Dead by Daylight Almost Featured Another Dungeons & Dragons Villain

Dead by Daylight almost had a different (but just as iconic) Dungeons & Dragons villain.

By Hannah Adkins

Developers Behaviour Interactive recently pulled back the veil on what Dead by Daylight's year nine roadmap will bring to the game, including some of the licensed chapter collaborations that will bring icons from beloved franchises. The Dungeons & Dragons chapter is the first thing players can look forward to experiencing, with the Undying King Vecna stepping into the fog as a Killer for Dead by Daylight to feature one of the most iconic villains in all of D&D lore.

But according to an interview conducted on the Slasher Radio Podcast with Game Director/Behaviour Interactive's Head of Partnerships Mathieu Cote, Vecna wasn't the only option for the Dungeons & Dragons Killer. In the podcast, Cote notes that Count Strahd von Zarovich was also an option that Behaviour ultimately passed on, likely due to the fact that the year nine roadmap for Dead by Daylight already includes an iconic vampire, bringing Castelvania to the game later this year.

"We did name a couple of other things that we thought would be interesting to do as a Dungeons & Dragons Chapter," Cote elaborates on the decision to select Vecna as the Killer for the upcoming chapter. "Vecna has been – in some form or another – part of dnd for the last fifty years."

Of course, Dungeons & Dragons is also showcasing Vecna on a larger scale for the fiftieth anniversary of the franchise as well, with the newly released adventure book Vecna: Eve of Ruin featuring a campaign centered on the Lich trying to makeover the universe in his image. When specifically asked whether or not Count Strahd was ever considered – a natural selection as his very nature is perfect for the Fog – Cote shared some additional insight into the decision making process.

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"Yes – it would've been great, but there's a couple of things that made it less of an easy choice. Namely if you've watched the broadcast, you know that there's a vampire coming, so you don't want to step on Dracula's toes, and we wanted to make sure we kept a big separation between those [chapters]," he further notes. "The other thing is that the whole Ravenloft storyline – the whole universe, that plane – is not the first thing that comes to mind when people think of Dungeons & Dragons."

Although Count Strahd didn't make it onto Dead by Daylight's roadmap in this round of considerations, it could be possible that there will be another D&D Chapter in the future, and if it's far enough out from Castelvania maybe the Count will make an appearance. In the meantime, Dead by Daylight players can look forward to experiencing Vecna soon. 

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