Dead by Daylight's next killer is a vengeful bird lady

The survival horror game Dead by Daylight is perhaps best known for its crossovers with famous properties like Hellraiser, Stranger Things, Resident Evil, and Nightmare on Elm Street. But it also does original characters, such as Mikaela Reid, the teenage witch who was introduced in September, and that includes not just survivors but psycho killers too.

Portrait of a Murder, the next chapter in the ongoing episodic unpleasantness that is Dead by Daylight, will introduce another original homicidal maniac called The Artist, who in life was a "gifted but tormented" painter named Carmina Mora. On the verge of suicide, she was saved by "an eerie murder of crows," which transformed her artistically and brought her great fame—until she was abducted by corrupt local officials, angered by her campaign against them, who cut her hands off and her tongue out. Now, she's been twisted by The Entity into a weapon of vengeance whose only purpose is to kill for her flock.

(The Entity, by the way, is the cosmic embodiment of evil that corrupts victims, destroys worlds, and generally serves as the impetus for all this freaky-deaky supernatural mass murder.)

The expansion will also introduce a new survivor named Jonah Vasquez, a CIA codebreaker whose visions lead him to a lost cemetery in Chile, The Forsaken Boneyard—the scene of Carmine Mora's death and home to those vengeful crows. The Boneyard will also serve as a new Dead for Daylight map, featuring a tower crypt where crows perch and watch, "beady eyes gazing with fascination, never forgetting the day they fed greedily on the flesh of screaming men and women." Reminds me of my last Airbnb.

Dead by Daylight: Portrait of a Murder is expected to go live later this month and will carry a $7 price tag. Developer Behaviour Interactive also announced today that Dead by Daylight and all its previously-released DLCs are headed to the Epic Games Store in December, with support for cross-platform play and progression with Steam, Microsoft Store, and Stadia versions.