The Future of Dead by Daylight- Interview with Mathieu Côté
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An interview with Mathieu Côté, Head of Partnerships at Behavior Interactive
Côté: I mean, it's always been an important thing for us. I think we may, and again, I don't want to say anything wrong, but I feel like we may have gotten caught up in the cadence that we set for ourselves. The release of the chapters, and then we added archives in between the chapters, and in trying to create bigger and bigger chapters, but we never slowed down. At some point we realized that we need to pace ourselves, and take the time to just take a step back, and make sure that we are providing a great experience for everybody playing the game.
Q. The “Surrender” option was added recently to the game. At the panel yesterday, you had said the feature had been well received overall, but there were many suggestions from players regarding how the feature could be improved. What were some of the ideas or criticisms your team heard from the community?
Côté: We do pay very close attention to what people want out of the game. This is why we have the PTB, where we can test our upcoming changes before moving them over to the public build, so we can have a million people point out any issues, which allows us to tweak those things before we release the build.
Q. So moving on to one of your other major additions this past year, 2v8. Where did the idea for a 2v8 game mode come from, and what is the team’s long-term goal for this mode?
Côté: The idea has always been there, like from day one. As a team, we would have these conversations. What's the right ratio? Should it be 1v5, 1v6, 1v2, 2v8? We tried many different things. We happened to land on 1v4 and so it's always sort of stuck there. But at the same time, people were asking for there to be two killers at the same time. Also, when we launched the game, as the community might have noticed, it was quite buggy. It was kind of a mess, with matchmaking, and many glitches. 2v8 is something that we've always wanted to bring back. I think that part of the quality-of-life effort, 2v8, Chaos Shuffle, Lights Out, My Little Oni, these alternate game modes are a way for us to make the game more fun, and to have fun ourselves.
Q. Isn't there a concern, though, that if you split the game into too many game modes, you might risk like minimizing the population?
Côté: You are absolutely correct, and that that is why we never have more than one at the same time. They tend to be limited-time events.
Q. So, looking at the future of 2v8, do you see it being a permanent addition to the game, or is it going to be another rotating game mode?
Côté: I doubt that it's going to be a permanent fixture. I don't know, but, but maybe. However, I could see a world where we always have a secondary mode, but it's not always 2v8. Yeah, we could do different things.
Q. On the roadmap, there appears to be multiple future iterations of 2v8, spread out across the year. Your team has been very transparent about the need to continue refining the mode. What major additions and/or changes can players expect from the next iteration coming this August?
Côté: Obviously, I can't spill many beans at this point, but I can tell you that it's not a simple matter of just putting any killer in there. All the killers were designed specifically to work by themselves, and we always gave ourselves the sort of freedom to do really crazy things with their perks and ability sets, because they were never judged against each other. They were always judged against: Is it a fun thing to play against? So transitioning them to 2v8 is a lot of work for each and every killer. We have to sit down and really make sure that they will make sense and they'll be fine when paired together.
Q. With the announcement of the Choose Your Own Chapter event later this year, it seems that players will have a greater involvement in what future Chapters look like. How will that voting process be arranged? Will players be able to vote in-game, or will this be an external process?
Côté: It's going to be external, but we're very lucky that we will be starting this in the coming weeks. So the process is gonna begin soon, and it's going to be narratively driven. It's not just like, what do you want out of this? We want to build a story with our community. And I know that the end result will be a really cool, original chapter. But what I'm looking for the most is that journey that will be taken together. I think it'll be a lot of fun.
Q. Over the past few years, we’ve seen your team gradually expand the world of Dead by Daylight into new mediums, such as The Casting of Frank Stone, the Hooked on You dating sim, the recently-canceled Project T game, and now the upcoming Dead by Daylight film adaptation being produced by Blumhouse. Without specifying unannounced projects, what vision do you have for Dead by Daylight as a franchise over the coming years?
Côté: MORE! No, but seriously, we want to give people more ways to experience our world. We think we've created something that is already big, but could be even bigger. There is clearly an appetite that has been stated in no uncertain terms. People want to hear more about the story. They want to be able to live in that world in many different ways, and we'll do our best to give them that.
Q. Ok, final question. I'm sorry to say your team brought this on yourselves at the panel, but I have to ask for the good of the community: When is Shrek coming to the game as a killer? We need The Ogre!
Côté: I will only say, Shrek is in the "maybe" pile.