October 2020, the game surpassed 10 million downloads. By May 2022, the game reached 25 million downloads. The game was banned by the government of India in March 2023. In December 2024, NetEase announced that Dead by Daylight Mobile would permanently shut down by March 2025.
Hooked on You: A Dead by Daylight Dating Sim is a visual novel dating simulator game released on August 3, 2022. The parodic game is developed by Psyop and allows the player to date four of Dead by Daylight's original Killers, the Trapper, the Huntress, the Wraith, and the Spirit, guided by original Survivors such as Dwight and Claudette.
What the Fog is a co-op roguelike game released on May 14, 2024, after being revealed the same day. Following original survivors Dwight, Claudette, and Feng Min, players must defeat enemies in order to power up generators and escape. The game was released for free for those with an account on Behavior.com or was made purchasable through Steam.
The Casting of Frank Stone is a single-player interactive drama horror game released on September 3, 2024. The game is developed by Supermassive Games, known for developing similar interactive horror games including Until Dawn, The Quarry, and The Dark Pictures Anthology. Featuring a branching narrative, players follow the stories of different characters set across multiple time periods, all centering around the killer Frank Stone and the paranormal Entity.
An untitled spin-off game was announced on May 19, 2023, described as a four-player co-op PvE experience "centered around greed and the lust for power." Midwinter Entertainment, a Seattle-studio Behavior Interactive acquired in May 2022, was developing the game. On May 14, 2024, the game's working title was revealed as Project T along with development footage revealing the game as a third person shooter. Limited playtests were held during the summer of that year. On September 17, 2024, it was announced that Project T had been canceled following "unsatisfactory" results from the prior playtests. The same day, Behavior Interactive announced that Midwinter Entertainment was closing.
Zen Studios released a Dead by Daylight pinball table for Pinball M on November 30, 2023. Players can choose to play as either killer or survivor, with 4 survivors to choose from.
A board game adaptation, Dead by Daylight: The Board Game, was created by Level 99 Games and distributed by Asmodee in the United States. Featuring original characters up through the All Kill chapter from the original video game, one player takes on the role of the killer and two to four players take on the role of survivors. Players use perks, items, props, and powers to traverse the map in order to either repair generators and escape or hunt down and kill the survivors. Following a successful fundraising campaign on Kickstarter, the game was released on April 7, 2023. An expansion for the board game was announced on May 14, 2024, which adds further playable characters and mechanics.
On October 29, 2022, Behaviour Interactive tweeted an announcement for a comic series featuring the four members of The Legion, which details more of their backstory. It is published by Titan Comics, written by Nadia Shammas, illustrated by Dillon Snook, and colored by Emilio Lecce. The first issue was released on June 14, 2023. and the fourth and final issue released on March 6, 2024. Each issue follows a member of The Legion.
In March 2023, it was reported by Variety that Jason Blum and James Wan were producing a film adaptation through their Blumhouse Productions and Atomic Monster banners, respectively alongside Behaviour Interactive. In a January 2024 interview, executive producer Ryan Turek commented that the film would be informed by lessons learned from the studio's recent Five Nights at Freddy's film adaptation and to prioritize making "a video game adaptation for the fans". Jason Blum commented in October 2024 that the script was actively being developed, but that "it could be five years, it could be twelve months" until a script was completed.