Behaviour Interactive’s Dead by Daylight 8th Anniversary livestream event included gameplay reveals and incredible news for Dead by Daylight fans from start to finish. There’s a lot to go through, but I’ve got you covered if you just want the highlights.
Every year since the 3rd anniversary of Dead by Daylight, Behaviour Interactive has held an anniversary stream to celebrate the community, tease upcoming Chapters, events, and changes, and give something back to the players. This year is probably the best I’ve ever seen, as a fan who has been playing since the game’s initial console release in 2017, though it had been out on PC for a year before that. Regardless of whether you’re a long-time player or brand-new to Dead by Daylight, there’s a reason to be excited as we enter its ninth year.
All Dead by Daylight 8th Anniversary announcements
The Dead by Daylight 8th Anniversary livestream featured a lot of amazing reveals and is worth watching so you get to see the new content and reveals in action. I’ve listed each one below so you don’t miss anything coming to the Dead by Daylight universe this year.
Dead by Daylight cross-progression
At long last, Behaviour Interactive will bring cross-progression to Dead by Daylight. Players will need to own a copy of the base game on the platforms where they wish to play, and then they’ll be able to use their Behaviour Interactive account to continue playing on their account anywhere they own a copy.
Cross-progression will come to Dead by Daylight later in summer 2024, and there will be a few limitations. However, the developer hasn’t explained what those limitations will be just yet. We’ll need to wait until closer to the feature’s launch to find out exactly what will be accessible across every platform. In the meantime, it’s worth getting a Behaviour Interactive account so that you don’t miss out on this when it launches.
Dead by Daylight 2v8 Mode
Behaviour Interactive blew me away with the announcement of its upcoming 2v8 game mode for Dead by Dyalight. It’s exactly what it sounds like: 2 Killers and 8 Survivors going head-to-head in a chaotic Trial where generators still need to be repaired, sacrifices must be made, and there’s blood everywhere.
This game mode will be a time-limited event towards the end of this summer but is being built to become a permanent game mode eventually. It’ll only have the five basic Killers Dead by Daylight was initially released with at first; The Trapper, The Wraith, The Nurse, The Hillbilly, and The Huntress. More will be added over time.
The maps for this game mode are being enlarged to make them feel as big as the number of players in them. They’ll have new paths and points of interest to ensure they never get stale too. One key change that will keep the pace up is that there are no hooks in 2v8. Instead, Killers will perform an attack to transport Survivors in the Dying State to a new type of cage that The Entity is using elsewhere on the map. Survivors can still rescue each other, but the hook states will still apply when it comes to how many chances you have before you’re worm food.
This mode is designed to be more cooperative than basic Trials. As such, players pick a class when playing as Survivors instead of using specific Perks. This ensures a steady loadout, but also forces you to play to your class strengths and help the team.
The big change for Killers is how their abilities will impact each other. Any effects an ability applies to one Killer will apply to the other if they’re close enough, which could let them double up with their own ability and attack Survivors in unexpected ways. Hopefully, this will finally make The Nurse playable for me.
Dead by Daylight 8th Anniversary in-game celebrations and Year 9 roadmap
Behaviour Interactive gave fans a look at what’s to come in Dead by Daylight‘s Year 9 roadmap. It should give all fans a decent idea of when new Chapters, events, Tomes, and more are planned. The developer also explained that in-game celebrations fans can take part in are part of how it’s giving back to the community for the game’s 8th anniversary.
A new in-game challenge system will be added to the game this year, giving players a way to progress challenges passively. These challenges will be simple at first but build up to increase rewards for those who work through every Tome pretty quickly and end up running out of challenges to keep them busy.
The Before the Masquerade event began today after the livestream. It features free in-game cosmetics for players to earn just from launching the game, as well as boosts for rewards earned from specific maps over the course of the next few weeks. Once it ends, the Twisted Masquerade event will begin in June 2024, marking the first in-game event of the year and a chance to experience the most complex event game mode I’ve ever seen in Dead by Daylight.
Dead by Daylight Chapter 32: Dungeons & Dragons
We now have a lot more information on Dead by Daylight Chapter 32: Dungeons & Dragons, which was teased last week. As many fans suspected, this Chapter adds Vecna from D&D, a character who has grown in power to pretty much become the ultimate being within that universe. He’s nothing compared to The Entity, though, and now he’s trapped in a realm that D&D fans will find familiar.
The Chapter adds Vecna as a new Killer along with a new map, Forgotten Ruins. It features a large tower that Survivors will venture into to explore a vast dungeon beneath the surface. Critical Role’s Matt Mercer voices the necromancer, so if you think you recognize what’s left of Vecna’s vocal cords, you do.
Vecna’s Perks, which are based on D&D spells, are as follows.
