Dead by daylight's decade: how not building a 'games as a service' fueled its success

Ten years on, Behaviour Interactive’s Dead by Daylight stands as a puzzling outlier in the increasingly crowded landscape of asymmetrical multiplayer games. While numerous titles in the genre have withered under the weight of player apathy and unsustainable monetization models, DBD not only survives but thrives, a testament to a development philosophy that actively eschewed the very tenets of the 'games as a service' paradigm. This isn't a tale of inevitable triumph, but a hard-won victory born from unexpected choices.

The accidental longevity of a game that wasn’t meant to last

Speaking at the Game Developers Conference 2026, Mathieu Côté and Dave Richard, the architects behind Behaviour Interactive, revealed a surprising truth: Dead by Daylight wasn't initially conceived as an eternal, evolving entity. “We never thought of it as a game service,” Côté stated, a sentiment that flies in the face of contemporary industry expectations. The studio was concurrently pursuing other projects, some of which were ultimately shelved, further underscoring the fact that Dead by Daylight began as a standalone experience, a multiplayer title with a distinct endpoint.

The key, it seems, lies in the studio’s willingness to adapt and listen – a process that unfolded organically rather than through a predetermined roadmap. New killers, survivors, and gameplay modes were integrated over the years, molded by player feedback without sacrificing the core experience. This stands in stark contrast to the often-rigid structure of games designed to perpetually retain player engagement through battle passes and in-game stores.

The Paradox of Prioritizing Gameplay Côté elaborated on the crucial decision to delay the implementation of features commonly associated with games as a service. “We wanted to create a generator of infinite moments, a game you could play again and again, enjoying yourself and not knowing exactly what you were facing,” he explained. Adding features like internal stores and battle passes later allowed Behaviour Interactive to prioritize the foundational gameplay loop. “It’s what’s expected [for a games as a service]. So, it’s costly. And if you have to remove features from the game to support a store, everyone loses.