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.
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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