Dead by Daylight Spinoff Canceled Due to Poor Response from Players

Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive will no longer move forward with Project T.

By Tanner Dedmon

The last known Dead by Daylight spin-off has been canceled, Behaviour Interactive announced this week. Known only as "Project T" following its announcement from earlier in the year, the game set within the world of Dead by Daylight was meant to be a PvE shooter developed by Midwinter Entertainment, the studios behind Scavengers which was acquired by Behaviour years ago. Project T was playable during a playtest recently, but based on what Behaviour said about the game, it seems it failed to generate enough interest to make the spinoff one worth pursuing.

Project T was accessible via Steam and through Behaviour's relatively new Insider Program which also launched this year. While it was set within the Dead by Daylight universe, the four-player PvE nature of the game wherein you shoot, drive, and explore your way through missions drew comparisons to Left 4 Dead. Not much was said about the game publicly after a playtest held in August which could partially be attributed to restrictions put on what could or couldn't be shared, but based on the cancelation, a lack of interest also seemed to be a factor.

"When we conceptualized this project, we wanted to have players involved in it as early as possible, which led to the creation of this Insiders Program," the statement shared on socials and on the Project T Steam page said. "This approach has allowed us to get very early validation on Project T's core design and gameplay, which is something that often comes much further into the production of a game. Following the playtest in July, we ran a thorough internal risk assessment from both a product and commercial perspective. While a number of you expressed appreciation for what you played, unfortunately, the outcome of this deep analysis yielded unsatisfactory overall results."

The "First Look" trailer above was really the peek into the game that was shared publicly aside from social posts here and there and some developer insights on Steam which is probably why some who've responded to the announcement didn't even know that Project T was a thing. Some lamented the fact that the game was only ever in a technical playtest state and that the tests were restricted through the Insider Program, too, which limited the audience as opposed to it being accessible via a demo, though others who did know about Project T didn't express as much surprise in the cancelation.

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Behaviour has pursued several Dead by Daylight spinoffs, the newest being The Casting of Frank Stone which was developed by Supermassive Entertainment, the creators of the Dark Pictures Anthology games. Other Dead by Daylight spinoffs include the very unexpected dating sim Hooked on You: A Dead by Daylight Dating Sim, What the Fog which was given away for free this year, and a mobile version of Dead by Daylight. Non-Dead by Daylight projects from Behaviour include games like Meet Your Maker, though the developers working on that game have already shifted their attention to new projects as of March 2024.

For now, the best thing Behaviour has going for it is clearly Dead by Daylight itself which has DLCs lined up well into next year since that's when the Five Nights at Freddy's Chapter will release. 

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