Dead By Daylight is a survival game that is known for its collaborations with big names in beloved TV and film horror franchises. We’ve seen familiar faces, including the notorious killers Ghostface, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger, as well as iconic locations such as Silent Hill’s Midwich Elementary School, and Stranger Things’ Hawkins National Laboratory. Keeping this in mind, we’ve compiled a list of great horror settings that would make a perfect choice for the next map in the game. Without further ado, here are 10 horror locations that would make perfect maps in Dead By Daylight.
Fear Street 1994’s Shadyside Mall
Dead By Daylight maps are so dark, and grim looking. What better inclusion than a spacious, empty, neon-lit mall to add a bit of variety to the available selections? Shadyside Mall is a location from the film Fear Street Part 1: 1994, and features a classic ’90s local mall.
A mall would be a very interesting location for a Dead By Daylight map, as the various stores would provide plenty of nooks and crannies to hide from killers and fix generators. Alternatively, this map could ditch the whole generator mechanic and have players work together to close down doors to stores in place of fixing gens, and trap the killer inside. This would be a fun little feature, considering that’s exactly how Fear Street opens; with a poor young employee trying to shut down the store and get home for the night, whilst being stalked by a creepy, halloweenish figure.
Plus, just imagine how good the likes of Trickster, Yui, and Yun-Jin would look on this map; It totally matches their aesthetics. Shadyside mall also just seems like the kind of map that I’d enjoy being chased around, with all the retro lights, food stalls, stores, and arcade machines lining the building. Let’s just hope I wouldn’t get too distracted and end up a sacrifice to the Entity.
American Horror Story’s Briarcliff Asylum
There’s nothing that quite screams ‘creepy Dead By Daylight map’ like an old, dated Asylum. Lo and behold, American Horror Story: Asylum’s Briarclif Manor is the perfect choice for such a setting, as not only does it have plenty of creepy rooms to throw generators into, but Asylum is generally regarded to be one of the creepiest and most popular American Horror Story seasons of all time.
Just imagine creeping around the dusty old Manor while trying to stay hidden from the killer, setting foot into the music room where the creepy song Dominique by the Singing Nun plays on a broken loop, repeating over and over again.
This also wouldn’t be Dead By Daylight’s first TV horror crossover. We’ve already had Stranger Things content in the past, so American Horror Story isn’t out of the question. Besides, I can totally imagine the survivors and killers that would be included in a Dead By Daylight DLC Bundle that features AHS: Asylum. Lana Winters, Kit Walker, and Bloodyface, anyone?
The Blair Witch Project’s Black Hills
The Blair Witch Project is one of the most iconic horror films of the ’90s, and perhaps my favorite horror film of all time. The film single-handedly helped establish the found-footage horror genre, and even led people to believe it was a true story upon its release. What better horror icon to feature in Dead By Daylight than the legendary Black Hills?
The Black Hills is the forest in which the pic takes place in, and the rumored location of where the Blair Witch Lives. Dead By Daylight could easily recreate this labrinth-like forest, including important little details such as the Blair Witch’s signature stickman-like Twanas charms, and the creepy little shack in the woods in which the characters stumble across. The map could even feature abandoned campsights and empty tents to help recreate that feeling of isolation and abandonment that is present in the film.
While the inclusion of generators may take away from the atmosphere of the Black Hills, the mechanic can always be swapped out for something to do with the Twanas charms. Perhaps survivors would have to untie and collect them from trees scattered across the maps to locate the exit, and then try to get out before the witch hunts them down. Another nod to the film could be the inclusion of a special basement hook in the abandoned shack/cabin that the Blair Witch is shown to take her victims.
IT’s Town of Derry + Underground Sewers
Don’t tell me you couldn’t imagine the town of Derry as a Dead By Daylight map, complete with an underground section featuring the dark, spooky sewers where the final showdown with Pennywise takes place. The map could be split into two halves, an upper section that features the streets of Derry, lined with houses containing generators and hiding spots, and an underground section featuring the sewers, with more generators and of course, hooks.
Players could jump between each section with the use of ladders and potholes, and there could ever be a number of jump scares worked in to the sewers, such as a creepy appearance or voice line from Pennywise upon entering, similar to the sound effects used in Silent Hill’s Midwich Elementary School map.
Slenderman Forest
I know, I know, another creepy forest? Sure, Black Hills is already mentioned above, but hear me out on this one. Who remembers when Slenderman sent the internet into a craze with the indie horror game, Slender: The Eight Pages in around 2012 or so?
Everyone, everywhere was scaring the hell out of themselves with that game, and there’s no denying that in his prime, Slenderman was one of the most iconic horror figures of all time. So just what would make a Slenderman Forest map so special in comparison to any regular forest? Well, Slenderman Forest offers the chance to remove generators from a map, and replace them with a page mechanic. Slender: The Eight Pages has the player collect 8 pages with clues about Slenderman, whilst trying not to be caught by the faceless, fearsome man himself. But, have you ever wondered who wrote those pages?
I think that in this scenario, the Dead By Daylight survivors can be the ones writing the pages as warning to others about Slenderan and the Entity. Generators take a fixed time to complete, so this can be replicated in survivors having a fixed time to write the pages, and stick them to several designated locations, such as trees and buildings, before finally escaping through the exit.
Just as generators can be interrupted, there can be a writing mechanic where a pencil or pen is dropped upon a failed check, and the survivor must pick it back up using a flashlight, therefore alerting the killer with a brief flash of light, and momentary location reveal. This would make this map a particular challenge and really shake things up a bit, keeping things fresh with new mechanics and featured within a new, but familiar location for many.
