Review by Frank Plowright

Frank Morrison is the bad kid in Ormond, and it doesn’t take him long to persuade a few others to embrace his attitude to life. Julie has a nihilistic personality just waiting to be awoken, and seeing reports of their teenage rampage on news sites pushes her into thinking what Ormond needs is an urban legend, and behind painted masks people can get away with anything.

Dead by Daylight is structured to have a different one of four united characters carry each of the four chapters while moving events ever forward. There’s a considerable amount of build-up as Nadia Shammas establishes three of the four personalities, with Joey seeming the token Black guy just along for the ride until halfway through when his turn in the spotlight arrives. Each chapter begins with a scene of slaughter, and this is the only real connection between the graphic novel and the game it’s inspired by.

Dillon Snook draws these nightmares slightly differently from the angular, distanced art of the main stories. There’s more in close-up and more graphic horror in the opening sequences, which are individual dreams experienced by the protagonists. Everything is detailed, though, but not best served by the literal colouring of Emilio Lecce, which leads to distractions, especially in a pivotal scene set in a shop.

For all the drama and violence, there’s never a real feeling for the cast, who’re just pulled into events and more could have been done to explore their existences. That, though, is only if you’re just looking for a random horror graphic novel. Anyone caught up in the world of Dead by Daylight will have an entirely different opinion, really enjoying the discovery of how the game’s killer pack Legion were before being sucked into Hell.