Why Dead By Daylight Should Introduce a Single Player Campaign, and What it Could Include

Dead by Daylight is one of the most popular and well-loved multiplayer horror games available on the market, with regular content updates, fun new DLCs, and as of recently, separate limited time game modes introduced on a rotating basis to keep things fresh. So among all of the fantastic updates and regular DLCs, what else could really be added to improve the game? Well, I believe it’s sorely lacking a single player story campaign.

Call me old fashioned, but ‘back in my day’ the campaign was the crowning jewel and major selling point of any new game. As time moved on and the industry progressed, the online multiplayer of any given title became more and more important as technology improved, with the campaign often falling to the wayside as an afterthought. But even today, major online games like Call of Duty still bundle in a story mode with new releases out of tradition, and I think it’s something that is criminally overlooked in many modern games. Sure online play can be fun sometimes, there’s a reason DBD and Fortnite are some of my most played games of all time. But every now and then, I just want the chill, low pressure experience of a game without the online competitive element.

 Behaviour has gone all in on the Dead By Daylight IP. With three major spinoff games currently released and another just recently cancelled, it’s hard to deny that the game and universe has become an integral part of their brand identity at this point. And of those three spinoffs, two of them are entirely story-focused, showing that there is real value in the lore and narrative that Behaviour has created. 

So, why a story mode? Why not another spinoff game? Well, the new title Casting of Frank Stone hardly plays like DBD, being more of a choices-oriented Telltale-style game with some character movement and environmental interaction here and there. And as for Hooked on You… let’s just say a tongue in cheek visual novel is hardly what I have in mind when I say Dead by Daylight single player campaign. No, it would need to capture the gameplay of the original game, and feel like a cohesive companion to the online version. 

I also think it’s valuable to have a campaign be part of the flagship product because DBD spinoffs don’t have a guaranteed track record of success. Their ill-fated shooter which is now cancelled project presumably had millions sunk into it as it was pretty far along in its development. Another fully released title is a weird little game called ‘What the Fog’ that literally *no one* has ever heard of, and in my humble opinion, visually resembles a Unity store asset flip in terms of in-game models and UI. It’s starting to look like the formula of having a separate game for every little DBD related idea may not be a universally good approach. Sure, many of the existing spinoffs justify themselves by being meaningfully different in gameplay and concept, but the campaign that I’m suggesting here would be a lot more integral to the game’s core identity, and would allow them to keep expanding the universe without the company becoming a one trick pony without any other major IPs in their catalogue. 

And one final note before we get into it – Dead by Daylight devs, please, if you read this, feel free to use any of my ideas as much as you want, for free. I recently read about how the Pokémon franchise has avoided making a flying type Eeveelution (or any new Eeveelution) for a long time, because of the fact that so many fanmade Pokémon exist that they can’t come up with a compelling design without running into intellectual property concerns. Hell, the most recent Eeeveelution added was along with a brand new type, circumventing the issue of any such similar fanart existing. I’d hate to imagine that me writing about what I want in the game could ever lead to preventing it from happening instead, so please, my ideas are your ideas if you intend to actually put them in the game – go nuts. 

Dreamwork Makes the Team Work

I’ll admit it – this idea, like many of the best out there, came to me in a dream. Well, that’s not strictly true – I already had the idea to write an article about a DBD story campaign in theory, but a very vivid dream about this exact concept inspired me to get cracking with putting my concept to the page.

I have been met with mixed reactions when describing my dreams to people – they’re usually either enthralled and wowed, or utterly bored and disinterested, with little in between. Personally, I find the world of dreams to be such an interesting place, and the semi-magical, half-mythological space they inhabit isn’t a million miles from the Entity’s realm at times. So let me pitch you the same game that my brain did after an eight hour binge of killer matches directly before bed. 

The story mode took place outside of the Entity’s realm, where killers were beginning to gain the ability to encroach into the real world. This was starting to become a commonplace enough problem that the average citizen was aware of this as a realistic threat, and the public at large were advised to Alt-F4 if a killer showed up, in order to keep themselves safe. 

Everyone had been issued a booklet by the government to keep with them at all times which detailed the powers and strats of all the killers, in order for people to better escape and avoid them if a killer attack were to occur. For some reason, it was extremely important that the killers not learn of the existence of these booklets, as if they became aware that the survivors knew their secrets, it would be really bad somehow. There were a number of survivors around a campfire, talking in hushed tones about the booklets. 

As they discussed and kept themselves distracted, The Trapper was able to slip into our reality, slashing one of them across the back and dragging them away from the fire while their fellows failed to notice. It was a mix of existing DBD killer gameplay, and fast-paced stealth action similar to Hitman or Assassin’s Creed. The survivors were honestly really blind. 

