Dead by Daylight: Behaviour Interactive on Finally Adding Jason Voorhees
Jason Voorhees’s long-awaited arrival in Dead by Daylight is only the opening move in a much bigger partnership, according to Behaviour Interactive. Speaking at the Shacknews E4 2026 showcase, Game Director Dave Richard and Head of Partnerships Mathieu Cote confirmed the studio has licensed the wider “Jason Universe” rather than a single character skin, hinting at further Camp Crystal Lake content still to come.
Cote: “The Jason universe is what we are bringing into Dead by Daylight”
Asked about the scope of the deal, Cote was blunt about what fans should expect beyond the killer himself. “The Jason universe is what we are bringing into Dead by Daylight,” says Cote. “It was a long process. It’s also an incredibly confidential process, so I can’t go into the details,” he told Shacknews Head of Video Greg Burke.
That framing matters. Rather than describing Jason as a one-off licensed cosmetic, Behaviour is positioning the deal as an ongoing relationship with the character’s rights holders, leaving room for maps, cosmetics or even survivor characters pulled from the Friday the 13th film series down the line. Neither Cote nor Richard put a timeline on what comes next, keeping details locked behind the same confidentiality that shaped the original negotiation.
Richard on Jason’s design: “he’s already around the corner”
Richard used the same interview to explain the design thinking behind Jason’s stealth-based kit, stressing that the team wanted his in-game presence to mirror the character’s screen persona. “He’s a slasher” type character, explains Richard, and “that’s going to be important. But one of the pillars that was important for us for Jason was about how he is always around the corner. We wanted to recreate that feeling in the game. You only see him walking really slowly, but he’s already around the corner; he’s already there to surprise you.”
In a separate but concurrent exclusive interview with Sportskeeda, conducted during the same 10th anniversary press run, Richard pushed back on the idea that Jason simply reskins existing killers like The Trapper or The Hillbilly. “Great question, because that would be a misconception,” Richard said. “So, obviously the comparison with The Trapper is that The Trapper is our very first character. And we are also inspired by his movies that we love, like Friday the 13th and other slasher movies. So, The Trapper is a slasher, right? So, that’s where it ends. Jason is completely different.”
Cote, in the same Sportskeeda conversation, was similarly guarded when asked directly how the negotiation unfolded, offering only that “this is always a very delicate kind of question to answer. But, it’s been years in the making.”
A decade-long gap finally closed on Dead by Daylight’s 10th anniversary
Jason’s absence had been one of the roster’s most obvious holes for years. Along with its original killers and survivors, Behaviour has brought a slew of high-profile horror characters into the fold over the last decade, including Vecna and the Demogorgon from Stranger Things, Chucky, Pyramid Head from Silent Hill, Ghostface, Freddy Krueger and Leatherface. Jason had been a glaring omission from that lineup. Developers from Behaviour have spoken openly for years about wanting to bring Jason into the world of DbD, but complex legal and licensing issues prevented that from happening.
Part of that complexity traced back to a rival project. A lawsuit over the rights to the franchise’s characters also hampered Friday the 13th: The Game. That earlier game, developed by IllFonic, was ultimately delisted, leaving Dead by Daylight as the character’s first major playable video game outing in years.
Chapter 40 launched June 16 for $4.99 or 500 Auric Cells
The Jason chapter, officially Chapter 40, went live on all platforms on June 16, 2026, timed to Dead by Daylight’s 10th anniversary. Behaviour Interactive finally opened Chapter 40: Jason to all platforms at 11 AM ET on June 16, 2026 — the game’s anniversary. Chapter 40 is available now for $4.99 or 500 Auric Cells, purchasable through the in-game store and platform storefronts. The chapter includes Jason Voorhees as a playable killer along with three cosmetic skins: Backwoods Terror, a woodland interpretation of the classic Camp Crystal Lake look; Death Forsaken, a darker supernatural variant; and Depths of Despair, a waterlogged design that references Jason’s origin in Crystal Lake’s depths.
His kit splits into two powers: a stealth ability called Omnipresent Evil that lets him vanish from the map entirely while tracking survivors through environmental cues, and Improvised Carnage, which lets him snatch up makeshift weapons scattered across the map to throw and pin injured survivors against walls. The chapter shipped alongside a new map and survivor on the game’s version 10.0.0 update, released simultaneously on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series consoles, and Nintendo Switch — meaning New Zealand and Australian players got day-one access through their regional storefronts alongside the rest of the world.
With the licensing hurdle cleared and Cote openly flagging more “Jason Universe” content to come, Dead by Daylight’s next moves with Camp Crystal Lake’s most famous resident look set to unfold gradually over the months ahead rather than all at once.
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