Behaviour announces Dead by Daylight DnD crossover chapter

The bards shall sing of this

Behaviour Interactive/Wizards of the Coast

Following a brief teaser a few days earlier, Behaviour Interactive announced a Dead by Daylight DnD chapter during the horror game’s anniversary stream. The DbD DnD chapter adds a new map, a new killer voiced by prolific actor and Critical Role host Matt Mercer, and one – technically two – survivors, along with a handful of DnD-inspired mechanics.

Vecna, the mage from Greyhawk who became a lich, is the chapter’s new killer, brought to un-life by Matt Mercer. Dead by Daylight’s Vecna got stuck in the Entity’s world while traveling between dimensions, so he made the best of his situation and built a massive dungeon to trap people in – y’know, like you do. He has a handful of spells at his disposal and plays much differently from other killers.

Vecna can use:

• Mage hand, to move pallets during a chase
• Fly, to soar high and observe the map
• Flight of the damned, a necromancy spell that creates and launches five skeletal projectiles
• Dispelling sphere, a zone of magic that detects survivors, reveals their magical item to Vecna, and temporarily disables that item

The multiplayer game's new survivor is a bard – well, two, to be accurate, a male human and a female elf, both of whom are bards – but Behaviour didn’t say too much about their perks or what to expect from how they play.

Vecna’s dungeon, called the Forgotten Ruins, is home to a few surprises. The map is split between a literal dungeon underground full of DnD Easter eggs, an exterior portion, and a large tower. Vecna and survivors may run across special chests anywhere on the map, and opening them triggers a dice roll from a 20-sided die. You get a standard DbD item if you roll a two or a three or a magical item that can counter Vecna’s spells if you roll between four and 19. 

Critical successes – rolling a 20 – get you one of Vecna’s cursed items: Eye of Vecna or End of Vecna. The Eye of Vecna lets you vanish in front of the killer after you exit a locker, and End of Vecna lets you transport between lockers. You can combine the items to get both of their powers, but using either or both of them will injure you.

The Dead by Daylight DnD chapter enters the public beta test server on PC after the broadcast ends, and Behaviour plans a full launch on June 3, 2024. It might not be the last we see of DnD in DbD, either. The team teased at the possibility of new locations, including Ravenloft, in future updates.

Don’t expect Vecna or his Forgotten Ruins to show up in Dead by Daylight’s 2v8 mode – yet. Behaviour’s Matt Spriggens said there’s a good chance of the lich mage turning up in the mode’s later iterations.