For ten years, Dead by Daylight has been quietly assembling something no horror movie marathon could ever pull off legally: the horror villains of more than a dozen different franchises, all stalking the same foggy trials. With Jason Voorhees finally in the game, the roster now holds what fans have started calling the Mount Rushmore of horror, Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, and Jason, under one roof. Here is a rundown of the licensed horror icons Behaviour Interactive has brought into The Fog, and what makes each one play like the killer fans remember.
Michael Myers (The Shape)
Michael Myers was the first licensed killer to enter Dead by Daylight, arriving in the Halloween chapter and setting the template for every horror crossover that followed. He is built around stalking, his Evil Within power lets him watch survivors to charge up tiers, going from a slow, almost passive presence to a one-shot menace once he reaches Tier 3. That escalation captures exactly what makes the films work, the patient, unhurried dread of The Shape before the violence lands.
Freddy Krueger (The Nightmare)
Freddy Krueger pulls survivors into a dream world, which is the most faithful possible translation of A Nightmare on Elm Street into a game. While in the dream state, survivors are vulnerable to his abilities in ways they cannot escape by simply running. Freddy has been reworked over the years, but the core fantasy stays intact, the killer who gets you when you are least able to fight back. His arrival also set up something the movies only managed once: Freddy and Jason now share the same roster, the first time since 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason that the two have officially occupied the same space.
Leatherface (The Cannibal)
Leatherface, from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, brought the chainsaw to The Fog. His power is raw aggression, a chainsaw sweep that can catch multiple survivors at once and tear through anyone caught grouped together. Where Myers is patience and Freddy is inevitability, Leatherface is panic, the killer who punishes survivors for sticking together. He remains one of the most beginner-friendly killers in the game precisely because his threat is so direct.
Ghost Face
Ghost Face, from the Scream films, leans into playfulness and stealth in a way that sets him apart from the heavier killers. He can crouch, lean, and stalk survivors to expose them, and a skilled Ghost Face player toys with their prey before striking. Behaviour has noted that his humor and showmanship distinguish him from Michael Myers, one of his clear inspirations. He is the killer who wants you to know the game is being played, right up until it is too late.
Pinhead (The Cenobite)
Pinhead, from Hellraiser, isn’t a slasher like most of these others, but belongs firmly in the horror-icon roster. His power revolves around the Lament Configuration puzzle box and chains that summon across the map, forcing survivors to solve the box or suffer for ignoring it. He brought a more cerebral kind of dread to the game, the sense that the threat is not just chasing you but reshaping the rules around you.
The Xenomorph (Alien)
The Xenomorph, from Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien, is another that isn’t a slasher. Arriving as Chapter 29 in August 2023, it plays unlike anything else in the roster. A network of underground tunnels opens across the map, and the Xenomorph drops into Control Stations to travel fast and burst out at survivors, while its Crawler Mode lets it move on all fours, shrink its terror radius, and unleash a long-range Tail Attack that reaches over pallets and through windows. Survivors fight back with Remote Flame Turrets, the closest the game gets to recreating the cat-and-mouse dread of the Nostromo. It is less a man in a mask and more a perfect organism, exactly as the films intended, and bringing in Ellen Ripley as a survivor sealed the crossover.
Chucky (The Good Guy)
Chucky, from Child’s Play, was one of the more surprising additions, a knee-high killer who changed how the game even frames its chases. His small stature lets him hide and scurry in ways no other killer can, and his Scamper ability lets him slip under pallets and through gaps. He proved Dead by Daylight could take a horror icon defined by a gimmick and build genuinely distinct gameplay around it without losing the character.
Jason Voorhees (The Slasher)
Jason Voorhees is the one fans waited a decade for, and his June 16, 2026 arrival as Chapter 40 doubled as the game’s 10th anniversary centerpiece. His absence was never about interest, it was a years-long copyright dispute between Friday the 13th screenwriter Victor Miller and producer Sean Cunningham’s Horror Inc. that kept the character legally untouchable. The 2021 court ruling in Miller’s favor and the 2024 Jason Universe initiative finally cleared the path. In game, his power, Omnipresent Evil, lets him vanish and reappear across the map at pallets, vaults, and walls, making him feel as inescapable as he does at Camp Crystal Lake. There is a real irony here too, Jason headlined his own asymmetrical horror game, Friday the 13th: The Game, before that title was delisted in 2023, and now he has landed in the game that outlasted it.
The Originals Hold Their Own
Worth remembering that Dead by Daylight did not just borrow its scares. Behaviour’s original killers, the Trapper, the Wraith, the Nurse, the Huntress, and the rest, were designed to stand beside the licensed legends, and the Trapper in particular has always carried a clear Jason influence with his machete and mask, which makes Jason’s actual arrival feel like a loop finally closing. The licensed killers get the name recognition, but the original roster is a big part of why the game earned the right to host them in the first place.
A Horror Crossover Nothing Else Has Matched
When Michael Myers was announced for the game in 2016, it felt like a gimmick. When Leatherface and Freddy were announced in 2017, the game felt like it might leave its mark on horror. Now though? Dead by Daylight feels like the horror Hall of Fame. If your franchise gets in the game, then you’ve made it.
No other game, and arguably no other piece of media, has managed to put Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, Ghost Face, and Jason Voorhees in the same place at the same time. The film studios spent decades unable to clear the rights for crossovers fans dreamed about, and Dead by Daylight quietly solved the problem one chapter at a time. Ten years in, with Jason finally through the door, the roster reads like a horror fan’s impossible wish list made real.
