Dead by Daylight dev addresses fan theories, Archives excitement, and crafting an LGBTQ+ narrative
Working in step with fans
Dead By Daylight has grown quite a bit over its 6+ years of existence, and in numerous ways. The player base continues to expand, the storylines get more rich, and the character roster deepens. With all of that activity comes a rich lore, and some of it is fueled by player speculation.
A lot of that speculation centers on The Observer, the narrator for all Tome entries found in The Archives. The Observer has been in Dead by Daylight for awhile, but he’s never been playable. Now fans are thinking that they might get to go hands-on with the Observer soon.
In an interview with Comicbook.com, Dead by Daylight creative director Dave Richard spoke up on these fan theories and more.
“So, I’m going to answer to that there are some secondary characters, unplayable characters, right? So, in DbD’s lore, there’s Benedict, that’s been there since release. Vigo, some other characters that appear in the lore. The Observer, of course. And players always bet. They always bet that one of these characters will show up as a Survivor or Killer down the line. So, of course it’s something that we considered because we know that the players would love to see that. Is it going to happen with The Observer? Of course, like you said, I can’t say.”
While Richard wasn’t ready to confirm or deny fan theories about The Observer, he did share quite a bit of excitement for what’s happening with characters surrounding The Archives.
“Truly excited about this event. We’re shaking The Archives in a meaningful way and this Tome and what’s happening with The Observer is going to make the universe progress forward. So, it’s going to reveal truths about our universe. And I’m going to say a new chapter – even though Chapters are something else in our game – but it’s a new chapter in the narrative. It’s revealing something new. So absolutely get into that one and read The Observer part and some new characters that are showing up in the archive. It’s definitely going to be really interesting.”
Finally, Richard spoke a bit about the LBGTQ+ connections with Dead by Daylight. Many have noted that the game has a quite a big LGBTQ+ audience, and those players were eager to see Behaviour Interactive put together a Chapter that involves an LGBTQ+ character. Those fans were happy to see that the character of David King is getting his backstory expanded to shed some light on his LGBTQ+ aspects, but Richard was also quick to say that even more LGBTQ+ content is planned for later.
“Definitely making a whole Chapter around an LGBTQ narrative was and is still part of our plan in the future. But we wanted to make sure that this content was in the hands of our player as soon as possible. And doing a Chapter, especially when it’s let’s say out of our comfort zone, it takes time, way more time. And we plan the Chapter way in advance. So we’re not as nimble. So we would have to wait even more. That’s why we chose to do it retroactively. It’s one of the reasons.”
This is why David King’s story is being fleshed out in the near future, as a way to give LGBTQ+ players something they’ve wanted to connect with for awhile now. Truth be told, the Dead by Daylight fans have seen David as LGBTQ+ since his initial reveal, and spread those thoughts through discussion, fan-art, fan-fiction in more. What’s most surprising is that Richard says it was the fans who helped steer their plans for David.
“Of course (we’ve seen fan creations). Yes, it did weigh in the balance in the choice of David. David is a popular character. He’s loved by a lot of different players, no matter the background, but he is definitely a favorite into the LGBTQ ships with Dwight. So definitely that was weighed in.”
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