Dead by Daylight Board Game Kickstarter #IntoTheFog
Dead by Daylight, the popular asymmetrical 4v1 horror game from Behaviour Interactive, is finally getting an official board game adaptation.
A Kickstarter campaign seems unlikely for a company as successful as Behaviour Interactive. It is, however, not uncommon in modern board game publishing to use Kickstarter as the preorder page for essentially a completed product.
The game is actually a licensed product from Level 99 Games. They’re the publishers of BattleCON, Millennium Blades, and Empyreal: Spells and Steam among many others. As they explain on their Kickstarter page, the Dead by Daylight board game is complete. The mechanics of the game are tested, the rules are set, and almost everything is designed. All that’s left are some of the minifigures for the Collector’s Edition.
What’s drawing me into this project is the art quality. I’m sure the game will be a fun cat and mouse, turn-by-turn chase kind of adventure board game. The minifigures they’ve designed look incredible. The Standard Edition includes all the original characters through Of Flesh and Mud, where Hag and Nea were introduced. That version has seven survivors and six killers.
Every original character in the game through the All-Kill chapter is included in the Collector’s Edition, where Yun-Jin and The Trickster were introduced. That means 17 survivors and 16 killers (plus an additional mini-figure for Victor as part of The Twins) are included. The Collector’s Edition also comes with five hooks and five generator figures, plus an additional set of map boards.
Each survivor and killer has a unique play style defined by their unique perks in the game. Yes, we’re finally going to play a DBD game where survivors are actually unique characters, not skins and sounds on the same core gameplay.
The game itself can be played as 1v2, 1v3, or 1v4. The survivors work together to explore the map, locating generators and tools. When all the generators are powered, they unlock the exit gates and have to escape.
The killer has to track down and attack survivors. They then drag them to hooks for a sacrifice point. If the killer earns eight sacrifice points before the survivors escape, they win.
I’m a big fan of horror board games. They’re a lot of fun to play with a group. You get to set the mood, roleplay as you want, and get into the spooky spirit. There’s nothing quite like the mix of competition and scares. It’s honestly part of why Dead by Daylight has done so well. There might not be in-game support for chat, but most survive with friends groups will hop on Discord so they can talk together, strategize, and survive as a team. It’s just fun.
The Kickstarter campaign for the official Dead by Daylight board game already reached its fundraising goal on the first day of the campaign. Like I said, with a title like this, funding was a formality. You can support the game at $49 to pre-order the Standard Edition and $99 to pre-order the Collector’s Edition. The game is expected to be delivered in October 2022.
As a disclaimer, no Kickstarter is guaranteed to come to fruition, but board game companies like Level 99 use the platform now when they know their project is going to go to market.
You have until 21 April to back the game on Kickstarter. You can read the official rulebook for the game here.
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