The wait is finally over. Jason Voorhees is joining Dead by Daylight as a playable Killer, with Behaviour Interactive confirming the news during the game's 10th anniversary livestream on May 23. The date is locked in: June 16.
For players who have spent years asking when the hockey-masked slasher would show up on the Killer roster, this is the announcement that felt like it would never actually happen. And given the legal chaos that kept Jason locked away for years, that skepticism was completely justified.
Why Jason took so long to arrive
Here's the thing: Jason wasn't absent from Dead by Daylight because Behaviour didn't want him. The licensing situation around the Friday the 13th character was a mess for years. The 2017 game Friday the 13th: The Game had its online servers shut down in 2020 and was fully delisted in 2023, with rights disputes cited as the cause.
The formation of the Jason Universe project changed everything. That initiative cleared the path for new Jason content across multiple platforms, and the floodgates opened fast. Jason appeared in Call of Duty and Fortnite, A24 has a horror series called Crystal Lake in the works for Peacock, and now Dead by Daylight gets the version of Jason that survival horror fans actually wanted.
Jason joins the Killer roster
The slasher roster before and after June 16
Before this announcement, Dead by Daylight already had an impressive collection of licensed horror icons. Michael Myers from Halloween, Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street, Ghostface from Scream, Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Chucky from Child's Play, and Pinhead from Hellraiser (though Pinhead has since been pulled from sale) were all on the roster.
Jason's arrival effectively completes the Mount Rushmore of slasher cinema inside one game. The conversation now shifts to who's still missing. Candyman, Art the Clown from Terrifier, and The Tall Man from Phantasm are the names most commonly floated as the next logical additions.
Pinhead from Hellraiser was previously added to Dead by Daylight but has since been removed from sale, so new players cannot purchase that DLC.
If you're jumping in fresh ahead of Jason's release and want to get up to speed on how Killers actually work, the Dead by Daylight perks explained guide breaks down every Killer and Survivor perk with tier rankings and build recommendations.
What this means for the game's 10th anniversary
Behaviour chose the 10th anniversary stream to drop this announcement, and the timing makes sense. Jason is arguably the single most-requested Killer in the game's history. Landing him for a milestone celebration signals that the studio is still securing major licensing deals a decade in.
Dead by Daylight is available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and mobile. The game has always leaned hard into licensed horror content as its core identity, and Jason's addition reinforces that the well isn't running dry.
10 years of Dead by Daylight
June 16 is the date to mark. If you want to prepare ahead of the drop, check out the full Dead by Daylight guides collection for everything from perk builds to survivor strategies before Jason starts stalking the fog.
