Behaviour Interactive is a Canadian video game developer and publisher based in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1992 by Rémi Racine, the studio has gone through several rebrands and ownership changes over its thirty year history before emerging as Canada’s largest independent game developer. They are best known for Dead by Daylight, the asymmetric multiplayer horror game that has become one of the most successful live service games in the genre. The studio has developed over 250 titles across its history, covering everything from work-for-hire projects for major publishers to original IP.

Behaviour Interactive’s Origin Story: From Megatoon to Montreal

The Early Days

Behaviour Interactive was founded in 1992 in Quebec City as Megatoon Entertainment Group by Rémi Racine. Two years later Racine co-founded a separate Montreal-based company called Multimedia Interactive to develop CD-ROM entertainment software. Both companies were sold to Malofilm Communications in 1996 and merged into Behaviour Interactive in 1997, with Racine as general manager. In 1997 the studio released Jersey Devil on PlayStation, a 3D platformer that was the first console game made entirely in Quebec. Distributed by Sony, it caught the attention of Infogrames, who approached Behaviour to produce Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time, released in 1999.

The A2M Years

In 1999 Racine and a group of investors bought the studio back from Malofilm but had to rename it in the process. In 2000 it became Artificial Mind and Movement, or A2M. Under that name the studio operated primarily as a work-for-hire developer, producing titles for Konami, Sony, Ubisoft, Disney Interactive, Nintendo, EA, and Activision. They also released original titles including Scaler in 2004, Wet in 2009, a stylized action game with acrobatic gunplay, and Naughty Bear in 2010, a dark comedy action game that sold over 800,000 copies. In 2008 they acquired Wanako Games from Activision Blizzard, a Santiago-based studio that was the first and largest game developer in South America. In November 2010 the studio reverted to the Behaviour Interactive name.

Behaviour Interactive Games: A Complete History of Key Titles

Jersey Devil (1997)

Behaviour’s first major release and a piece of Canadian gaming history. A 3D platformer published by Sony and the first console game made entirely in Quebec. It is what put Behaviour on the radar of major publishers.

Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time (1999)

A platformer developed for Infogrames featuring Bugs Bunny travelling through different time periods. A solid licensed game for its era and a sign of the work-for-hire relationships Behaviour would build over the following decade.

Wet (2009)

An original action game featuring acrobatic gunplay and a grindhouse aesthetic. It was not a massive commercial success but showed that Behaviour had ambitions beyond licensed work.

Naughty Bear (2010)

A dark comedy action game where you play as a murderous teddy bear. It sold over 800,000 copies and was an early indication that Behaviour could build an audience for original, off-beat concepts.

Fallout Shelter (2015)

Behaviour co-developed Fallout Shelter with Bethesda, a mobile vault management simulation game that launched as a surprise alongside the Fallout 4 announcement at E3 2015. It became one of the most downloaded mobile games of the year and introduced Bethesda’s biggest franchise to a massive mobile audience. The game later became infamous for a lawsuit when Bethesda sued Warner Bros. and Behaviour over the Westworld mobile game, alleging it was a copy of Fallout Shelter, right down to reproducing the same software bugs. The suit was settled in January 2019.

As someone who wanted to get into the Fallout games, but just couldn’t, Fallout Shelter was still a lot of fun. I sunk weeks into playing that game and to this day I occasionally will boot it up to see if anything has changed.

Dead by Daylight (2016)

Dead by Daylight is the game that changed everything for Behaviour. An asymmetric multiplayer horror game where four survivors try to escape while one player controls a killer, it launched in June 2016 published by Starbreeze Studios. It sold over one million copies in its first two months. By 2022 it had surpassed 60 million players worldwide. In 2018 Behaviour bought the publishing rights back from Starbreeze for $16 million, which turned out to be one of the best investments in the studio’s history. The game’s revenue allowed Behaviour to grow from CAD $25 million in annual revenue in 2015 to CAD $225 million in 2021. The licensed killers and survivors, including Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leatherface, Ghost Face, Pyramid Head, and characters from Resident Evil, Stranger Things, and many others, kept the game relevant and growing for years after launch. There’s not many games that can keep a player base for 10 years and outlast the competition. VHS, Last Year, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, all games with the same basic idea, but none could last anywhere near as long as Dead by Daylight has.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns (2022)

Behaviour contributed development work on Marvel’s Midnight Suns, the tactical RPG developed by Firaxis and published by 2K. It is a good example of the studio’s ongoing work-for-hire services running alongside their original IP development.

Acquisitions and Expansion

Dead by Daylight’s success funded a period of significant expansion. In 2022 Behaviour acquired Midwinter Entertainment in Seattle, though the studio was later closed in September 2024 along with the cancellation of a Dead by Daylight spinoff project. In September 2024 Behaviour acquired Red Hook Studios, the developer behind Darkest Dungeon and its sequel. Red Hook continues to operate as an independent studio under the Behaviour umbrella. Behaviour has also opened offices in Toronto, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.

No Crunch Policy

Behaviour was one of the first major game studios to formally abolish crunch, the industry practice of requiring employees to work excessive unpaid hours to meet deadlines. The policy earned them recognition as one of Canada’s Best Workplaces multiple times and is worth noting because it is genuinely rare in an industry where crunch has caused serious harm to developers at studios of every size.

What’s Next for Behaviour Interactive

Dead by Daylight remains the core of Behaviour’s business and the studio has stated the game has at least another ten years of life in it. The Red Hook acquisition gives them Darkest Dungeon, one of the best indie roguelikes ever made, as part of their portfolio. They continue to operate their services division doing work-for-hire for major publishers alongside their original IP development. The studio laid off around 135 employees across 2024 as demand for mobile and casual external development projects declined, which is an industry-wide trend rather than a Behaviour-specific problem. They are Canada’s largest independent game developer and Dead by Daylight is still growing.

Dead by Daylight

Dead by Daylight is a asymmetric multiplayer survival horror game developed and published by Behaviour Interactive. Initially Starbreeze Studios was the publisher of the game,…

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