Dead By Daylight's Sprawling Horror-verse Expanding With D&D And Castlevania
Believe it or not folks, the asymmetric horror multiplayer game Dead by Daylight is somehow eight years old. Over the years, the game has swallowed multiple horror properties into it, such as Scream, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and more. Today, as it celebrated eight long years, developer Behaviour Interactive hosted a livestream chock full of announcements, including teases of the roadmap for the year ahead. Chief among today’s news was the next season’s Dungeons & Dragons theme, the unveiling of an upcoming Castlevania collaboration later this year, and the announcement that cross-progression would finally be arriving to the game.
Dead by Daylight’s upcoming season, which kicks off on June 6, will be based on Dungeons & Dragons, which has seen quite the resurgence over the past decade thanks to the likes of Stranger Things and Critical Role, and is apparently more popular and profitable than ever if Baldur’s Gate 3 is any indication. As part of the season, the game will get a new survivor, killer, and map ripped straight from the popular tabletop RPG.
As a survivor, Dead by Daylight players will be able to play as the Bard Aestri Yazar, who comes to the game with their own set of D&D-inspired perks based on the Bard class. These perks include the ability to use Bardic Inspiration to empower other nearby survivors, and Mirrored Illusion, which allows the Bard survivor to cast a static copy of themselves in certain situations in order to trick the killer. They’re no Nicolas Cage, but they’ll do.
Dead by Daylight’s newest killer, meanwhile, is none other than Vecna, the archlich who’s also grown immensely popular in recent years, thanks to their inclusion in the penultimate season of Stranger Things a few years ago. Playing as the Lich killer, you’ll be able to use up to four spells that have been adapted from D&D, including Mage Hand, Fly, Flight of the Damned, and Dispelling Sphere.
As a defense against this immensely powerful creature, survivors will be able to stumble upon treasure chests on the map that grant them up to two pieces of magical armor: a pair of gauntlets and a pair of boots. Each of these items responds to the usage of one of Vecna’s spells and specifically reveals the aura of the killer or things the killer affected with the spells. Occasionally, survivors may stumble upon the hand or eye of Vecna, which are even rarer items that give them an advantage over the killer.
Though Dead by Daylight’s D&D chapter will fully launch later in June, players can begin toying around with many of the new season’s features and additions in the playable test build server beginning now.
Incredibly, that wasn’t the only new expansion to Dead by Daylight that was teased. Behaviour Interactive also announced that one of its upcoming licensed chapters later in the summer would be focused on Konami’s wildly collaborative Castlevania franchise. The developers didn’t offer much more than a teaser trailer that featured the series’ big bad, Dracula, set against the iconic silhouette of the titular castle before transforming into a swarm of ravenous bats, which could be a tease of his abilities when he undoubtedly comes to the game as a killer. Behaviour says it will talk about the Castlevania chapter beginning August 6.
So comes the very night incarnate, accursed and ravenous.
Learn more on August 6. pic.twitter.com/f9Xgk87d10— Dead by Daylight (@DeadbyDaylight) May 14, 2024
Besides these major content additions, Behaviour is also updating numerous aspects of Dead by Daylight, including killers, perks, and maps, but the biggest change on the horizon is the inclusion of cross-progression. The much-demanded feature, which is a staple of many live-service games across various platforms these days, will be arriving later in the summer. Players wanting to take advantage of cross-progression will be required to have at least the base game on their desired platforms and a Behaviour account.
Behaviour is currently working on six planned chapters for Dead by Daylight’s ninth year, several in-game events, a new 2v8 mode coming in July, a narrative game in the DbD universe jointly developed with Supermassive Games (Until Dawn) called The Casting of Frank Stone, and apparently even more. It seems apparent to me that if you love all things horror, Dead By Daylight is probably the game for you. Considering it’s now made it eight years, who’s to say it won’t be around for another eight?
