Less than 6 months after laying off 40 employees, Dead by Daylight studio Behaviour Interactive drops another 95

chucky arrives in dead by daylight
(Image credit: Behaviour Interactive)

Dead by Daylight studio Behaviour Interactive is making "strategic changes for future growth" that will "draw upon the company’s historical strengths to craft an ambitious vision for its future success." And in case there's any doubt, yes, that means layoffs are happening.

Behaviour said in a press release that the company currently has roughly 1,300 employees, up from 575 just five years ago. But the "unprecedented popularity" of the videogame industry responsible for that growth, it added, "has also led to unprecedented competition."

"Within this challenging context, Behaviour has renewed its focus on its historical strengths," Behaviour said. "These include the company’s leading position in horror gaming, its production expertise, and its thirty-year history of providing exceptional service to its development partners.

"To pursue this clarified vision, Behaviour will implement multiple strategic changes to its corporate structure, improving the distinction between its product, production, business development, and marketing resources. As a result of these changes, the company will reduce its team by up to 95 employees, 70 of whom are based in Montreal."

Behaviour Interactive said the layoffs will not impact the development of Dead by Daylight; a studio representative separately confirmed with PC Gamer that Behaviour's base-building shooter Meet Your Maker and the singleplayer Dead by Daylight spinoff The Casting of Frank Stone, which is actually being developed by Supermassive, are "business as usual."

Behaviour Interactive co-founder and CEO Rémi Racine expressed "deep personal appreciation for any employee affected by today’s changes," but also spun the layoffs as a win—except, I would assume, for any employee being shown the door.

"While changes to our structure and strategic vision have led to challenging decisions, we are confident that these decisions will position us for continued success," Racine said. "As we begin the next phase of Behaviour’s growth, our commitment to excellence in our products and workplace culture remains steadfast."

The layoffs come less than five months after a previous round of cuts at Behaviour Interactive that saw 40 people put out of work due to "changing market conditions," and are the latest bit of awfulness that's plagued the videogame industry since the beginning of 2023. Just yesterday, Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios Group laid off roughly 50 employees and closed two of its five studios (one of which it only acquired eight months ago), while Intercept Games, Phoenix Labs, and Square Enix all announced layoffs in May. May also saw the outright closure of four entire studios by Microsoft, including Prey developer Arkane Austin and Hi-Fi Rush maker Tango Gameworks. 

Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

Read more
Callisto Protocol
The Callisto Protocol studio lays off more employees, but 'remains operational'
Dauntless - Heroes pose in fur trimmed armor
Dauntless developer Phoenix Labs lays off 'the majority of the studio' after a year of turmoil
rumbleverse
Iron Galaxy lays off 66 employees in a 'last resort' effort to 'enable our long term survival'
Citizens talking about life in Frostpunk 2
Frostpunk 2 developer 11 bit studios cancels unannounced project and lays off employees
Mechwarrior 5: Clans
Piranha Games will lay off employees after Mechwarrior 5: Clans 'performed below projections'
Lost Skies - in-game characters gliding on primitive parachutes
Bossa says 'disruption' in the game industry 'is not a phase, it's a fundamental transformation' of how games will be made in the future as it lays off more employees
Latest in Gaming Industry
Gabe Newell in a Valve promotional video, on a yacht.
Go ahead and complain the discounts aren't as steep as they used to be, but Steam just had its biggest year ever for seasonal sales
Pirate Bay co-founder Carl Lundstrom
Pirate Bay co-founder and far-right politician found dead after plane crash
Flag of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia buys Pokémon GO maker for $3.5 billion with a 'B'
Vice President, Games at Netflix Mike Verdu speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 on October 18, 2022 in San Francisco, California
4 short months after saying 'We'll have to adapt and change', Netflix's AI games VP adapts and changes into a person who isn't working there anymore
Astarion, a beautiful vampire spawn in Baldur's Gate 3, looks dubiously at the player character.
'What do you mean real actors?': Astarion's VO, who shared an awards category with Idris Elba after Baldur's Gate 3, remembers the dark ages of mocap
Yoda Luke and R2 in Lego form.
Lego is going to make its videogames in-house from now on, says it would 'almost rather overinvest'
Latest in News
Microsoft's Task Manager in Windows 11
After years of complaints about Windows Task Manager displaying CPU utilization incorrectly, a fix is finally on its way
Sony RGB LED panel tech
Sony's fixing the wrong panel problems while showing off its new 'RGB LED' backlight tech with outrageous colours and brightness
Super Mario World
Super Nintendo consoles appear to be running ever-so-slightly faster as they age and speedrunning detectives are hot on the case
A photo of an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor surrounded by DDR5 memory sticks from Corsair, Kingston, and Lexar
Fresh leak suggests Intel's on-again-off-again Arrow Lake CPU refresh is back on the menu (boys)
A Colorful RTX 5080 and its box
Three lucky folks in India can win the dubious honour of buying an RTX 5080 GPU at Nvidia MSRP
The Facebook 'Like' emoji logo is seen in this photo illustration on 22 August, 2023 in Warsaw, Poland. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Get ready to argue with your weird Uncle on Facebook again. Meta is rolling out its new fact checking solution to it's 190 million users in the United States