The Dead by Daylight Film Adaptation Has One Massive Challenge Nobody Is Talking About

The news of the Dead by Daylight film adaptation was announced at the tenth anniversary celebration of the game, brought by Behaviour Interactive. The flick will be helmed by 2024’s The Damned director, Thordur Palsson, as per Gizmodo. The Icelandic director brought the icily disturbing terror to The Damned as the story of the Draugr captivated us with its haunting atmosphere, rightfully earning its 90% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Blumhouse Atomic Monster and Behaviour Interactive, the largest Canadian gaming studio, will collaborate on the project. CEO of Blumhouse, Jason Blum, said with excitement, 

“There is no better moment than the tenth anniversary to share this news. Thordur is the filmmaker we trust to carry Dead by Daylight from the screen you play on to the big screen you watch in theaters.” [Source]

The CEO of Blumhouse, James Wan, praised Thordur for understanding the approach of creating true terror. The Damned is explicit proof of keeping the fear of the unknown alive. The Scandinavian folklore’s vicious entity, Draugr, was mostly kept in the shadows and was only revealed with a final good look at the protagonist, Eva’s face. 

Wan approved of his effective strategy regarding making the audience “feel the walls closing in,” and this is exactly what is needed for the DBD film adaptation. As in the game, the only thing seen in the spidery legs of the entity that pulls its victims to its realm would be the same territory of fear-of-the-unknown that is required for maintaining its atmosphere’s tension-infused grip surrounding the mysterious being.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dread Central (@dreadcentral)

Similarly, the chief product officer of Behaviour Interactive, Stephen Mulrooney, hailed the distinct vision of the filmmaker who has a “perfect creative voice to bring the game’s universe to life.” He is confident in the director’s abilities to create a story deeply rooted in atmosphere and that he would come up with something that would enthrall the longtime fans and new audiences alike. 

Plot details of the Dead by Daylight film adaptation

The plot details of the film are still under wraps, but since the game follows a crazy killer whose goal is to hunt down a group of survivors and offer them to a sinister entity, the film might follow the same survival and escape story. 

While no clear details of the plot are revealed at the moment, Mulrooney did mention that fans would be able to see some of the real-world places shrouded in fog. MacMillan Estate and Greenville could be some of the iconic sites fans can expect to view in the upcoming film. 

The director himself mentioned that he is genuinely interested in capturing the real feel of the game. He wants to capture the dread of looking over your shoulder and the looming fright of something waiting for you in the fog. Having the experience of watching such a movie on a big screen is the main cinematic appeal Thordur is actually after. 

Can the Dead by Daylight film adaptation avoid the mistakes of other video game movies? 

Jason Blum has been vocal about his approach when making Five Nights at Freddy’s, as he agreed that the team believed they knew how to make a film about a game that the fans were passionate about. They took the opposite approach to what fans were looking forward to, and this is where Hollywood made the mistake. 

Game-to-film adaptations have been a gray area where Hollywood is still struggling, while Japan, Korea, and China have been excelling in it day after day. Exit 8 (2025) is the recent magisterial example of a game that holds claustrophobic dread of walking in an ever-ending subway, legitimately holding a 93% Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score for the sublime art.

Hollywood somehow does better at making series-to-film adaptations, while it still struggles in the film dimension. Last year’s Until Dawn only managed to gain a 52% Rotten Tomatoes score, signifying a lackluster execution for a massive potential-holding game idea, producing a frustrating result.  

Comparatively, The Last of Us (2023-), The Witcher (2019-), Castlevania (2017-2021), Twisted Metal (2023-), and Fallout (2024-) are much more effective examples of the episodic format of the games that preserve the structure, pacing, and progression of the originals. Probably, Hollywood films are still trying to figure out their way of compressing hours of gameplay into a two-hour narrative as good as Exit 8. 

One massive challenge for the Dead by Daylight film adaptation

This is exactly what the discussion is about: the DBD game doesn’t have a straightforward plot, and without a clear story, the film adaptation would be meaningless. The game is not about the killers only; the game merely revolves around an endless cycle of survivors being hunted by the killers, which is a premise that worked great for multiplayer gameplay. 

For a movie, it could be much more complicated; watching characters repair generators, falling and getting up again to escape the killers, repeatedly viewing different killers to hunt victims, and offering them to a supernatural entity would snatch the real fun from the audience and would hardly keep them invested for two hours. 

The filmmakers could move beyond the fog, the entity, and the atmospheric tension for which Thordur is being hailed as the sole savior. They should explain why survivors are trapped in the fog, why the killers serve the Entity, and what stakes are involved on both sides. Mythology could be further explored, along with a careful analysis of which killers should be included in the story and what should be left out if a sequel is planned.  

One of the biggest strengths of the game is its diverse roster of killers, which could become one of the biggest weaknesses for the film adaptation. Too many killers could leave audiences with little time to comprehend and connect with any of them. Which ones to include and which ones to omit for now might infuriate some of the diehard fans of the game. 

Casting choices would dominate the headlines for the times to come, certainly, which would affect the choice of killers to be included in the film adaptation. Fans will debate their creative decisions for months, as deciding which killers get the maximum screen time is a matter of life and death for both the fans and filmmakers.