Highlights
- Alien is coming to Dead by Daylight, expanding the game's horror franchise and offering new content and gameplay.
- The Xenomorph killer and an associable map will hopefully provide exciting and terrifying experiences for players.
- Including the facehugger creature as an ability for the Xenomorph could further enhance the horror and immersion of the game.
Few horror classics have yet to make their way to Dead by Daylight, and among those are IPs fans have waited a long time for. There’s no word on whether a Friday the 13th adaptation is any closer to being fulfilled, for example, but many iconic slashers and horror progenitors are still on the table. It was recently confirmed in a teaser that Alien is coming to Dead by Daylight soon, whetting the palate of science-fiction horror enthusiasts and introducing another goldmine of content for the asymmetrical cat-and-mouse game.
Based on the fact that this crossover content chapter will likely encompass Alien alone and not its sequels or spin-offs quite yet, there is still a lot of potential for the franchise in Dead by Daylight. The Nostromo will be an incredible map to explore and telegraph, and the Xenomorph as a killer would be paired well with Ripley as a survivor, though a survivor has not yet been confirmed for the update. The Xenomorph has multiple different abilities that make it horrifying, but one associable creature that is even more terrifying could easily make an appearance as a killer power for the Xenomorph.
Dead by Daylight’s Alien Can Employ a Facehugger Like the Twins’ Victor
Of course, the Xenomorph could be similar to Plague and have acidic vomit it sprays on survivors, though molecular acid is its blood and not something it spews. The Xenomorph’s long tail will most likely be what it attacks with as a mid-range power, or at least that would be the simplest option.
Rather, the facehugger creature from Alien lore is revolting and terrifying in its own right, particularly in its role as the alien that latches onto a human’s face and plunges an egg down their throat for an infant alien to burst from their chest thereafter. The facehugger perishes after that point, but the trauma and impending demise have already been administered. Fortunately, Dead by Daylight already has the foundations of such a creature included with the Twins killer characters.
Victor Deshayes is independently controllable apart from Charlotte and leaps at survivors, latching onto them as they struggle to wrench him free. Facehuggers are notoriously difficult to remove, though, which could mean that facehuggers cannot be freed from the survivor’s face, and maybe there could be emergency medical pods scattered throughout each map to allow players to cut the embryo out of their stomachs.
This would admittedly take a lot more work than a simpler power would afford, and for that reason it might be too much of an effort to consider. Regardless, facehuggers are a truly unnerving part of the Xenomorph’s life cycle and it would be intriguing to see them added to the Xenomorph’s arsenal of abilities in Dead by Daylight.
Other considerations are likely easier to make for the killer character, such as it being humanoid enough to be able to carry downed survivors and hook them, and seeing what Behavior has in store for balancing its power with other mechanics in the game will be interesting, to say the least. Because while having a popular killer character is perhaps half the battle already, Dead by Daylight will need to prioritize making the Xenomorph incredibly fun and engaging, too.
Dead by Daylight is available on Mobile, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
