Dead by Daylight is the most-played horror game in history, Behaviour Interactive claims

Behaviour Interactive is calling Dead by Daylight the most-played horror game in history, and the studio is backing that up with numbers ahead of the game's 10th anniversary. Over the past decade, more than 70 million players have jumped in, and the game currently averages over 1 million daily players across all platforms.

Revenues have grown more than 50% over the last 12 months, and 2025 was the game's biggest year yet — over six million new players joined in that year alone. On Steam, Dead by Daylight has stayed in the top 15 best-sellers for nine consecutive years. When it launched in 2016, the team was 30 people and initial sales forecasts sat around 300,000 copies. The Dead by Daylight team has since grown to nearly 500, and Behaviour itself — now the largest Canadian game studio — employs over 1,200 people across offices in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Dallas, Middlesbrough, and Rotterdam. Co-founder and CEO Rémi Racine put it plainly: "Initial forecasts predicted sales of around 300,000 copies. 10 years and more than 70 million players later, I'm astounded by how the game continues to reach new heights."

A big part of Dead by Daylight's staying power is its crossover roster — the game has pulled in licensed killers and survivors from Alien, Five Nights at Freddy's, Resident Evil, Friday the 13th, and Stranger Things, among others. Rival claimants to the most-played horror crown include the Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchises, Phasmophobia, and Outlast, but Behaviour's claim is specifically about a single title rather than a whole franchise — and very few individual horror games have sustained this kind of player base over a full decade.

Behaviour is hosting a 10th anniversary event in Montreal on June 14, with over 3,000 fans expected on-site and a livestream kicking off at 5pm PT / 8pm ET. The stream is set to reveal what's next for the game, so expect announcements around future content and possibly the game's next big chapter.