The Alien Chapter is three years old and still one of the most misunderstood DLCs in Dead by Daylight. Most Survivors have never opened the Nostromo's secret room, and a lot of players only ever meet the Xenomorph inside 2v8, where it plays by a different rulebook.
This guide applies to Dead by Daylight Patch 10.1.2a, live as of 23 September 2026, and covers the 2v8 (V9 - Alien) run ending 29 September 2026. Every number is checked against the Official Dead by Daylight Wiki and Behaviour Interactive's published 10.1.2 patch notes; 2v8-only values are labelled. Strategy commentary is timesaver.gg editorial.
Quick answer: The Alien Chapter released on 29 August 2023 with Patch 7.2.0. It costs 1,000 Auric Cells (about $11.99) and contains The Xenomorph, Ellen Ripley and the Nostromo Wreckage map. As a licensed Chapter it cannot be bought with Iridescent Shards — the two characters are 500 Auric Cells each if you want them separately. The Xenomorph moves at 115% (4.6 m/s) with a 32-metre Terror Radius, drops to 24 metres in Crawler Mode, and travels its tunnels at 18 m/s. Survivors counter it with up to four Remote Flame Turrets, and 125 Charges of fire knocks it out of Crawler Mode.
What is in the DBD Alien Chapter and what does it cost?
Alien is the twenty-ninth Chapter DLC in Dead by Daylight, released on 29 August 2023 alongside Patch 7.2.0. The package is:
- The Xenomorph, the 33rd Killer added to the game
- Ellen Ripley, a Survivor
- Nostromo Wreckage, a map added to the existing Dvarka Deepwood realm
- The Motion Tracker exclusive Ultra Rare Charm (the Official Wiki catalogues the same item under the name Tracking Device)
- Back in Action, a Very Rare outfit for Ellen Ripley
The bundle is 1,000 Auric Cells, roughly $11.99 depending on your storefront. That price is not arbitrary: the Auric Cells page states that "All Characters (both 'original' and 'licensed') can be bought for 500 Auric Cells", so 500 plus 500 is simply the two characters. The map comes free with the patch for everybody, whether you own the Chapter or not.
Alien "marked the first time a Licensed Map was added to an existing Original Realm" — that is why the Nostromo sits inside Dvarka Deepwood rather than getting its own realm. It was also the last Chapter to ship bundled with a free cosmetic, a decision the Official Wiki flatly attributes to "the unpopularity of that decision."
How does the Xenomorph's power actually work?
The Xenomorph's power is Hidden Pursuit, and it is really three systems stacked on top of each other: the tunnel network, Crawler Mode, and the Turrets that Survivors use to break both.
The tunnel network. Seven Control Stations spawn across the map, each one an entrance to the underground tunnels. Inside a tunnel the Xenomorph is Undetectable, moves at 18 m/s, and charges Crawler Mode at 8 Charges per second. Exiting a Control Station triggers Killer Instinct for 3 seconds and deactivates every Turret within 16 metres for 2.5 seconds. The 30-second cooldown people quote here is not on the Killer at all — it is the wait before another Turret can be retrieved from the same Control Station, which is a Survivor-side limit. The Xenomorph can re-enter a station it just used.
Tracking Footsteps. In the tunnels, walking or running Survivors within 16 metres show up as footstep trails. Crouching or standing still hides you — the single most under-used Survivor counterplay in the game.
Crawler Mode. Outside the tunnels the power charges passively at 1 Charge per second, and the Xenomorph automatically enters Crawler Mode at 35 Charges. In Crawler Mode the Terror Radius drops from 32 to 24 metres, movement speed stays at 4.6 m/s, and the Tail Strike gains a 4.8-metre reach — long enough to hit over most pallets and through most windows before a Survivor is clear. The Killer only leaves Crawler Mode voluntarily by picking up a downed Survivor, or involuntarily by being set on fire.
Remote Flame Turrets. Survivors can pull up to four Turrets from Control Stations. Carrying one applies 35% Hindered, plus the Exhausted and Incapacitated status effects — you are slow and you cannot heal or vault fast, so pick your moment. A placed Turret fires at the Xenomorph within 10 metres if it has line of sight. 125 Charges of accumulated fire forces the Xenomorph out of Crawler Mode. A destroyed Turret returns to the Control Station pool after 60 seconds.
Patch 8.6.0 was the biggest tuning pass: missed or obstructed Tail cooldown went from 3 seconds to 2.5, a successful hit from 3 to 2.7, Killer Instinct range on tunnel exit from 12 to 16 metres, fire resistance from 100 to 125 Charges, and Tail charge time from 0.2 to 0.3 seconds. Faster after a whiff and harder to burn out, but slower to wind up a Tail.
What are the Xenomorph's three teachable perks?