In this timeline, Dwight was a photojournalist, who was reporting on the existence of killers on top of some wooden temple, similar to the main building in the Red Forest map. The campfire was below him, and as he filmed an exposé on the news about the dangerous killer attacks, The Trapper’s blade slid into his stomach. 

The story mode then moved to focus on its protagonist, a survivor who did the unthinkable; she murdered two people in the confusion of this attack, and mutated into a deranged killer, now touched by the entity. She wore a toxic green hoodie and skirt, and looked like she could pass as a feminine Legion skin. Her name was Mad Marge, the newest killer who would be the central protagonist for the killer-side story campaign. 

Now of course, I wouldn’t expect the finished product to be identical to my half-deranged dream, but for all of the weird concepts that came to me that night, I think there is surprisingly solid ground to begin tooling around with ideas to make this happen for real. 

The Dead by Daylight Campaign’s Story

The most important part of any story mode is, well, the story! Sure, gameplay is usually a little different across the online and campaign modes, but the story is the whole reason anyone would play a campaign to begin with. While I’m not going to come up with a full beginning to end plot and subject you to my fanfiction on this occasion, what I will do is discuss what the outline of a campaign might look like.

Dead by Daylight Campaign’s Characters

The most important thing to consider is what character(s) is the story going to revolve around? As the story mode would be fundamental base game content, there is only two options I can see – Base the story around the five base-game killers (Hillbilly, Nurse, Trapper, Huntress, and Wraith) and their equivalent survivors – or, release a new base game chapter that introduces a pair of characters specifically created to be the protagonists of the campaign. This could include my Mad Marge suggestion, or some other new and fresh characters.

As DBD is a game about two different but equally valuable types of gameplay, I think it’s vital that there be both a killer and survivor campaign, with potentially parallel stories where you see events unfold from both sides. This would mean that a new killer and survivor could be given a lot more scope for character development then existing characters, as we’d be spending tens of hours with them in a narrative setting. 

Either way, you’d play as a fish out of water – a new survivor joining the community of those trapped for eternity in The Entity’s Realm, or a new killer becoming acclimated to the other side of the coin. Do the killers ever meet each other? What do they talk about? How sentient are they? How willingly do they serve the entity? Could a less-than-willing killer flip on the entity and help the survivors, and would they stick to their new, reformed attitude right until the end of the story? I think it would be a great chance to see interplay between the killers and survivor groups, and having you play as a new recruit among their number could be the best way to re-introduce players to that world. 

It’s also worth considering how DLC characters would be introduced. Would they appear as NPCs only while you play as the original character? Or, would the main story revolve around the base game cast, with each DLC chapter getting a 2-5 hour long slice of campaign just focusing on their own story? There’s so many ways to approach this, but I’d love to get to see the diversity of killer powers and survivor personalities laid out in more fleshed out detail, rather than have it limited to just one. 

Dead by Daylight Campaign’s Setting

The next question we need to ask ourselves is: where is the game set? The three obvious options that call out to me could each be the sole setting, or the story could be told across all of them. 

The first of these is the real world. The lore from my dream, while some may call it dumb, actually goes kind of hard in my opinion. At the very least, the core concept of killer incursions into the real world that become genuinely problematic to the point that the public in general are afraid of it is kind of cool. The story taking place at least partly in the real world could help provide a rich and more fleshed out backstory for some of the characters, and show that The Entity is significantly stepping up its game.

The second setting is the Entity’s Realm, the game’s bread and butter and where the overwhelming majority of DBD’s gameplay takes place. Assembled from a mess of random locations jumbled together in the fog, this includes everything from spooky hospitals to haunted forests. It would make sense to set much of the game here, not only because it’s so fundamental to the lore, but also because a lot of the themed stock assets for these locations already exist, and could be reused without needing to develop new textures and models, something that would be a big help for a huge project such as this. 

The third setting would be the Void, the realm into which used up survivors are tossed when they’re all out of tasty hope for The Entity, and a place we get to see very briefly during the Halloween events, complete with its signature haunts. While it looks a little generic on the face of it, I’m sure it can be spruced up if used as a larger location. I believe The Observer’s Library shown in the archives menu exists somewhere between the Void and The Entity’s realm proper, which could also be included as an area to explore. 

Dead by Daylight Campaign’s Story Structure

How the story would be constructed depends entirely on the approach to storytelling. If the existing gang of characters each had their playable segments, then I imagine the structure would be very different than if it followed a pair of original characters. 

