Dead by Daylight Creators Discuss Facehuggers, Eggs, and Balancing the Xenomorph

Like every Killer in Dead by Daylight, the Xenomorph that was added as part of the Alien DLC has its own unique set of powers it uses to torment Survivors. It’s a stealthy killing machine that can speed around in a tunnel system throughout maps, and it can also at times detect the presence of Survivors similar to how the Xenomorph creatures from the Alien movies always seem to have the upper hand against the humans. It moves like a Xenomorph and kills like a Xenomorph, but from caustic blood to Facehuggers to Xenomorph eggs, there are lots of different directions that Behaviour Interactive could’ve taken when crafting Dead by Daylight’s version of the Killer.

So, in a recent interview with Behaviour, ComicBook asked what kinds of different iterations the Xenomorph went through when it was in development — was there ever a world where a newborn Xenomorph burst out of a Survivor’s chest? Dead by Daylight creative director Dave Richard said they couldn’t talk about everything they trialed since some ideas could be repurposed down the line for future Killers, but game designer Janick Neveu was able to talk a bit more about why the Xenomorph is the way it is in Dead by Daylight and why Facehuggers and eggs weren’t the way to go.

Facehuggers and Xenomorph Eggs in Dead by Daylight?

Neveu said something Behaviour initially explored for the Xenomorph was allowing it to crawl on walls, but that idea quickly went away. The power would’ve been disproportionately balanced between indoor and outdoor maps, for example, and Behaviour felt players were expecting a specific type of movement from the Xenomorph reminiscent of its cinematic appearances. So, the tunnel system came into play where the Xenomorph can drop to all fours and sprint under the map. 

When asked about other Xenomorph-esque features, Neveu said the only time an alien was bursting from someone’s chest was “maybe in someone’s mind” and added that eggs and Facehuggers wouldn’t have fit into Dead by Daylight’s formula.

“We know the life cycle of the alien, right? It’s something that we were very familiar with internally, and it’s something that we brainstormed originally,” Neveu said in regards to considering all aspects of a Xenomorph for Dead by Daylight. “‘How can this fit in DBD?’ But we couldn’t see any right avenue for it to work in the sense that the demise of a character comes into play in one of the [life stages], and it just didn’t fit really well in what we wanted to do.”

Those familiar with the Alien movies will know that the eggs come from the Xenomorph Queen, and while there is a Xenomorph Queen skin for the Killer, that’s not the base character that the power is centered around.

“And if you are familiar with the egg and the Facehugger steps, the eggs come from the queen, so it’s not what we’re playing around,” Neveu continued. “So it sort of became something that would’ve twisted too much of the base rule and the whole background of the Xenomorph, and we didn’t feel it felt right.”

Balancing the Xenomorph

With ill-fitting ideas ruled out and the Xenomorph’s tunnel power and tail attack established, Behaviour had the “killing machine” it hoped for with the Alien guest star. But flashlights and pallets don’t do much good against something traveling underground, and the Killer’s tail attack can hit through windows and over pallets at certain times anyway, so to help balance things out, Behaviour gave Survivors the Remote Flame Turrets.

“So originally, when we started developing the idea around the tail attack, we also had in mind what this creature is. And usually in DBD, we deal with kind of a normal Killer, a guy with a chainsaw or a hatchet,” Neveu said. “We have a bit of a ghostly effect here and there, but most of our Killers are ‘real’ Killers. And this thing is an actual killing machine, and we couldn’t make it feel good for the player to have a lot of restriction as playing as the Killer. We wanted to make the player powerful and be that killing machine that they know and see in the movies. So right at the beginning, we saw that we can make that work, but on the balance of things, we need to give a counter to the Survivor.”

The goal, Neveu said, was to make the Xenomorph “quite strong” while also giving Survivors a way to repel it. But Dead by Daylight has never been about killing the Killer, so Behaviour was careful to make it more of an “annoyance” rather than an outright weapon.

“Past Killers also helped us in fleshing out the idea of how this item will affect the Killer,” Neveu continued. “DBD is not about killing the Killer on the Survivor side, it’s being feared and getting away, and that’s always been the goal. So, we paid a lot of attention to make the threat an annoyance and not something that feels threatening to the Killer.”

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Dead by Daylight’s Alien DLC Chapter is now available and comes with the Xenomorph Killer and Ellen Ripley as a Survivor.