In the most recent trailer for Dead By Daylight’s Chapter 26: Forged In Fog, we get a brief glimpse of a new playable hero, Vittorio, and let us tell you... this man looks like Jeffery Dean Morgan in all his salt-and-pepper sexiness. Of course, this sent the Dead By Daylight community into a spiral. The almost immediate turnaround of thirst fan art was incredible, of both the safe for work and very not safe for work variety. Fan art of this type isn’t new to Dead By Daylight. (Should you be interested there are thousands of images are up on Twitter and Rule34.)
betti357/Deviant Art
But it got us thinking. Behaviour Interactive, the Montreal, Canada-based developer of Dead By Daylight, is one of the most prominent mainstream video game makers to welcome the thirst of their fans. To really embrace the culture around what their fans would do with these characters and lean into the fun. For example, look at this summer’s release of Hooked On You, a Dead By Daylight dating sim.
With the announcement of the Vittorio character hitting all those Daddy vibes, we were determined to talk with someone at Behaviour Interactive about its community’s thirst level. Thankfully, we got in touch with just the right person to ask: Dave Richard, creative director of Dead By Daylight.
Chenwa/Twitter
PRIDE: When did you first become aware of how thirsty your fans are for the Dead By Daylight characters?
Dave Richard: We’ve known of our fans’ thirst for a long time – fanfic abounds on social media. And while we know this, it’s always such a trip to see the responses on social media when we release a new character. It’s a wild ride, to be sure!
How intentional is that? Was it from the start, or more of a reaction to the fans — and giving them what they want?
That’s a good question, and the answer is no. We’ve seen fanfic with The Trapper or The Nurse – and that was before Hooked on You! What is sexy or attractive anyway? These are really subjective concepts. We never go into character design thinking fans will fawn over this. We design what feels honest to us based on the theme of a set chapter. That being said, sometimes we do like to send a small wink to the fans. Vittorio’s shirtlessness serves a purpose (his mysterious tattoos are exposed) but we [also] thought our players would appreciate it.
Courtesy of Behaviour Interactive
In the trailer for Chapter 26: Forged in Fog, we meet two new additions to the game’s ever-growing roster: The Knight (our new Killer) and the hunky Vittorio. He’s clearly a good-looking guy, what with the Jeffery Dean Morgan vibes. How did the internal reaction to him go?
Loving the reference here. Well, as you may imagine, our team members love him and find him very charming.
Did you know going into this that the community would lose it (in a good way) for how he looks? I mean, the shirtless cosmetic on release just shows you the level of thirst your player base has for Vittorio.
I can honestly say we’re also so pleasantly surprised by how the community “loses it.” Of course, we had an inkling that he would be popular, but the love just keeps pouring in, and it’s so great. Honestly, this is why we do what we do – for the fans!
Jubalina/Reddit
Have you come to expect the player base’s thirst for the characters you and the team design?
Yes and no. Some characters are designed with the power of attraction in mind. It’s part of their personality. They’re charming and striking in their own way. We’re making our characters appealing and attractive, even though, of course, that’s incredibly subjective.
Has the fandom around Dead By Daylight ever influenced how you go about creating these characters?
Our sources of inspiration when creating our characters are wide and varied. We’re humans and gamers, and we also create what we want to see. That’s the beauty of being a game developer. We do think of our fans – we may have an intuition that they’ll love something, but we also listen to our own compass and other imperatives. We’ve seen some. We’ve seen some fantastic fan art; some sexy, some calmer, but there are some really talented artists out there. The talent is truly insane. And it’s not lost on the team how lucky we are to have such a passionate community. Part of the fun of having an active community is to see our characters in situations we can’t normally show them in-game because it would break several established canons. (Looking at you Trapper x Myers)
Have any designs been turned down because of their sexuality?
While our fans are at the core of what we do, there are limits that we want to establish. We would not, for instance, promote anything overtly sexual – this is not what Dead By Daylight is about. However, some concepts tread on a fine line, and when aiming towards a sexier outfit, we have a review team that makes sure through exploration and iteration that the outfit brings something positive to the game universe and to our community.
Has any fan art really stood out to you? If so, would you share?
We couldn’t possibly pick one! We’re always floored by the talent within our community. There are some true artists out there, and we appreciate their talent.
enigmasystem.art/Instagram
If there was one licensed character you could “thirst” up, which one would it be? And do you have a horror villain or protagonist that’s on your wishlist to be added?
Unfortunately, we can’t answer that. You’ll just have to wait and see and ask us this question again in the future!
We want to thank Dave for taking the time to talk with PRIDE about thirst and Dead By Daylight. It’s clear the game’s makers are eager to embrace and nurture their artistic community. We can’t wait to see what’s next. One thing’s for sure: The community will be ready to make things sexy.
