The next chapter in the popular asymmetrical horror game Dead By Daylight will include some Dungeons & Dragons flavor. Developer Behaviour Interactive and D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast have teased a crossover that includes at least one very angry Beholder.
Posted on social media On May 9, the short video shows the iconic monster locked in a dungeon cell and obviously angry about it. After crashing through the bars of its cage and casting a huge, glowering glare across the room, the Beholder fades to black, and the video invites players to wait until May 14 for more information.
It’s no coincidence that this is the date of Dead By Daylight’s eighth anniversary stream, where the developer plans to celebrate and lay out a roadmap for future updates. Killers and Survivors (the two-player roles) typically release as discrete chapters, adding more playable heroes and villains to the competitive game. Teams of four survivors work to restart generators and complete other objectives that will open up an escape route, all while being pursued by a player-controlled Killer whose powers allow them to track down less powerful prey, impale them on meat hooks, and otherwise ruin their plans.
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The Beholder makes sense as a villain – this inherently evil monstrosity is an instantly recognisable facet of the modern D&D brand, while also boasting a wide array of lethal abilities that could carry over into the Dead By Daylight suite. Indeed, Developer Behaviour could draw on any of several Beholder variants, such as the revenant Death Tyrant or the ghostly Doomsphere. Standard Beholders are deadly enough on their own, boasting several beam attacks from their eye stalks and a magic-denying field centred on their colossal central orb.
Fans of both franchises will likely spend the weekend theorizing about the possibility of Baldur's Gate 3 characters being thrown into the bloody arena. Larian Studios may not be involved in the project, but Hasbro owns the intellectual property rights to Karlach, Astarion, Minthara, and all of the other characters from the popular role-playing video game. They've already expressed strong interest in spinning off the beloved cast to make more money for the struggling toy giant, and Hasbro's business model relies heavily on licensing existing properties like Monopoly and D&D.
Behaviour Interactive has cultivated Dead By Daylight’s player base through a combination of constant updates to the game along with an open policy for crossover characters. Both the Xenomorph and Ripley from the Alien franchise are playable, as is Evil Dead’s Ash Williams and the possessed doll Chucky, whose long-running horror series is a staple of the genre. D&D will be the first foray into fantasy (not counting Stranger Things) – and Wizards’ mega-popular tabletop RPG isn’t exactly known for its horror elements – but it’s a timely enough creative handshake. A non-zero number of people will love skewering Gale on those rusty hooks, I just know.