Meanwhile, whenever someone is sacrificed in a five-player game, their turn is missed while they’re on the hook. Then when they return, they’re wounded and still an easy target to be re-sacrificed and sidelined from the game again. Dead by Daylight: The Board Game creator on turning the hit video game into “co-op murderBattleship”

As fans of the original video game, we worked hard to capture the tension between the Survivors and the Killer on every turn," said D. Brad Talton Jr, the board game's designer. "The moment when you commit to your move and then have to hold your breath while the Killer makes their play - to me that's the essence of Dead by Daylight." While hooked survivors can be rescued by their companions, like the video game, Dead by Daylight: The Board Game will not feature permanent player elimination or death. Instead, players simply miss a turn while hooked, waiting to be rescued by their allies. Each survivor has a unique ability to help them survive, with a recommended loadout printed on each player board. As in the video game, players can fully customise their characters’ perks using tokens in an advanced version of the rules. Level 99 Games produces many of my favourite board games, including Empyreal: Spells & Steam and Argent: The Consortium. So going into Dead By Daylight: The Board Game I was confident we were going to get a good game. But I still harboured doubts. Would this IP stifle the creativity of the design team I’ve come to love? Eurogamer.net is owned by Gamer Network Limited, a ReedPop company and subsidiary of Reed Exhibitions Limited.

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Did you run into any particular hurdles in translating Dead by Daylight from digital to physical in terms of keeping the overall feel of either specific killers and survivors, or the wider balance of how they might work in terms of a board game?

Survivors take their turns before the killer, so the killer will need to carefully plan out each move to get closer to victory, achieved through hooking enough survivors before the generators are completed. Sound familiar? I don't know why we don't have more battle royale games in the tabletop space, why we haven't done that. Because it doesn't seem like such a hard genre to dig into. So yeah, so we're definitely looking at how we could capture the feel of some of those, and they might show up on a future announcement. You've worked particularly with fighting video games, you've now done survival horror. Are there video game genres in general that you're looking at and thinking: 'Someone should really do a board game like that'? It's not something you want to do; it feels bad, and it's bad for the team,” Talton said. “So you definitely want to dodge the killer where you can.” Each killer has a unique ability drawn from their powers in the video game, while survivors can make use of their loadout of perks and items they find around the map. | Image credit: Level 99 Games

We actually started in April last year. Around the time that the All-Kill chapter came out for Dead by Daylight. That was the game that kind of became the talk of our board game nights. We have a team board game night, with all of our friends and most of the team from Level 99 Games. We were talking about what video games we were playing, and we were all talking about Dead by Daylight at that point. And so I said, "Well, everybody's into it, maybe I'll just make a board game. And, if it works out, maybe it'll actually be a Dead by Daylight board game. And if it doesn't, it's still a lot of fun with friends." Asked whether Dead by Daylight: The Board Game could see future expansions that bring characters released for the video game since the All-Kill DLC to its tabletop counterpart, Talton left the possibility open. The pitch I gave to Behaviour was was 'cooperative murder Battleship'. Then they said, "Oh, that sounds interesting." We actually had a lot of versions of the game that were very intertwined with hidden information. We had a central board and the players would have screens, and behind the board there was secret information. The killer actually had a map of the whole labyrinth that was randomised behind their screen, so they knew where all the props were and such. We had all of those tools. In the end, we scrapped a lot of that.

The video game itself is fully multiplayer - there's not a single-player mode or even a mode against AI - and you’ve adapted that directly as a one-versus-many board game. We've seen a number of board games recently go from either one-versus-many or another competitive format to fully cooperative, either through physical mechanics or something like a companion app… From the many hours of watching my friend stream Dead By Daylight, it appears the board game nails the same vibe. From the overpowered killer with supernatural powers to the survivors using hit-and-run tactics on generators and sacrificial poles. David Norris on Arise and meet your destiny in Dune: Imperium – Review You won't be disappointed! I love this game, it's…The board game will feature a miniature figurine of all non-licensed killers and survivors from the original game. (Image: Level 99 Games LLC) When we see a movie, or a book, or a video game, we'll pay top dollar for an excellent design. We still haven't reached that level of maturity in the board game industry.

As far as doing an expansion, of course, nothing is set yet. We need to complete this project first. But through this all we've developed a really good working relationship with [Dead by Daylight developer] Behaviour. And with the success of the game, it would be a pretty obvious move to continue to create content.” We made the game, and we pitched it. And Behaviour [Interactive, the developer of Dead by Daylight] was really interested. And so we started going through that partnership and doing the design. It took us a good part of last year to do the design. The board game’s Collector’s Edition will include all of the playable characters up to the All-Kill DLC expansion released for the video game in March 2021: a total of 16 killers and 17 survivors, all represented by miniatures. The cheaper standard edition will include seven survivors and six killers pulled from the full roster, as well as reducing the number of maps in the box from four to two. Level 99 previously confirmed that none of the licensed characters from other movie and video game franchises - such as Halloween, Resident Evil and A Nightmare on Elm Street - seen in the video game will appear in the board game.

Dead by Daylight Board Game - Gameplay

Developer Behaviour Interactive has partnered with Level 99 Games, acclaimed publisher of video game-inspired board and card games, to create a board game based on the hit multiplayer horror.