Editorials
Examining the Enduring Appeal of Multiplayer Slasher Game ‘Dead By Daylight’
In the summer of 2016, Behaviour Interactive released Dead By Daylight, a game that would become one of the most well-known in the survival-horror genre (arguably taking Evolve‘s formula to the next level). It offered a unique multiplayer gameplay paradigm at the time, and quickly gained a massive following as it added new features and horror icons like Laurie Strode and Michael Meyers to its ranks.
Four years later, Dead By Daylight celebrated its anniversary, boasting bloody balloons and confetti joined by a player-base that is stronger than ever on multiple platforms. As a game that is exclusively multiplayer, having a dedicated fandom is crucial for its success. When looking at SteamCharts, the average amount of players one year after its initial release in June 2017 was about 10,000 players. In the past 30 days, the average amount of players has grown to about 46,000. The question is: what is making Dead By Daylight stand out to have such a strong fanbase? The answer lies deeper in the gameplay and not simply the faces representing it.
When comparing Dead By Daylight to other well-known multiplayer games in survival-horror, there is a clear schism of success in its favor. The most obvious comparison would be to Gun Media’s Friday The 13th: The Game, which follows the same asymmetrical multiplayer gameplay format as Dead By Daylight. Although Friday The 13th: The Game ended up facing legal obstacles that would later hinder its success, it still never quite reached the level of success of Dead By Daylight, even during its prime. This is interesting to consider based on the fact that it seemed to follow the winning formula: Friday The 13th: The Game had fun, cooperative gameplay, was multi-platform, and featured one of the most iconic faces of horror with Jason Voorhees.
This leads to the point that Dead By Daylight’s success can’t simply be attributed to the horror conglomerate it has formed with faces like Ghostface from Scream, Freddy Krueger, and Michael Myers. Sure, there’s no other game you can play where you assume the role of Stranger Things’ Steve Harrington as he’s being chased by Silent Hill’s Pyramid Head. But there’s something deeper in the gameplay of Dead By Daylight that has made it so tangible for players to return to even after years of playing.
Whether or not players are aware of it, Dead By Daylight is constantly presenting micro-choices in almost every facet of the game. At the title menu, you are presented with a major choice: do you play as a survivor, or a killer? From there, the series of micro-choices begins. Who do you play as? What offering will you sacrifice? What item and add-ons will you bring into the trial? Will you select any challenges that you want to try and complete during the trials? What perks will you use? What type of play-style will you approach your next trial with?
When listed in that way, the number of choices can appear overwhelming. However, the unique thing about Dead By Daylight is that, not only are many of these choices made subconsciously, but they aren’t always necessary either. A player can be just as successful without an item or perk as another using the best items and rarest perks. From the beginning, the game can be completely tailored to the player’s level of investment and desire.
This extends into the gameplay itself in even more complex ways. Trials in Dead By Daylight can be intensely long or frustratingly short, but they are always fast-paced. As soon as the trial begins, it’s a countdown of when the last generator will be completed and who manages to stay alive. This fast-paced action leads to even more micro-choices, and these choices allow the player to craft the playstyle that works best for them.
As a survivor, you can decide whether you want to be an altruistic team-member, or abandon your team-members if they seem to be weighing you down. You can decide whether or not you want to run or hide from the killer; and if you do hide, you get to decide whether you use a locker to hide or if you try to use the map to your advantage. As a killer, you can decide whether you want to play aggressively or surreptitiously. You can hook your survivors or bait others as one is injured on the ground. You can carefully hinder objectives and place traps, or go full-on slasher and chase survivors down during the entire match.
Next time you play a match of Dead By Daylight, or you watch a stream of a trial, keep a tally of just how many micro-choices appear. Even if the objectives remain the same, Dead By Daylight is anything but linear.
As you consciously and subconsciously make your own micro-choices, every other player in the trial is doing the same, coalescing into a truly unique experience every time. This element of choice is what’s vital to the success of Dead By Daylight. It commands the attention of the player while still allowing for a true survival-horror experience, which is why the presence of so many horror icons in its roster works so well. In addition to this, a solid matchmaking and ranking system will progressively land each player in matches with allies and killers on similar skill levels.
As the horror genre continues to evolve, and the debate of whether big-name games like Resident Evil should be more reliant on action or survival, Dead By Daylight manages to fall in the middle. It also presents us with the question: is extensive player-choice the direction that survival-horror should take? Dead By Daylight’s versatility to fans of survival-horror, as well as casual and hardcore crowds, is the reason why The Entity will continue to ensnare more players for years to come.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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