Dead by Daylight

The studio had long wanted to let players be the bad guy. But publishers kept saying people didn't want to play horror games, so the idea first became a comedy. That was Naughty Bear. Unhappy with it, the team went back to horror. The first games of hide and seek were tested by two people holding cardboard in front of the monitor so neither could see the other's screen.

Then other people's villains moved in. The first, in October 2016, was Michael Myers from Halloween, followed by Freddy Krueger, Pyramid Head and Chucky, and in summer 2026 Jason Voorhees. Behaviour even sent four of its own killers on dates in Hooked on You, a 2022 parody.

According to Behaviour, the game had passed 70 million players by June 2026. One reviewer of the 2017 Xbox One version found the killers far too strong, with survivors barely ever escaping. Players give it 78% positive across 694,610 reviews, and critics 71 on Metacritic. In our Recommended Score it ranks 3,012 of 4,736 games.

Enjoyed it? Try Friday the 13th: The Game, where up to seven camp counselors run from Jason, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, where three members of a killer family hunt four victims.