If All Existing Characters Had Story Sections

Let’s say the core campaign followed all the base game characters across five chapters, and then each new and existing DLC added new content to the campaign – well, this would result in a much more fractured and episodic story. Many heavily story-driven games are released in chapters or seasons, and this approach could create more tailored storytelling for each character, but at the cost of cohesiveness. DLC chapters couldn’t really reference each other’s story missions in any major way, as there is no set order in which DLCs must be bought. Having someone buy, say, The Dredge’s chapter, only to find out the campaign missions are a sequel to six or so previous DLCs would not be a fun experience. Because of this, the game mode would feel more like an anthology of short stories rather than a major narrative. This could be fun and give us a few hours to focus on each new character, but it wouldn’t fully scratch the itch for grand storytelling. 

The segmented, episodic approach to storytelling would likely have a large focus on origin stories, missions that show how the killer and survivor got scooped up by The Entity, and entered the realm. While this could make the lore accessible to gamers who want to just jump into playing without studying the character bios, it would also dominate the narrative. If twenty plus years of superhero cinema has taught me anything, it’s that people will consume an origin story, all while complaining that sequels are better because that obligatory backstory is out of the way, and the hero is free to shine in their own, tailored story. For a truly original narrative to flourish, it would be best to not make origin stories the core of the focus.

What I would hope for is that rather than backstory dominating the campaign, it would be a flashback in the middle of the larger narrative, a mission or two that explains the character’s motivations, with the plot then briskly moving on to greater things. The narrative would progress through a number of missions, while alluding to relevant lore when needed. The origin stories could even be potentially rendered as cutscenes. Fighting games such as Mortal Kombat are famous for the campaign format being ‘one match and then a 20 minute cut scene’, and, while I wouldn’t want to get that carried away with clip length, that type of approach could be a valid way to detail character backstories. We all know from the unique game intros found when booting up a new DBD chapter that the devs can create great cinematics in the engine, so no problems there.

One alternative idea, and possibly the only way they could go the route of using base game and DLC characters would be to create a more generic plot which can be completed while playing as any existing killer or survivor. This would mean that you can try all the different Killer’s powers out on the same levels and see how different it feels, but might mean the story itself has to be more generic, as it’s not focused on one specific named character. It would also be possible to restrict the campaign to only the five base game characters, and have DLC characters appear as NPCs to populate the world.

If The Whole Story was Dedicated To A Single Character

You could have a lot more of a traditional story mode however, if the campaign focused on one specific character. This could be chosen from among the core five, or a newly added base game character. They could even be customisable in a full-on character creator, which could add a lot of variety and fun to their design beyond the usual paid cosmetics. 

This is where a three act structure would truly shine. You can’t entirely apply the storytelling layout of a book or movie to a video game without changes; as an interactive medium, you need to approach them slightly differently. But, the progression of a good story still chugs along in a similar manner. A non-episodic, more movie-like structure would allow the writers to establish the lore at a more gradual pace without info-dumping, and give their chosen character a significant amount of development than an episodic approach would.

Having a strong goal for the character to pursue would help move the story along. For survivors, that would probably be to find a way to permanently escape the realm, harm/kill The Entity, or beat the system in some way, much like the Blight and The Observer have in the past. For a killer, their wish may still be to escape from The Entity’s direct control, or something more heartless, such as permanently and irreversibly killing a specific survivor they bear a grudge against without the death loop reviving them. Alternatively, they may be willingly doing the Entity’s bidding, fulfilling a mission to corrupt a new world or set of characters in such a way that the Realm can scoop up and absorb them. Either way, the end of the story would need a satisfying payoff that would leave a long-term mark on the lore.

This approach allows for a more fleshed out and detailed story, with more focus on a specific event and grand narrative, rather than piecemeal story updates with every DLC. DLC packs could still add one-shot style missions to the story after the main plot has concluded, but this would be less central to the overall narrative. 

The Dead By Daylight Campaign’s Gameplay

Aside from simply the amount of human players, what really sets a campaign mode apart from the multiplayer mode is the gameplay changes. Most noticeable in first person shooters, the campaign usually plays a little differently to the online gameplay loop, as you’re out of the closed arena, and engaging in weapon play with different enemies in a different context. But, if we stray too far away from the core gameplay, then this might as well be a spinoff like The Casting Of Frank Stone, rather than an expansion of the core game. So, how would a Dead by Daylight story mode play?

One approach could be the fighting game mentality, which I discussed briefly before. That would focus mostly on regular matches of DBD against bots, followed by a stock cutscene that moves the story along. If the devs were lazy, and wanted to include the story mode as a quick win, that’s definitely the way they could go about it, but I don’t think it would be all that satisfying. I’d much prefer to see some twists and innovation into the core gameplay formula.