- Fly: The Killer can float for a short time and pass through obstacles.
- Flight of the Damned: Summons spectral entities that pass through objects and harm those they touch.
- Mage Hand: Casts a spectral hand that can block tasks like using pallets.
- Dispelling Sphere: Casts a moving, magical sphere that dispels magical items and detects Survivors.
The most exciting thing about this Chapter is how it twists the traditional Dead by Daylight Trial formula. There are skill hooks to hang Survivors on and generators to repair, but there’s so much more to the game when facing Vecna. For example, this Killer causes 4 chests to spawn around the map, and players will roll a dice when they open them.
The dice rolls dictate whether they get a magical or a basic item. Magical items provide certain buffs to Survivors, but it’s the critical success rolls they want. These rolls award cursed items. The eye of Vecna allows you to become invisible after leaving a locker, while the Hand of Vecna lets you teleport between lockers, and, if you’re incredibly lucky, you can combine them both to dominate the Killer. These have a caveat, though, costing you a health state when you get them.
Critical failures are also possible, and they’ll punish players in unexpected ways. I’m already getting flashbacks of The Cenotaph teleporting to me as its hooks hold me in place, and I wonder how Vecna could be worse.
Survivors can fight back against Vecna by taking on the role of two new Bard characters. These are the elf Aestri Yazar, who is the new Survivor for the Chapter, and the human Baermar Uraz. It’s important to note that while Aestri is the new Survivor, Baermar is another character in the game, but you’ll swap between the two using cosmetics.
This Survivor enters the game with three Perks to help the party avoid being sacrificed by Vecna. These are as follows:
- Mirrored Illusion: Spawns a static copy of a Survivor in front of a chest, generator, totem, or exit gate for a short time.
- Bardic Inspiration: Play a song to cause all Survivors to roll a D20 and perform a skill check to receive a buff.
- Still Sight: When not in motion, you can briefly see the auras of Survivors near generators, totems, and chests.
This Chapter is live right now in the Dead by Daylight PTB. It’ll be released for all players on June 3, 2024, meaning you have very little time to wait until you can combine the horrific world of Dead by Daylight with the deep fantasy of D&D.
I also want to add that in a press event before the livestream, Behaviour Interactive’s Mathieu Cote confirmed that, sadly, no D&D one-shot is currently planned for the TTRPG. But it’s not off the table. It’s just not been discussed.
Project T revealed with playtests sign ups now live
For one segment of the livestream, Behaviour Interactive handed things over to Midwinter Entertainment to discuss Project T. This game is a shared world third-person shooter set in the same universe as Dead by Daylight. In it, players become Trespassers in The Backwater, a horrific realm of The Entity where a race of monsters called The Thrall tries to kill anything that enters.
Players will need to work together to complete objectives in The Backwater and escape alive. To do this, they’ll need to collect the best guns available and defend themselves while half the team tackles an objective and the other half deals with The Thrall.
Project T is still in the very early stages of development, but Midwinter Entertainment has invited all fans to join its Insider Program. Those signed up will receive invitations to playtests on PC and, eventually, console, and exclusive rewards will be available to those who contribute feedback to help shape the game.
New trailer for The Casting of Frank Stone
A new trailer trailer for Supermassive Games’ The Casting of Frank Stone revealed a lot more about the story than ever before. While it’s still a little unclear, we do now know we’ll be playing as a group of teenagers who all head to an incredibly dangerous abandoned industrial site to create a movie.
There seems to be some degree of time manipulation going on, but it’s hard to tell how this works from the trailer alone. During a press event before the livestream, Supermassive Games explained how player choices will matter a lot as they play. One choice could see characters live or die, and entire sections of the game can be missed or explored based on simple interactions.
In addition to being akin to an interactive movie with QTEs like Until Dawn, The Casting of Frank Stone will also include puzzles to solve throughout. the developer couldn’t tell us more about these, but they can also impact the story, so it sounds like you can completely mess up and still continue through to a conclusion regardless of whether you complete a puzzle, get it wrong, or even ignore it.
What the Fog announced and released for free
As a thank you to all Dead by Daylight fans, Behaviour Interactive has built, announced, and released a game called What the Fog, and it’s free on PC right now. Anyone with a Behaviour Interactive account can claim it and begin playing this cute little co-op shooter set in the same universe on Steam today. If you don’t have one, sign up now to get it before it costs you $4.99/£4.99.
Dead by Daylight heads to Castlevania
Finally, Behaviour Interactive dropped a short teaser for an upcoming Chapter, Dead by Daylight X Castlevania. Not much more was detailed, but it’s likely this will include a new Killer and Survivor.
That’s super exciting to me, because I remember playing the Castlevania games when they were 2D, pixels, and imagination. More information will be revealed on August 6, 2024, so there really isn’t that long to wait.
