Dead by Daylight celebrates its 10 year anniversary by adding the most sought after horror icon and teasing ‘a sweeping visual overhaul’

Dead by Daylight recently celebrated its 10 year anniversary with a day-long fan event with panels, meet-and-greets, and crucially, a bunch of new announcements as Behaviour Interactive looks to the next 10 years of development.

First off, the headlining news was a recap of Dead by Daylight’s upcoming Chapter and collabs, including the highly sought after horror icon Jason Voorhees who “finally hacks his way into The Fog after a decade of demand.” Jason arrives tomorrow on all platforms.

Then there was another Chapter reveal, although this one is set to be survivor-focussed, as it introduces Shane Wiigwaas, “the game’s first Indigenous Survivor.” Shane will be added later this month on June 25. Later this year Dead by Daylight is also set to get Art the Clown, a Scooby-Doo collection, and the first ever Chapter “developed entirely in collaboration with its community”, among others.

But while these upcoming chapters and collabs are exciting, it’s largely just business as usual, the real excitement comes from Behaviour Interactive’s plans for the future of Dead by Daylight, primarily the upcoming “sweeping visual overhaul.”

“Designed to make every Trial more immersive and emotionally impactful, the update will introduce new character model reworks with expanded animation capabilities, alongside realistic facial animations that bring greater expression and nuance to characters.

“Maps and environments will also receive significant upgrades, including enhanced lighting, shading, and textures, improved Fog and Mist effects, a stronger Entity presence, and, for the first time in Dead by Daylight, dynamic weather systems featuring light rain, heavy rain, and storms.”

You can see how good the new animations look towards the end of the Dead by Daylight broadcast. The assets shown are a work in progress, but even so they look a hell of a lot better. With upgrades to character face models, hair, and expressions: “we can animate the characters in ways we couldn’t before.”

There will also be a ton of new voice lines for Dead by Daylight’s original characters, alongside plans for sandbox modding and “a wider selection of new game modes is also being rolled out in the coming years, with early details for 1v1 mode and zombie mode shared.”

There’s certainly a lot to look forward to for fans of Dead by Daylight, which has only been made possible thanks to its solid last 10 years. “Not only can few live service titles boast such a milestone, but fewer still can claim to have reached it on the heels of back-to-back record setting years, a testament to the game’s enduring popularity.”