How Dead by Daylight Summoned Horror's Most Iconic Characters

ign.com:

Dead by Daylight launched in 2016 with a cast of original killers and survivors inspired by the horror archetypes of the 80s golden age of slasher cinema. As the game quickly grew in popularity, developer Behaviour kick-started an ambitious plan to see if they could bring together horror’s most iconic villains under its umbrella, almost like what Fortnite did for pop culture, but specifically for horror.

We spoke to the creative minds behind Dead by Daylight to understand the challenges and journey it took for some of the most iconic crossovers in the game, from Ghost Face to Alien’s Xenomorph, check below to see how some of your favorite horror icons made it into Dead by Daylight.

Behaviour didn’t begin Dead by Daylight with a cast of recognizable faces. Before Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, the studio launched the multiplayer survival horror game with four original killers and five survivors that were created in-house but designed to evoke the style of the iconic 80s horror golden age. “The first originals, these guys up there, were really inspired by obviously the classics of the horror world, the slasher movies of the '70s and the '80s. So for us it was always part of the DNA of what we were building,” says Behaviour’s head of partnerships Matthieu Cote.

The meticulous designs of Dead by Daylight’s original characters spoke to the admiration the developers had for the evil movie creatures of that era. Importantly, they were a hit with those playing the game, and the developers were flooded with fan art and fan fiction all based on these original characters, created by loyal fans hooked on the lore created by Behaviour. But as Dead by Daylight’s popularity began to grow, Behaviour was finally in a position to take a