Dead By Daylight has been a powerhouse on Steam for over a year now, and just yesterday it launched officially on the XBOX One and PS4 in North America (EU is later this week). We sent over some questions to Behaviour Interactive’s own Mathieu Cote, Lead Designer on Dead By Daylight, to discuss the game’s past, present, and future… including info on a possible Switch version down the line.
Dead by Daylight has been a massive, sort of cult-like success on the PC. What do you attribute this to?
One of the most important factors in Dead by Daylight’s intense following came from the undeniable fact that it makes for a good show. For a lot of Twitch streamers and YouTubers, it meant a game that they had a lot of fun playing and that attracted a lot of viewers. The reason behind that is simple: The game’s core gameplay and the style were aimed at creating real, genuine tension in the players. The uncertainty of the procedural map, the unknown of strangers playing against strangers and the very different killer powers all contribute to making sure that even after hundreds of hours of gameplay, you’re still surprised and your heartbeat still goes up.
This is further intensified by our theme, our lore, which is directly inspired by the old-school slasher movies of the 80’s. These movies were built on creating tension through anticipation and suggestions of violence rather than graphic, explicit scenes. We took that at heart and made sure the core of the experience is in the hide and seek game, the chases and narrow escapes, the last-minute, heroic saves and the killer grabbing you just when you thought you were safe.
In a very real sense, we also created two completely different games. When you decide if you’re going to be a killer or a survivor, you embark on a path that is unique to that experience.
Will there be cross-platform play at all, perhaps between XBOX and PC?
Not at launch, but it is something we’re considering.
What content will be included in the console versions? All of it, some of it? How will DLC, current and future be handled?
The console version is a very special edition. It comes packaged with the full original game along with 3 chapters: The last breath, Of flesh and mud and The spark of madness. It also includes the two cosmetic packs : The 80’s suitcase and The bloodstained sack.
The Halloween chapter will be coming soon!
Will Dead by Daylight take advantage of any PS4 Pro features, or the new Xbox One X features?
Obviously these consoles will play Dead by Daylight but the timing of our console port development did not allow us to investigate the specific features offered by these new consoles.
What’s was the hardest part of porting the game to consoles?
The hardest part was also a great opportunity for us. We had to redo all of our UI and menus to support the controller navigation. Since we had to go over every element of every screen, we took the time to overhaul the whole flow. A year after launch on PC, we had a much better understanding of the way players used the menus, of what they wanted to see and how they wanted to interact with it.
The work we did for consoles was put into the PC game as well since we all felt that this new menu and UI setup was such a big improvement over the original one.
What was the best thing about doing so? No lame excuse about “more people to play” either!
Since launch last year, the most requested thing has been for a console version of the game. We know that a lot of people enjoy watching the game on Youtube and Twitch but never played it themselves. Many of them couldn’t because they do not have a PC to run it. Now there’s no excuse!
On top of that, the game has always supported playing on the controller. There are vigorous discussions online about which control scheme is better between that and a mouse and keyboard, but we know, looking at our stats, that there really isn’t that much difference. The best players are good because of strategies and tactics.
Any chance you ever see DbD heading to the Switch?
It’s not part of our plan for now, but we’re not closing any door.
