Alright, let’s be real — this has been a long time coming. Like, ten years of “what if Jason was in DBD” Reddit threads, YouTube videos, and desperate fan art long. Behaviour Interactive just dropped the full gameplay details on Dead by Daylight’s Jason Voorhees, and honestly? The man looks absolutely broken in the best possible way. Here’s everything you need to know before the Steam PTB goes live on May 26 and the full release drops on June 16, 2026.
A Decade in the Making: Why Jason Took So Long to Enter the Fog
If you’ve been playing DBD since the early days, you already know the story. Jason Voorhees has been the most obvious killer candidate since day one — the game’s starting killer, The Trapper, was literally a Camp Crystal Lake homage. But legal hell kept him locked out. A brutal copyright dispute between Friday the 13th screenwriter Victor Miller and director Sean S. Cunningham tied the franchise in knots for years. IllFonic’s Friday the 13th: The Game got hit the hardest — updates stopped, and the game was fully delisted in 2023.
But now, thanks to a partnership between Behaviour Interactive and Jason Universe, the stars have finally aligned. This is Chapter 40 — DBD’s 49th paid DLC — and it doubles as the game’s landmark 10th Anniversary chapter. Behaviour Senior Creative Director Dave Richard put it straight:
“There was never a question that our 10th Anniversary Chapter couldn’t just be big – it needed to be something really special. When we started to see a path to finally making this partnership a reality for our 10th, we knew then the perfect Jason moment had come.”
Meanwhile, Behaviour’s Head of Partnerships Mathieu Cote summed it up perfectly: Jason has had a standing invitation since day one. He’s just finally ready to show up.
Jason’s Killer Powers: A Full Breakdown
Jason’s playstyle is built around two distinct power components that feed into each other in really clever ways. Behaviour leaned hard into what makes Jason terrifying in the films — that eerie, unstoppable presence and the improvised brutality. Let’s get into it.
Power 1: Omnipresent Evil (Stealth Mode)
This is the one that’s going to send survivors into full panic mode. When you activate Omnipresent Evil, Jason straight-up disappears from the map. No terror radius, no red stain, nothing. Survivors will only catch a faint red fog as the only hint that death is lurking nearby.
While invisible, Jason moves at increased speed and can track survivors through visual cues — we’re talking footprints on the ground, that kind of thing. So you’re not just vanishing and walking blind; you’re repositioning with purpose.
Here’s where it gets nasty though. To reappear, Jason has to target environmental anchor points — pallets, vault points, or breakable walls. When he re-enters the world, he explodes out of that spot, destroys any breakable obstacles in the vicinity, and triggers screams from any survivors who are nearby. That’s a free reveal on anyone caught close. The timing on this is going to be everything at high level play.
- Full map invisibility with a faint red fog as the only survivor tell
- Increased movement speed while cloaked
- Survivor tracking via footprints and visual cues
- Destructive reappearance at pallets, vaults, and breakable walls
- Forced screams from nearby survivors on re-entry, revealing their positions
If you’ve played against The Wraith, you’ll feel echoes of that disappearing and repositioning gameplay. But Jason’s reappearance mechanic being tied to map structures makes it feel way more aggressive and punishing. You’re not just reappearing — you’re blowing something up when you do.
Power 2: Improvised Carnage (Ranged Mayhem)
This is the chaos power. Scattered across the map are containers filled with makeshift projectiles — broken generator parts, locker fragments, shattered pallets, hooks, and other bits of junk pulled straight from The Entity’s realm. Jason can pick these up and hurl them at survivors with force.
A direct hit staggers the survivor. But here’s the money play — if you nail an injured survivor near a wall, they get pinned to it. They’re stuck there until Jason comes to collect. That’s a free down basically telegraphed across the map.
- Throwable projectiles gathered from containers across the map
- Staggers survivors on a clean hit
- Pins injured survivors to walls for guaranteed follow-up
- One weapon equipped at a time — no spam, just calculated throws
- Containers refill only after using Omnipresent Evil again
That last point is huge for balance. You can’t just station yourself near a container and endlessly chuck hooks at people. The reload mechanic is tied directly to re-entering stealth. Behaviour clearly thought carefully about this — it creates a natural rhythm where stealth and ranged attacks work together as a loop rather than two separate spam tools.
How Jason’s Two Powers Work Together
Here’s what makes the kit actually interesting from a high-level gameplay perspective. The loop is: use Omnipresent Evil to vanish, reposition, and gather intel on survivor locations. Then burst back into the world at a high-traffic spot, cause chaos with the explosion, and follow up with Improvised Carnage on the disoriented survivors. When you run out of throwables, you go invisible again to reload and repeat.
It rewards patient, reads-the-map playstyle. You’re not just holding W and chasing someone across three tiles. You’re predicting movement, setting up ambushes, and using the map geometry to maximise both the stealth reappearance damage and the projectile range. Good Jason players are going to be absolutely terrifying to go against.
For a full look at how Jason stacks up against the existing roster, check out our breakdown of the best Killers to run in the current meta and how to counter them.
The Jason Collection: Cosmetics and Outfits
Jason doesn’t just arrive with a machete — he comes loaded with cosmetic options. Alongside his default look featuring the iconic 13-holed hockey mask, the Jason Collection bundle includes three additional skins:
- Backwoods Terror — a rugged, deeply woodsy take on the Crystal Lake legend
- Death Forsaken — a darker, more supernatural aesthetic
- Depths of Despair — an underwater-themed look that hits differently
All three give Jason a distinct visual flavour while keeping his unmistakable silhouette intact. Whether you want the gritty camp killer or something more stylised, there’s a skin for it. Worth noting this is a paid cosmetics bundle on top of the chapter purchase itself.
When Can You Play as Jason in Dead by Daylight?
If you’re on PC, the good news is you don’t have to wait until June. The Steam Public Test Build (PTB) goes live on May 26, 2026 — that’s basically now. You can get hands-on with both Omnipresent Evil and Improvised Carnage before the general player base even knows what hit them.
For everyone else, the full global launch across all platforms hits on June 16, 2026 — two days after Dead by Daylight’s official 10th Anniversary stream on June 14, which is expected to drop even more information about the game’s future. Perfectly timed, honestly.
It’s also worth noting this coincides with Jason Universe’s 45th anniversary, though Behaviour says that timing was purely coincidental. Sure it was.
Where Jason Fits in the DBD Roster
Dead by Daylight already has an absurd collection of horror icons — Leatherface, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Jigsaw, Pinhead, Chucky, and a dozen others have all had their turn. Jason’s absence was genuinely the most glaring gap in the roster, and the legal roadblocks that kept him out became basically a running joke in the community.
Now that he’s here, the 10th anniversary celebration feels earned. Jason is Chapter 40 — and with a power kit that leans into stealth, ambush, and improvised brutality in ways the game hasn’t quite seen before, he’s not just a fan service pickup. He looks genuinely competitive.
If you’re the kind of player who liked The Wraith’s disappearing act but wanted more raw aggression to go with it, Jason might be your new main. And if you’re on survivor side — good luck. You’re going to need it.
For more big gaming news dropping right now, check out what we know about Kingdom Come Deliverance 3 confirmed for 2027, the leaked screenshots from Sims Project Rene, and the first 13 minutes of 007: First Light gameplay.
