[April Fools’!] Dead by Daylight: RE7, Jack Baker DLC Announced, Coming This October

I’d been hoping against hope that Dead by Daylight would start getting some videogame licensed killers, rather than those just from movies and TV shows. Over the course of Dead by Daylight‘s three years dominating the 4v1 horror multiplayer genre, we’ve seen a number of big-screen killers and heroes make guest appearances as DLC; Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, the list goes on. I’d been curious to know if we’d ever get to see guest characters from “the competition” as it were, a Pyramid Head chapter, or even Nemesis (given the imminent release of Resident Evil 3 Remake). Looks like we’re finally getting our first official horror game crossover with Dead by Daylight: The Family Chapter.

Based on Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the latest DLC for Dead by Daylight sees us stepping into the boots of that title’s famous master of slaughter, Jack Baker as this chapter’s killer. Included as well is new survivor Ethan Winters and a new map based on the Baker mansion! Along with Jack and Ethan are three new killer perks and two new survivor perks:

Killer Perks:

D.I.Y.: The Killer has the ability to dismantle a single generator permanently. This action results in a lengthy animation, but requires no skill checks and will permanently disable that generator for the duration of the match.

Ethan… Ethan!: The killer emits a loud sound (in Jack’s case, he’ll deliver lines as read by Jack’s original VA, Jack Brand!), that causes all survivors in a certain radius to startle and reveal their auras for a period of 2 seconds.

Welcome to the family, son: When all generators have been powered up and one exit gate has been opened, the killer has the ability to insta-down survivors, albeit with a lengthy cool-down.

Survivor Perks:

Master of Unhooking: The survivor has the ability to unhook themselves instantly upon command. This action comes with a 120-second cooldown, but the survivor will be capable of unhooking themselves from any hook once the cooldown is over. If the survivor is hooked while the cooldown is active, they will be unable to escape.

Herbal mix: The survivor can replace their item with an herbal mix item, which allows them to either self-heal or heal another player fully, no matter what state the survivor being healed is in. However, using the herbal mix perk restricts the survivor from dropping the herbal mix item or swapping it for another item, and once the herbal mix has been used once, it is depleted for the duration of the match.

These are some pretty game-changing perks, especially Welcome to the family. I’m not wholly against them, though. I do love the naming though. As always, Dead by Daylight finds fun ways of integrating quotes or other nods from the films into their DLC. In terms of gameplay, Ethan wasn’t featured in either of the screenshots packaged in the press release, but they may just be focusing on Jack for now. It looks as though his weapon will be that freaky amalgamation of gardening tools and whatnot he uses during the first quarter of RE7. Check it out:

The model looks remarkably close to Capcom’s own RE Engine render, it’s possible they may have even loaned the character models to Behaviour Interactive, although I find that doubtful. I really do hope he talks a lot in gameplay, especially since they got his original voice actor back. One of Jack’s defining characteristics is the fact that he just doesn’t shut up, and his dialogue is often as funny as it is menacing. That said, we’ve already seen Dead by Daylight sidestep talkative characters, like Freddy Kreuger (even though it was the remake Freddy, he still chats up a storm in that film). Ash from The Evil Dead talks a bunch, but only on menus (where he feels kinda wasted), so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Jack.

Here we can see Jack carrying a survivor to the hook, and I’m really blown away by how great he looks in-game. The mold-infested maniac really fits the world and tone of Dead by Daylight, and I can’t wait to see more. Capcom has yet to talk about the DLC other than sharing a link on their twitter, but I assume they are hoping not to take the spotlight away from REmake 3.

There’s no release date for The Family Chapter as of yet, but Behaviour Interactive assures us in their press release that we’ll “get to play it as soon as you kids stop saying we’re a game only for reaction streamers, we’re really a lot better than that. If you don’t like us, then how come we’re the only one of these damn games anyone plays? Y’all thought Friday the 13th was so neat and then none of you went and played it, no you came to us and you thanked us for it. Stop being so mean. We deserve your respect, god damn it.”

We’ll keep you posted.

Update: April Fools’! None of this is real. It would be cool if it was, though.