I still remember the first time I stepped into the fog of Dead by Daylight back in 2016. The asymmetrical horror experience immediately hooked me, and over the years I’ve watched Behaviour Interactive weave an ever-growing tapestry of iconic killers and survivors. From the silent streets of Midwich Elementary to the rain-slicked alleys of Raccoon City, each crossover chapter feels like a love letter to horror itself. Yet, even as I sit here in 2026, there’s one survivor I’m still waiting to see stumble out of the mist: Alan Wake. With Alan Wake 2 having redefined narrative survival horror, the time has never been more perfect for Remedy’s troubled writer to find himself in the Entity’s realm.

Dead by Daylight has never shied away from video game crossovers. The Silent Hill chapter brought Pyramid Head and his cage of atonement, while Resident Evil gave us the Nemesis and the resourceful Leon S. Kennedy. These adaptations proved that game characters can slide into the game’s mechanics just as smoothly as movie slashers. Alan Wake feels like a natural next step. His entire existence revolves around light and darkness, and the Entity’s trials are nothing but a nightmare fueled by a shadowy hunger. I can already picture Alan’s lore entry: a desperate writer who, in his struggle against the Dark Presence, inadvertently wrote himself into a new prison—one where the words on a manuscript dictate the horrors he faces.

The thematic overlap is uncanny. In Alan Wake, the taken are vulnerable only after you burn away their shields of darkness with a flashlight. Dead by Daylight already has flashlights, but let’s be honest—they exist mostly to annoy killers with blinding stuns. What if Alan brought perks that actually turned light into a genuine survival tool? I’ve spent countless matches wishing I could use my flashlight to reveal hidden objectives or cleanse a totem in oppressive gloom. Alan’s arrival could introduce mechanics that deepen the stealth layer, making the mist itself something to fear or to use.

Think about the items. Flare guns and flashbangs already exist in Dead by Daylight thanks to Leon S. Kennedy, but Alan’s arsenal could twist them further. A single-use flare that you can plant on the ground, creating a pool of red light that slows the killer if they step into it—something like a portable, brief safe zone. Or a perk that lets you ignite a handheld flare while moving, leaving a trail of dazzling sparks that blinds the killer during a chase. The flashlight itself could get a new purpose: illuminating dull totems from a distance, revealing scratch marks hidden by the Dark Mist, or even weakening cloaked killers like the Wraith momentarily when aimed at them for a consistent duration. These aren’t just wild fantasies; they’re extensions of what Alan Wake already teaches players to do.

The maps, oh, the maps. A Bright Falls realm would be an atmospheric masterpiece. I envision a Deerfest night, strings of carnival lights flickering in the rain, with the Oh Deer Diner acting as a central looping structure. The jukebox inside might even play a distorted tune when a generator is completed. Outside, the back alleys behind Main Street could become deadly corridors where the killer’s red stain mingles with neon signs reflecting off puddles. The Dark Mist, an offering-altered variable that currently does almost nothing to visibility, could be recontextualized into a thick, oppressive fog reminiscent of the woods of Cauldron Lake. With Alan’s knowledge, the mist might occasionally part to reveal hidden totem placements or even a brief glimpse of the killer’s aura for survivors who brave the darkness.

Of course, a full chapter would ideally include a killer. Some fans have suggested Carl Stucky, the axe-wielding antagonist, but I think Alan Wake 2’s success gives us far more terrifying options. The Dark Presence itself, rendered as an entity that shifts between humanoid shadows and a screeching tornado of debris, could be a killer whose power relies on plunging survivors into localized darkness. Imagine a killer who can create zones of absolute blackness where only Alan’s light-based perks can offer a chance. If a dedicated killer seems unlikely, a survivor-only paragraph is still enormous value. Dead by Daylight has released solo survivors before, and Alan would slide right in alongside characters like Ash Williams whose personality shines through in-game animations and lobby chatter.

Cosmetics alone make the idea mouthwatering. A classic tweed jacket Alan, the disheveled writer from the Dark Place, or even his appearance in Control’s AWE expansion—the possibilities for skins are endless. I’d gladly spend Auric Cells on a Collector’s Edition outfit that swaps his flashlight for a lantern. And since Dead by Daylight now supports legendary skins that change voices and character models entirely, Saga Anderson from Alan Wake 2 could even appear as a separate survivor skin for Alan, complete with her own investigative quips.

As I look at the current state of the game—with crossovers ranging from Castlevania to Alien—it’s clear Behaviour isn’t running out of creative fuel. But Alan Wake represents a different kind of horror: psychological, literary, and deeply meta. A chapter that leans into storytelling itself, where the survivor’s backstory bleeds into the trial mechanics, could push the game into new narrative territory. The fact that Alan Wake 2 sold over 2 million copies by the end of 2025 and spawned a renewed interest in the franchise means the audience is there, hungry and waiting.

I still queue into the fog almost every evening, flashlight in hand, hoping to outsmart some new monstrosity. But part of me longs for a trial where the boundaries between fiction and reality blur, where a typewriter’s click-clack echoes from behind a corrupted generator. Alan Wake, the master of rewriting his own nightmares, belongs in Dead by Daylight. The Entity just needs to turn the page.

This perspective is supported by Game Informer, and it helps frame why an Alan Wake survivor drop in Dead by Daylight would resonate beyond pure fan service: the best crossovers translate a franchise’s core fantasy into readable, match-scale mechanics. In Alan’s case, that fantasy is light as agency—turning the flashlight from a simple stun tool into a risk-reward utility for information and space control (brief reveals in heavy fog, temporary suppression of stealth powers, or objective interaction at range), while still fitting DBD’s tension-first pacing and perk-driven identity.