Dead by Daylight x Five Nights at Freddy’s crossover brings new horrors to The Entity’s Realm

The Dead by Daylight and Five Nights at Freddy’s collaboration is officially here, bringing Springtrap into The Entity’s Realm as a playable Killer. Springtrap is now available to players as a part of the game’s latest chapter and 9.0.0 update, following the Dead by Daylight: Five Nights at Freddy’s public test beta, which went down on May 27.

And to celebrate, Behaviour Interactive released a cinematic trailer showing the new Killer in all his freaky animatronic glory. A Survivor safely watches from an office located on the new map, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, as Springtrap terrorizes another character as they attempt to run for their life. However, the Survivor’s luck runs out after Springtrap breaches the office and brutally takes her life.

For longtime fans of the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, the overall collaboration is packed with nods to the modern classic point-and-click game, drawing heavily from the first Five Nights at Freddy’s game. When players select Springtrap as a Killer, the Killer and the Survivors will have more game mechanics presented to them than they usually do in the deadly Trials. Maps will have security doors with cameras, which players can disrupt, giving them more control over the Trial. And to balance things out, Springtrap will be more “powerful than your average Killer” with an array of new abilities and perks that make Trials that much more tense.

Jay Guzzo, Springtrap’s Killer designer for the collaboration, spoke about the challenges the dev team faced when bringing over the terrifying animatronic to the Dead by Daylight universe. Guzzo also opened up about fusing both FNAF and Dead by Daylight gameplay to create something wholly different for fans of both horror franchises.

“It goes without saying that Five Nights at Freddy’s and Dead by Daylight feature diametrically opposed gameplay,” said Jay Guzzo, Springtrap’s Killer designer. “In the former, you’re mainly sitting in one room and managing a single resource – your battery. Whereas in Dead by Daylight, it’s much more action-oriented, and sitting still will likely get you nowhere fast. Our challenge became finding a way to get those two things to coalesce. It came down to identifying what creates that incredible tension in Five Nights at Freddy’s and adapting it into a dynamic format for our own game.”

Additionally, the crossover brings new goodies for players to collect, such as alternate costumes for Springtrap. For example, one costume draws inspiration from the Yellow Rabbit Outfit, as seen in the 2023 film adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s. And yes, the costume features Matthew Lillard’s likeness and voice.

Springtrap now joins a loaded roster of horror icons, with 39 Killers and 46 Survivors available as playable characters, some more successful than others. But all are terrifyingly awesome in their own way.

Dead by Daylight is available now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.