Skip to main content

You can now shape-shift as Dracula in Dead by Daylight’s Castlevania crossover

The Dark Lord in Dracula holding out his hand. HIs castle can be seen in the background.
Behaviour Interactive

The Dead by Daylight and Castlevania crossover launches today, not only bringing a new killer and survivor to the former, but also some new abilities, including shape-shifting for the first time.

Undoubtedly, the flashiest of the additions is the new killer, The Dark Lord (you know, Dracula). And like the lord of darkness himself, he can shape-shift into three forms. First is the normal vampire form, which can throw flames and float around obstacles. The second is the wolf, which has improved survivor tracking abilities that let it see clues like scratch marks or follow scent orbs. The wolf can also collect these orbs to move faster. Finally, there’s the bat, which doesn’t have a terror radius, can teleport to nearby vault locations, and has the keenest perception out of all three, with scratch marks constantly being visible and footsteps being louder (although you can’t see the survivors).

Recommended Videos

Switching between all three forms will take strategy and some experience in Dead by Daylight to use effectively, but it’s a great way to change up the relatively normal batch of killers.

Then there’s the new survivor, Trevor Belmont, who will be bringing along three new perks. Eyes of Belmont reveals the killer’s aura for a longer period of time after completing a generator and will likely be a new favorite among survivors. The other two are more specific, with Exultation allowing you to upgrade a held item if you pallet stun a killer, and Moment of Glory givingthe player a “broken” status effect when injured. After a certain amount of time, they’ll heal one health state.

As with many previous collaborations, both the killer and survivor get new skins. Trevor gets a bunch, including ones for Leon and Simon Belmont, while Dracula can dress himself up as versions of himself from Dracula X and Castlevania Chronicles. Strangely enough, there’s also a skin that makes him look like Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and comes with “an entirely new experience,” according to the developers.

If you can wait until September 12, Dead by Daylight will also be getting a Maria Renard outfit for Kate Denson and a Sypha Belnades outfit for Mikaela Reid.

If you’re a Castlevania fan who doesn’t care about Dead by Daylight, there’s a little extra news. Three Nintendo DS Castlevania titles will be releasing on the Switch in the Castlevania Dominus Collection, announced during Nintendo’s August Partner Showcase on Tuesday. The bundle includes Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesiaalong with the arcade title Haunted Castle.

Carli Velocci
Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…
Silent Hill 2 still doesn’t have a release date, but you can play a free spinoff game now
Anita stands in a hallway full of post-it notes in Silent Hill: The Lost Message.

We got a new trailer for Bloober Team's long-awaited Silent Hill 2 remake during today's PlayStation State of Play stream, which highlighted the horror game's reworked combat. While it still doesn't have a release date, publisher Konami did reveal an entirely new spinoff, Silent Hill: The Short Message, which is available now.

The announcement trailer for the entirely new Silent Hill game, which is officially available and free of play on the PlayStation 5 as of this exact moment, depicts the series' notoriously creepy visuals and a storyline involving a woman named Maya contacting the protagonist, Anita, on a smartphone as the player is drawn deeper into The Short Message's dreary, graffiti-covered, and extremely haunted apartment complex.

Read more
Alan Wake is coming to Dead by Daylight later this month
Alan Wake in Dead by Daylight.

Behaviour Interactive announced today that multiplayer horror game Dead by Daylight will cross over with Remedy Entertainment's Alan Wake later this month.

Alan Wake is just the latest of several crossover characters to come by Dead by Daylight. Just last year, the multiplayer horror game crossed over with franchises like Alien and Child's Play; Nicolas Cage also came to the game as a survivor. This Alan Wake crossover feels particularly timely, as Alan Wake 2 launched in October 2023 to critical acclaim, bringing Remedy Entertainment's cult classic horror franchise into the mainstream.

Read more
Dead by Daylight goes single-player with The Casting of Frank Stone
A man wearing a mangled welding helmet.

Behaviour Interactive revealed The Casting of Frank Stone, a new narrative-focused single-player horror title set in the Dead by Daylight universe, at The Game Awards 2023.

Dead by Daylight has stayed relevant in the competitive landscape of live-service multiplayer titles in no small part due to the rollout of horror films' most iconic characters, as well as its addicting gameplay. For as popular as this asymmetrical game centered around four survivors attempting to avoid and escape one powerful killer --such as Chucky, Ghostface, and even Nic Cage -- has become, a strong narrative has never been a key ingredient in its success. We already knew the universe would be expanded with a Blumhouse-produced film adaptation, however, we now know that players looking to fully engross themselves in a new original story in that universe will finally get that chance.

Read more