The Whispered One. The Undying King. The Lord of the Rotted Tower. Now, with the collaboration between Dead by Daylight and Dungeons and Dragons, The Lich.
The threads of Vecna's history have been spun for decades now, with new iterations and bits of the jigsaw being added to his puzzle. Now that he, alongside survivors from the Forgotten Realms, has entered the Fog, a new chapter has opened up for Vecna—and it is as terrifying as ever.
After playing as Vecna numerous times since release, we got the opportunity to speak to Creative Director Dave Richard and Game Designer Janick Neveu about what it took to create their own spin on a Dungeons and Dragons legend and how the interactivity and player choice found in the world's most popular TTRPG game influenced gameplay.
One of the first things we needed to know was this: how did Behaviour Interactive make Vecna fly? Outside of Nurse, who floats, every other Killer has their feet firmly on the ground. What makes this more astounding is that Vecna himself floats, but when he uses his Fly ability, he seemingly lifts from the ground and is able to soar over structures (and Survivors) with ease. A movement ability that lets you get across the map quickly isn't unique, nor going over structures, but Vecna's level of elevation is seemingly unmatched. So, how does it work?
"It's all a trick of the mind. The character never lifts from the ground, and it's just the way we handle the camera to make it feel with the animation that you're flying." Neveu explains. "We try to keep our Killer grounded to the map, because anything that disconnects the character from the ground goes into a lot of problem territories." Neveu and Richard both mentioned The Twins, a Killer who is able to lift from the ground with a lurch and is, effectively, a projectile.
It was these possibilities of issues that made Vecna difficult to design at first. For one thing, the developers had to make sure what they wanted to do with The Lich was obtainable within the timeframe necessary to develop the chapter and with the tech that they had.
While limitations were set from the beginning when it came to designing Vecna, that doesn't mean Behaviour Interactive didn't dream big. The Vecna at release has 4 spells, but during the early planning stages, the team envisioned The Lich with 10 spells overall, with the option to add more or change these spells through add-ons. In a way, this fits with the amount of spells Vecna has at his disposal in the world of Dungeons and Dragons, where the balance of gameplay is circumstantial, but for Dead by Daylight? The balance between Killers and Survivors is paramount, and as both Richard and Neveu tell us, they quickly changed 10 spells to 4 as players "felt super overwhelmed" during playtesting. The team also made it so that the cooldown for these spells were longer, to encourage players to actually use all 4, instead of overtly relying on just 1.
Even so, the team wanted Vecna to feel powerful without giving him overtly powerful spells from Dungeons and Dragons, where Vecna is the biggest, baddest villain of them all. Not only does he have waves of goons at his disposal, but he can kill a person with the utterance of a single word if he so chooses. However, lore enthusiasts of Dead by Daylight will be the first to tell you: The Entity takes away just as much as it gives to its unwilling players, and it wouldn't be out of the question for Vecna to be 'nerfed' to fit in alongside the other creatures that roam within the Fog.
Regardless, the developers wanted Vecna to be scary and recognizable. He doesn't have access to Fireball, a high-level spell, but what he does possess is powerful within the restrictions of Dead by Daylight.
"One thing that I love about D&D is not the powerful spells that are just like damage, but the creativity of utility spells and how they can be used in situations that you didn't think about," Richard tells us. "It's up to the players' imagination to make it work."
Indeed, the vast majority of Vecna's spells are utility-based. And yes, Behaviour is more than aware of how powerful all of them can be -- especially Mage Hand. With Mage Hand, Vecna is able to both lift up pallets and block them from being slammed down. Neveu told us that the team is aware of this being strong, and is working to make changes.
"If you have the gauntlet [The Interloper] you can escape, you get a speed boost. But it's true that, currently, the window time for the Survivor is a bit too short. So we want to expand this, and give a bit more counter on the Survivor side."
But even outside of gameplay, what became abundantly obvious during this interview was just how much love and care the team has for Dungeons and Dragons in general. It was previously revealed that Strahd had been considered for this chapter at first, and Richard himself told us that Ravenloft is one of his favourite settings within the TTRPG. That love is easy to see, and not just in Vecna, but with the customizable new Survivors that play into the very real player choices you make as a D&D player, and the map that comes with this new chapter, The Forgotten Ruins.
Described as an "amalgamation of hidden knowledge and dark secrets", The Forgotten Ruins is as much a love letter to Dungeons and Dragons as the chapter's use of D20s and Vecna himself. It consists of The Rotted Tower, Vecna's own abode, and several different passageways that allow players to teleport both inside and outside. Which, gameplay wise, was not at all easy to add to a game that's almost 10 years old and is made up of a lot of different, intricate components.
"Adding gameplay to a map is probably one of the most challenging things we have to do," Neveu says. "It's super tricky. Every time we add a new gameplay component to a map, there's this existing content that will mix and match with the new component we're adding. It's not impossible, but it's never designed specifically for it and your content needs to retro fit everything else that exists in the game. There's a lot of rules, a lot of perks, a lot of abilities, you know? We've got axe throwing, throwing knives, spear guns, and stuff like that."
However, teleportation was not only thing the team considered challenging. While eagle-eyed players will know there is a Beholder, a one-eyed creature with tentacles, hiding within the map, it wasn't going to be the only creature at first.
"I can't go into a lot of detail about things we haven't done, but at one point, we were questioning if we should put a dragon flying up in the above the map." Richard tells us. It makes sense considering the chapter is, of course, Dungeons and Dragons. Ultimately the team decided against it as they didn't have the time to do so, nor did they think it worth it considering the idea of a "full Elden Ring dragon" wouldn't truly impact the map all that much." Still, it's fun to imagine seeing a dragon fly over head while dodging and weaving The Lich.
With the success of the chapter and the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons within the gaming space, we had to ask just one more, somewhat cheeky, question. With Dungeons and Dragons coming to the Entity's Realm, would the Entity's Realm ever make the move towards a TTRPG setting?
"Never say never." Well, we'll take it.
For more coverage of Dead by Daylight's latest chapter, check out our full review of the Dungeons and Dragons chapter, as well as our ever-changing best build for Vecna.