Interview: Dead By Daylight Could Have Been A Competitive Title Like League Of Legends

Mathieu: Hi! I’m Mathieu Côté, and I’ve been with Behaviour Interactive for over 14 years now. I was the Producer of Dead by Daylight from day one until about the first year after launch. Today I am Head of Partnerships and my focus is on licenses and partnerships for the game. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be able to expand the Dead by Daylight universe year after year, it’s truly been amazing to watch our universe blend with others’ and evolve over time.

Mathieu: The Resident Evil collaboration was an important one, in my opinion. It’s one of the biggest horror franchises in gaming, with a huge, dedicated fanbase, and bringing its iconic characters and lore into Dead by Daylight brought in a whole new audience. The Stranger Things chapter also stands out to me—it was our first time working with something so current and trending. The 80s nostalgia and supernatural elements fit Dead by Daylight’s horror style perfectly, and I think that one also attracted new players.

Mathieu: It was a bit more challenging in the beginning, to be honest. Even though Dead by Daylight was well received, we didn’t yet have the track record of successful collaborations that we do today. But we were fortunate enough to have Behaviour’s extensive history of working with major IP holders as part of our work-for-hire business. The relationships that we had built definitely helped pave the way. Our team proved that we could handle these other companies’ IPs with care and respect, and as we kept proving that time and time again, it became easier to bring in more iconic franchises to our universe.

Mathieu: There was a point when we could’ve leaned into a more competitive direction, something close to what you see in games like League of Legends or sports games — with very structured, competitive gameplay. You can now tell that this isn’t the direction we went for, as we felt that embracing the chaotic, blurrier style made more sense for us! We wanted the experience to feel unpredictable and keep players on their toes. 

Mathieu: One name I keep talking about, and that is often brought up, is Stephen King. Needless to say, his contribution to the horror genre is incredible, and introducing his work in Dead by Daylight would be so much fun. There’s a lot of potential there. 

Mathieu: We don’t see an end to Dead by Daylight. As long as there are players who want to experience this world, we’ll keep creating and enhancing it. Whenever we expand the story, we aim to leave a few questions unanswered so there’s always something to pull and explore further. It’s all about evolving alongside our players.

Mathieu: I did say that, and it still stands! Right now, creating a sequel doesn’t make sense for us because we’d essentially be competing with ourselves. No other game has accomplished what Dead by Daylight has, so instead of starting over, we prefer focusing on improving the game we created. We also want to make sure that people can continue to enjoy the large amount of content that many of them have bought. We would prefer they do not have to buy it again. 

Mathieu: We did experiment with other live-service games before, like Deathgarden and Meet Your Maker. These games might not have found their audiences, but you can definitely expect to see new games from us in the future. Some connected to the world of Dead by Daylight, and others that explore entirely new ideas. They could be live-service games or a different approach altogether!

Mathieu: The response to 2v8 mode has been so fun to see! It was something we wanted to experiment with, and it was great to see we found a format that our players enjoyed right away. Nothing is set in stone regarding if 2v8 will become a permanent addition to the game, but we’re currently working on tweaks to make it as fun and balanced as possible. If it does become a permanent mode, we’ll keep fine-tuning it based on player feedback, just as we do with other aspects of the game. 

Mathieu: This one is a bit tricky to answer because some licensed characters are already in line to join the 2v8 mode, The goal is to eventually bring as many of our killers, licensed and originals as possible. At this point, it’s more of a matter of tweaking the powers and making them coherent and fun with this new game mode.

Mathieu: We always have exciting stuff going on! Before the end of 2024, we have a collaboration with the Boulet Brothers and an entire Dragula episode dedicated to Dead by Daylight airing. We also have an original Chapter releasing with a new Killer, Survivor and map being added to the game.

As of 2025, we already announced that the long-awaited franchise Five Nights at Freddy’s would be brought in Dead by Daylight. That’s all I can share for now, but fans can expect other major announcements coming, as usual!

Mathieu: Just a big thank you to our community. Dead by Daylight wouldn’t be what it is without our players — they’re truly the reason we keep pushing ourselves to do better. It’s been an incredible journey, and it’s far from over. We’ve got a lot more in store, so stay tuned!