The Conjuring House & Surrounding Property
If you’re a horror fan, you’ll recognise this horror movie location right away. Yes, it’s the unforgettably creepy house setting of the first The Conjuring film based on Ed and Lorraine Warren’s paranormal investigations. With this place being one of the most popular horror and paranormal locations both in the horror film franchise, as well as in real-life, many players will personally feel the terror run through them as the killer chases them around such a setting.
Incorporating the Conjuring house and its surrounding property in Dead By Daylight would be the perfect crossover, considering how popular the Conjuring franchise has become with its several films and spin-offs. There are plenty of locations to throw generators in, as well as a real variety of landscapes that can help survivors hide or killers trap their prey, such as the house itself, the open, foggy land out front, and the overgrown surrounding sections.
Insidious’ The Further
If you’ve seen Insidious, there’s no doubt the terrifying red door, and dimension of The Further is forever engraved into your brain. Seriously, I’ll admit that watching this movie as a teen made me a little paranoid of going to sleep at night, just in case I somehow slipped into a similar sleep paralysis or out-of-body state and wound up in this hellish place. What better way to bring back that insidious terror, than with a map in Dead By Daylight?
The Further would be such an interesting map to appear in the game, as there’s currently nothing quite like the overly-red dimension of doom as of yet. Just imagine the creepy atmosphere, and having to sneak your way around the map, fix generators, and leave through that iconic red door. A map like this would really put a knot in my stomach each time I saw it loading up on the screen, and I think that’s exactly the sort of feeling Dead By Daylight should aim to bring back in its future content, as other maps, while enjoyable, often have an underwhelming fear factor for a horror game.
The Shining’s The Overlook Hotel
Oh, wow, The Overlook Hotel. There are few horror locations as significant as this place, having appeared both in Stephen King’s The Shining, as well as its sequel, Doctor Sleep. The Overlook Hotel is quite a large building, so this provides the perfect opportunity to create a new indoor-only map that resembles this creepy accommodation.
There’s plenty of little easter eggs and symbols that can be added into a map like this for horror fans to appreciate, such as a scribbled ‘REDRUM’ on one of the doors, or the axe hole in the door from Jack’s “Here’s Johnny!” moment. Not only this, but the layout of The Overlook Hotel is extremely disorienting, which would make the perfect challenge for survivors to navigate and continue working as a team, especially when a chase with the killer occurs.
Fear Street 1978’s Camp Crystal Lake
Fear Street’s Camp Nightwing is just your average summer camp set in the late ’70s to early ’80s, right? Well, somewhat… minus all the historic curses and bloody slaughter. But seriously, Dead By Daylight has been in dire need of a summer camp map for a long time. After all, the summer camp slasher is just too good of a horror cliche to pass up. And while Friday the 13th’s Camp Crystal Lake is probably the contender that comes to mind first for most, this is pretty much a no-go, considering there’s already a separate Friday the 13th game.
So, the next best thing is Fear Street’s creepy Camp Nightwing, the summercamp that suffered when Tommy Slater was affected by Shadyside’s curse, and began slaughtering all of the campers. There’s plenty that Camp Nightwing would have to offer in the form of a Dead By Daylight map, with separate cabins, halls, and small toilet/shower cubicles to hide in if you’re a survivor, and trap survivors in if you find yourself in the role of the killer.
It would also be particularly interesting to see if the devs wanted to throw any easter eggs in the movie in the map, such as Tommy’s axe being embedded in one of the buildings, or Mary Lane’s journal left dumped on the ground, perhaps with pages pulled out, mentioning the Shadyside curse. Additionally, the map could even include more of this lore from the movie with inclusion of the underground tunnels and chamber that Cindy finds herself stuck in, and that Deena and Sam discover in Fear Street Part 3.
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions’ Deadly Escape Rooms
Most of Dead By Daylight’s maps feature a similar structure, which is fine, as it makes the game relatively easy to play once you’ve got the hang of the basics. However, there is always the opportunity to add a map here and there that operates in a completely different way, bringing something fresh and new to the game to break up that repetition.
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is a perfect example of what a Dead By Daylight map could be. Hear me out: there’s no generators, but instead, you and your fellow survivors start in one large area of the map, with the rest closed off. The killer starts in an underground level, and has no access to the first area for a specific number of seconds at the beginning of a match, but can use this time to pick one of several pathways to approach the first area.
You and your survivors must interact with different objects around the area to achieve a specific number of ‘puzzles solved’ as a team. After you meet a specific number of puzzles solved, the next section of map will unlock, where you must repeat the process in an escape room-styled format. Your aim is to stay ahead of the killer, and outsmart them by hiding and keeping them busy with chases while your team finishes puzzles. Killers aim to interrupt and sabotage these puzzles, as well as interact and set a number of traps, which will reveal a survivor’s location when triggered.
Survivors must solve all puzzles to make it to the final area of the map, where the exit is located, all while avoiding being slashed and hooked by the killer. Perhaps some puzzles are timing-based, some are small on-screen mazes, and others are spin, or drag-based objectives. Think about the tasks in Among Us, for where I’m going with this. This creates another element of challenge beyond simply holding a button to fix a generator, and could create some seriously entertaining and nail-biting fun.
That’s it for 10 horror locations that would make perfect Dead By Daylight maps. For more guides, lists, news, and quizzes, check out the rest of our content here at Twinfinite. We have a variety of topics to keep all of you horror gamers occupied, or you can feel free to check out our other Dead By Daylight posts from the related links below.
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