Five Nights at Freddy’s Springtrap is coming to Dead by Daylight: everything we know
9.5.2025
Por Giancarlo Valdes, Contributor
Developer Behaviour Interactive revealed more details about the highly anticipated chapter during the Dead by Daylight Ninth Anniversary Celebration panel at PAX East in Boston. This has been one of the most requested collaborations from fans, and it’s not hard to see why.
Both franchises have found enormous success in the horror genre over the last decade. Five Nights at Freddy’s terrified a whole generation of gamers with its ghastly stories and animatronic villains, launching a multimedia empire that now spans books and movies. And people are still hooked on DBD’s intense survivors vs. killer gameplay thanks to numerous updates that include original creations and licensed IP like Dungeons & Dragons and Castlevania.
Behaviour invites other worlds and characters to its universe for all sorts of reasons, sometimes stretching the definition of what horror can be. But the inclusion of FNAF is, in some ways, a reflection of the impact video games have had on the horror genre as a whole.
“In the case of Five Nights at Freddy's, it's not just because it's a movie or it's a video game or it's this or that—it is such an integral part of horror culture nowadays,” said Mathieu Côté, Head of Partnerships at Behaviour. “A lot of people grew up around Five Nights at Freddy’s, or are parents of kids who have been obsessed with it for years now.”
The studio is still keeping some details of the new chapter—including its release date, the new killer’s abilities, and the specific features of the map—a closely guarded secret. But in a recent interview with the team, we were able to get a high-level overview of the collaboration and how they worked closely with FNAF creator Scott Cawthon.
Bringing The Animatronic to life
There’s no shortage of supernatural enemies to choose from in the Five Nights at Freddy’s canon. But for this chapter, the developers wanted to spotlight a truly evil and gruesome character, and that’s why Springtrap (known in Dead by Daylight as The Animatronic) will be the new killer.
Springtrap is the big bad of the franchise, the one who essentially kicked off the events of FNAF’s story. He was once a man named William Afton, an inventor who turned into a serial killer after a tragic incident involving his family. Springtrap is actually a grotesque fusion of Afton’s mutilated flesh with one of his own inventions, a bunny-shaped animatronic suit.
While Springtrap doesn’t show up in the series until Five Nights at Freddy’s 3, Behaviour and Cawthon agreed that he’d best represent the series for both fans and newcomers alike in Dead by Daylight.
“In this case, it was also sitting down with [Scott] and going, 'What do you think our fans will want? And what do you think your fans will want? Let's make sure that we give them something that they all agree is the thing,’” said Côté. “So Springtrap was a no-brainer. There were other options, but he's the darkest. He's the bad guy.”
This chapter will also mark the first time Springtrap will be playable in any form—in the FNAF games, you’re usually trying to evade or run away from him. This important milestone wasn’t lost on Killer Designer Jason Guzzo, who previously worked on Chucky and Dracula for Dead by Daylight.
“We did our best to be as authentic to the character as possible for both his powers and his perks,” said Guzzo. “I did a lot of research. I watched dozens, literally dozens of hours, of the king of FNAF himself, Markiplier, playing through all the games. Took a ton of notes, read all the lore, read all the theories.”
When Guzzo begins working on a killer based on another IP, he likes to find out what their core characteristics are and then think about how they can be adapted for DBD.
“Springtrap is this big, clonking, menacing force of nature. He's somehow a sneaky jump scare guy, but also he's kind of [stomping] around through the halls of this empty place, and it works,” said Guzzo. “That's the stuff I try to look at. I'm what you call a top-down designer. I try to figure out what the experience is, and then I work downwards to what mechanics can fulfill that experience.”
Since the history of Five Nights at Freddy’s is so closely tied with YouTube creators like Markiplier and many others, he also paid attention to the way people reacted to Springtrap in Let’s Play videos. He took notes on what they were reacting to and how they’re reacting, and then tried to figure out how to elicit those same emotions in Dead by Daylight.
In one of Guzzo’s notes he wrote down “noises and vents,” referring to the way people he saw playing FNAF were always freaked out about hearing noises coming from the vents. He couldn’t say yet if or how that translated to Springtrap’s gameplay, but it’s just one example of the many ideas he had from researching the new killer.
“At the end of the day, I'm here to scare people—that's my job. I'm here to make sure that the game is fun and that people are on their toes, and make sure people are having those great little jump scare moments. So that's kind of the process,” said Guzzo.
The new chapter will also have an extra bonus for Five Nights at Freddy’s fans, particularly those who liked the titular 2023 horror movie. Players will be able to get The Yellow Rabbit legendary skin for Springtrap, which is modeled after and voiced by actor Matthew Lillard (he played Afton and Springtrap in the film).
Designing the new map
Like with Springtrap, the developers wanted to go with something iconic and recognizable for the Five Nights at Freddy’s map, a location that would have special meaning for the franchise. That led them to choose the setting of the first game, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.
The DBD version of this family friendly restaurant is packed with easter eggs and other “fun scares” for players to find.
“I say this not because we're doing an interview for FNAF, but I genuinely think this is becoming my favorite map,” said Guzzo. “It's just such a cool space to run around in and see all the little details—it's a lot more colorful than what we normally have with the balloons and the fast food restaurant vibe, which I really love.”
One unique challenge the team faced was combining the openness of DBD maps—survivors need enough space to freely run around and complete objectives while the killer hunts them down—with the enclosed, claustrophobic atmosphere of the FNAF games. According to Guzzo, the layout of the pizzeria with its tables, counters, and central kitchen was perfect for the chasing loops that the series is known for.
Even though the gameplay is far different from the first-person POV in Five Nights at Freddy’s where you have to juggle between watching doors, monitoring security camera feeds, and managing battery power, the team tried to retain the essence of that claustrophobia and paranoia with the new map.
“We took a lot of notes and said, 'How do we express those concepts in a more open fashion?'” said Guzzo.
Dead by Daylight has built up a huge library of multiplayer maps over the last nine years, which can make it hard to play a new map when the matchmaker is randomly cycling through them. So with the FNAF chapter, Behaviour is introducing a separate queue that’ll exclusively spawn the pizzeria level for players who just want to jump right into the new content. This will become a standard feature going forward whenever a new map debuts.
Putting on a show
Considering how similar their trajectories are, and the passionate fan bases that support them, it’s surprising that Dead by Daylight and Five Nights at Freddy’s didn’t collaborate sooner. The original release of FNAF and the launch of DBD occurred within a few years of each other, and both quickly gained popularity due to the rise of livestreamers and YouTube reaction videos.
Guzzo affectionately refers to them as “Twitch-bait games,” games that, whether they were intended to by the designers or not, put on a good show even if you’re just watching someone else play. They’re filled with heart-pumping scares that are broken up by brief moments of rest before inevitably rising in tension again.
“I think in that respect, FNAF and DBD have a very close relationship,” said Guzzo. “They're both like a horror movie.”
Dead by Daylight’s Five Nights at Freddy’s chapter is coming soon to the Epic Games Store.