What do Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Resident Evil, and Dungeons & Dragons all have in common? They’re all represented in Behaviour Interactive’s asymmetrical horror game, Dead by Daylight. Now, another franchise is joining that eclectic roster, and it’s a big one for a certain generation of horror fans.
Though it was teased only last year, Five Nights at Freddy’s will finally join the Dead by Daylight club. Ahead of its official announcement at PAX East 2025, Digital Trends spoke with the Dead by Daylight team about the creative process of incorporating Five Nights at Freddy’s into its brutal multiplayer playground and what the team has in store for the future.
Daylight meets Five Nights
At face value, the collaboration seems like a slam dunk. When asked why Behaviour Interactive thought now was a good time to partner up with Five Nights at Freddy’s, the head of partnership, Mathieu Corte, explained that there was never a bad time. He notes that licensing conversations can often be “extremely delicate,” but the team is happy that it “found a moment where every star aligned, where [we] could bring Five Nights at Freddy’s to Dead by Daylight.”
As a part of the collaboration, the team announced that Springtrap would be making his way to the game as a playable Killer. At first glance, this was a bit of a surprise, given that the team could have chosen other iconic characters to pick, including Freddy himself. When asked about that choice, gameplay designer Jason Guzzo explained the team’s reasoning: “He’s the big bad from the Five Nights at Freddy’s universe. His inclusion in Dead by Daylight is actually the first time players get to play as Springtrap in a video game.”
When you’re a kid, you’re not chasing your friends with a knife, hopefully …
Guzzo says that this would give players “the FNAF (Five Nights at Freddy’s) experience” while staying true to Dead by Daylight. But creating that experience was still challenging, given how both games play out differently. This is reflected in the upcoming map, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, which is the central location in the FNAF franchise.
Guzzo says that the team took inspiration from various sources, including games, movies, and fan-made layouts created using in-game screenshots. The team also looked at the 2023 film’s take on the pizza parlor because it was “the most complete version of the map.” Interestingly enough, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza was already an ideal map for Dead by Daylight due to having a lot of tables, tight spaces, and the natural loops you’d find in a kitchen.
“It kind of builds itself,” Guzzo says. “That kind of environment is ripe for that kind of gameplay. I mean, you did it as a kid. You go to McDonald’s and you run around with your friends, around tables, chairs, and hide behind low walls where you sit. Those spaces are almost pre-built as DBD maps. When you’re a kid, you’re not chasing your friends with a knife, hopefully, but you just age everyone up, and you give somebody a weapon, and it just kind of comes to the same game.”
Although the team didn’t go into detail, they reassured me that the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza map would be filled with various Easter Eggs for fans to discover. Fans of the Five Nights at Freddy’s film may be excited to hear that Matthew Lillard will reprise his role as Afton via Legendary Outfit. The team confirmed his likeness, and the (movie spoiler ahead) Yellow Rabbit outfit he wore at the end of the 2023 film will be a part of the Legendary Outfit. On top of that, Lillard recorded his own voice over for the update, Afton says. This was to help create an authentic experience for the players. Springtrap will have other skins players can equip, but it’s unclear what they’ll be.
What’s next for Dead by Daylight
Five Nights at Freddy’s aside, the Dead by Daylight team aims to create a folklore-inspired chapter once the FNAF content is released. After that, Behaviour Interactive will do a “Choose Your Own Chapter Adventure” to finish off year 10 of DBD. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s heavily inspired by the iconic “Choose Your Own Adventure” books that ran from 1979 to 1998.
With the help of the community, Behaviour Interactive will be crafting both a Killer and a Survivor together through a series of questions that will be asked, such as whether the Killer should be supernatural-based or someone rooted in reality.
Corte acknowledges that this idea is ambitious, but the process will be similar to the team’s usual creative process. Behavior Interactive has wanted to create new playable characters with the community for some time now. Even though the team doesn’t have many points of reference on properly navigating this, they are confident it’ll be a fun and lengthy process.
With all that Behaviour Interactive has planned for Dead by Daylight, the multiplayer juggernaut seems to be in a healthy creative place. With the Five Nights at Freddy’s collaboration, folklore-inspired chapter, and the “Choose Your Own Adventure” process the team will take to make its latest Killer, there are a lot of reasons to dive in again right around the corner.