What I think is most important is that it would not be an open world. While the open world genre really has dominated the industry for over a decade, I think that as a first person slasher, Dead By Daylight fits better into the traditional FPS campaign with set missions, and custom, tunnel-like levels which you journey through to get to the end. Certain areas or assets from these levels are usually reconfigured to make the multiplayer arenas, but in this case, that process would be done in reverse.

Players would need to work their way through these levels, potentially encountering NPCs on the way, or simply earning a cutscene/interaction at the end. The player could even be awarded a rank upon completion. Many games (primarily Sonic titles come to mind, but lots of closed world games do it) will award you a rank, somewhere from S to F depending on how well you performed in the level. Trying to perfect your performance in a level to get an iridescent 1 rank could be a great way to bring the multiplayer scoring into the campaign in some way. This closed world approach allows for a more focused narrative that remains on pace, and saves on the development budget for an open world that would really just slow the pace of gameplay down and waste people’s time with generic filler content (I’m looking at you, Ubisoft!). 

The survivor campaign would be a mix of the game’s core gameplay, but with additional elements of a traditional stealth-horror game, e.g. avoiding the Xenomorph in Alien Isolation, or Mr X from Resident Evil 2. While scripted bot matches of the multiplayer game make sense from a development standpoint, they aren’t that innovative. No great FPS campaign just had scripted matches of multiplayer in the exact same arenas, but rather used those arenas to draw from ideas that were in the campaign. Instead, let’s see survivors sneaking through maps trying to avoid killers, repair gens, marshalling support from survivor AIs, and discovering secrets about the entity’s realm.

Besides gens, other gameplay elements could be introduced to matches based on the requirements of the story. For example, clearing (or perhaps inflicting) blight could be added to gameplay; a story involving trying to increase the spread of blight and destroy the Entity could actually be really compelling. They should definitely take inspiration from the FPS campaign genre to see how time spent between combat is filled in a compelling way, with elements such as exploration or resource collection.

I also like the idea of including some PVE multiplayer for the survivor campaign. Perhaps the possibility of a gang of four survivors taking on the level together and progressing through the story could add a little bit of community spirit, without it being a competitive PVP experience. Inspired by games such as Little Big Planet 2, you would be able to just drop in and out of the main campaign with your friends as you play, or work to master and speed-run your favourite levels together.

The killer campaign would have more of a focus on combat rather than stealth. The missions could involve sniffing out survivors, or battling other killers in deadly duels to prove themselves to The Entity. The potential for an out-and-out massacre is hard to ignore when you imagine a killer invading our reality – just imagine the slugging opportunities and non-stop mori-fest you could go on with entire crowds of NPCs running around in front of you!

FPS campaigns often have monsters or other unique enemies who don’t make it into the multiplayer mode. One of my childhood favourites Lost Planet: Extreme Condition revolves mainly around killing animal-like aliens (both bosses and hordes) throughout the campaign, whereas the online multiplayer was a more traditional human vs human arena battle. Potentially adding some kind of huge, mutated blight monsters for the killers to battle as bosses could also be satisfying, and dealing with some of the entity’s tendrils, plant-monsters, and haunts as additional, attackable enemies could be a great way to keep the gameplay loop fresh. It would be interesting to balance their implementation to make these things feel scary to survivor players who have to avoid them, but squishy enough that a killer feels like they could take them. Would Alien Isolation be as scary if they added a colonial marine game mode where you can just gun down the Xenomorph? Perhaps not, but with the right balance of gameplay mechanics in development, you could potentially make both playstyles satisfying. 

If the bots found in private lobbies were to have a difficulty setting to make them actually competitive, then their AI could be brought into this mode to make for truly skilled opponents, and keep the story feeling like a challenge. Imagine computer survivors who actually know how to survive running around the map like cockroaches while the killer also has to fight a giant, blighted mutant without losing them. Fascinating ideas in the works…

Conclusion

While not always a core part of every game today, I think there is a lot to be gained from a good single player campaign, both in terms of developing the lore in a more accessible format, and giving players even more ways to enjoy the game. It would also help add some longevity to the game for when it inevitably becomes a retro title in a few decades.

Rather than DBD just shutting down its servers and vanishing forever, it could leave behind a twenty hour plus long campaign that people will be able to enjoy until the end of time. Many FPS classics live and thrive from a great campaign, and are worth picking up second hand even after any online mode has shut down. Regardless of how accurate to my weird dream the campaign would be, I would be hyped to see it added to Dead By Daylight.