The flashlight did not lie: Alan Wake is coming to Dead by Daylight as a new survivor

YouTube

One day after dropping a teaser that shone a pretty clear light on what was coming next, Behaviour Interactive has made it official: Alan Wake, the long-suffering writer and star of Remedy's Alan Wake games, is coming to Dead by Daylight as a new survivor.

Alan Wake brings a trio of unique perks to the game, all of them specific to the character. Champion of Light grants Wake faster movement while he's using his flashlight, and if he blinds a killer with it, they'll be temporarily slowed. His Illumination boon enables him to create a totem that enables all nearby survivors to see the auras of generators and chests on the map, and lets him cleanse and bless totems faster. And finally, the Deadline perk increases the frequency of skill checks when he's healing other survivors or repairing generators while injured, and halves the penalty if he fails one—"Sometimes, you just have to write through a hand cramp," Behaviour said.

And yes, this is the "real" Alan Wake, with new voice lines provided by Matthew Porretta, who voices the character in Remedy's award-winning survival horror games. (That's him in the trailer, too.)

"We are thrilled and honored to have Alan Wake enter the Fog of Dead by Daylight,” Remedy creative director Sam Lake said. "From our early excited conversations on about our collaboration with Behaviour Interactive, it was clear that the lore of both games were surprisingly compatible, drawing from many similar inspirations, a true match in… Hell."

Dead by Daylight's previous big celebrity survivor, real-life actor Nicolas Cage, was really an unexpected and oddball bit of casting, although he threw himself into it enough to cause serious psychological trauma to features writer Harvey Randall. Alan Wake is a much more natural fit: The world he inhabits in his own games is more psychological horror than slasher flick and he's not going to be able to write his way out of an ugly encounter with Chucky, but the bottom line is that he's a guy desperately trying to escape a horrific realm he was sucked into through no fault of his own.

Image 1 of 5

Dead by Daylight screenshot - Alan Wake in Dead by Daylight — (Image credit: Behaviour Interactive)

"Since it first launched back in 2010, Alan Wake has been a huge influence to us on the Dead by Daylight team,” Behaviour Interactive head of partnerships Mathieu Coté said. "From broad themes to specific elements, both our games already feel connected in many ways.

"This is a character we always thought would be right at home in the Dead by Daylight universe. To finally see Alan come to the Fog as a Survivor feels like a full-circle moment, especially as the recently released second entry in the franchise is still fresh in player’s minds."

Alan Wake is slated to arrive in Dead by Daylight on January 30, but you can step into his shoes now in the public test build that's available on Steam. The PTB also adds a new FOV slider, adds a new limit to the number of times generators can be "regressed" by killers in order to prevent overlong matches, and makes a number of fixes and gameplay adjustments. Note that while you'll be able to progress as usual for as long as the PTB is up, that progress won't carry over to the live game.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.