Developed by Montreal studio Behavior Interactive, the multiplayer horror game Dead by Daylight is one of the most popular in its category worldwide, with more than 50 million users.
“The Dead by Daylight universe is a metaverse that allows us to create characters here, but also licensed characters,” explained Dave Richard, the game’s creative director.
Mathieu Côté, Head of Partnerships at Behavior Interactif, makes no secret of it: The overwhelming success of Dead by Daylight has literally transformed the company.
“When we released Dead by Daylight in 2016, there were about thirty people working on it. Today, more than 350 people work on the project every day,” he said.
Pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable
Characters being impaled on meat hooks, others being cut up with machetes, the game has no shortage of bloody and graphic scenes.
But how far can we push the horror? Dave Richard and his team have looked into the topic.
“There is definitely a maximum that we want to aim for. For example, we said to ourselves that there would be no violence against children in the game because that was not part of our values,” explained the creative director.
While he mentions that players’ opinions are always taken into account when it comes to depicting gory scenes or horrific characters in the game, Mr. Richard leaves the final word to himself.
“Sometimes it’s more interesting to go beyond a certain limit and give players something they want to see, even if some are against it,” he said.
Further details can be found in the adjacent report by François Breton-Champigny.