All three are teachables, so you can find them in the Shrine of Secrets or bloodweb them onto any Killer once the Xenomorph hits Prestige 1 to 3.
| Perk | What it does |
|---|---|
| Alien Instinct | When you hook a Survivor, the injured Survivor farthest from you is revealed for 8 seconds and suffers Oblivious for 40/50/60 seconds. |
| Rapid Brutality | You can no longer gain Bloodlust. In exchange, hitting a Survivor with a Basic Attack grants 5% Haste for 8/9/10 seconds. |
| Ultimate Weapon | When you search a Locker, every Survivor within 40 metres screams, reveals their position and gains Blindness for 30 seconds. Cooldown 55/50/45 seconds. |
Ultimate Weapon is the one that escaped the Chapter and became a roster-wide staple — a 40-metre information ping for the cost of searching a Locker, which is why it has been re-tuned more than once since 2023. Rapid Brutality is the sleeper: on a Killer that never wanted Bloodlust, it is a free chase-extending speed boost. Alien Instinct is unglamorous hook information that pairs with the aura builds in our best killer perks tier list.
What are Ellen Ripley's perks and are they still good?
Ripley is one of the quietest strong Survivor releases in the game's history. None of her perks is a meta pillar, but two of them do something nothing else does.
| Perk | What it does |
|---|---|
| Chemical Trap | After Generators are repaired a combined 20%, you can install a trap on a dropped Pallet. It stays armed for 40/50/60 seconds. A Killer who breaks the trapped Pallet is Hindered by 50% for 4 seconds. Trapped Pallets are shown in yellow to all Survivors. |
| Light-Footed | While you are healthy, your running footsteps make no sound. Deactivates for 14/12/10 seconds after a Rushed Vault. |
| Lucky Star | Inside a Locker, your Grunts of Pain are silenced. For 30 seconds after you exit, Grunts of Pain and Pools of Blood are suppressed, every other Survivor's Aura is revealed to you, and the nearest Generator is highlighted in yellow. Cooldown 35/30/25 seconds. |
Chemical Trap is the standout and it is badly underrated: 50% Hindered for four seconds punishes the exact habit every Killer has — breaking the pallet you just dropped. Lucky Star turns a Locker from a panic button into an information play, and is one of the few perks that removes Pools of Blood while injured.
What makes Nostromo Wreckage different from every other DBD map?
Nostromo Wreckage, internally "WormholeLevel01", is 152 square tiles, 9,728 m², one of two maps in the Dvarka Deepwood realm. That size is deceptive — the ship interior is tight and the exterior is open, so it plays like two different maps depending on where the Generators land. Up to three Generators spawn inside the Nostromo itself, two of them effectively guaranteed: one in the Mess Hall, one at the back of the left wing. Our DBD maps list has the full realm-by-realm picture.
The secret room. This is the part most players never see. A cosmonaut corpse spawns at a random location on the map holding a Keycard, a limited item that exists only here. Take it to the control panel in the left wing, insert it, and input the sequence Left, Down, Up, Right to open the airlock into the MU/TH/UR 6000 room. The Chest inside is guaranteed to hold either a Utility Flashlight or an Engineer's Toolbox. Nostromo Wreckage was the first map with a map-exclusive interactable prop and a map-exclusive item, and only the second map in the game with an unlockable secret room, after Midwich Elementary School.
The map's achievement, MU/TH/UR Dearest, is a separate job: escape a trial after completing the Generator inside the Mess Hall. It has nothing to do with the Keycard.
Steam pipe traps. Two coolant-vent pipe traps are armed when the trial loads. A red lever resets them, and the LED stack on each one shows whether it is holding one charge or two. They are genuinely lethal in a chase if you know where they are and your Killer does not.
Easter eggs and Offerings. Ash's body is on the map, the Juggernaut sits in the skybox, there is a Facehugger jump-scare window in the right wing, and Jonesy the cat can jump out of a Locker at you. The secret Offering Airlock Doors raises your odds of loading here to 20% — a bump, not a guarantee.
What changes about the Xenomorph in 2v8?
2v8 (V9 - Alien) has been live since 8 September 2026 and ends on 29 September 2026 — a 21-day run, and the tenth time Behaviour has brought the mode back since July 2024. It added the Xenomorph to the Killer pool, brought Nostromo Wreckage into the 2v8 map rotation, and introduced the Invoking Salt Survivor item. We break down the whole event, all 16 Killers and the Class system in our 2v8 September 2026 guide.
In 2v8 the Xenomorph does not use add-ons. Instead it gets four Innate Skills baked in, which Behaviour listed in the official 10.1.2 patch notes:
"When a turret takes The Xenomorph out of Crawler Mode it is automatically destroyed / The cooldown of Crawler Mode is 25% faster while outside of tunnels / Survivors hit by a Tail Strike are Mangled for 70 seconds / After exiting a tunnel, gain 5% Haste for 3 seconds"
— Behaviour Interactive, Dead by Daylight 10.1.2 patch notes
Those four effects mirror the add-ons Ripley's Watch, Ovomorph, Kane's Helmet and Parker's Headband. If you have only played the Xenomorph in 2v8, understand that you have been playing a permanently four-add-on version of it — the 1v4 baseline is noticeably weaker.
The Xenomorph's default 2v8 Class is Shadow; Ellen Ripley's is Torchbearer. Behaviour also raised Chest spawns for the mode: "Number of Chest spawns has been increased from 20 to 27." That is the live figure — some wiki tables still quote the old 20.
Invoking Salt, the patch's new Survivor item, comes from Chests, is single-use and takes 3 seconds to place. Up to four Survivors then perform a 40-second interaction to use their Unlockable Skill without being Hooked, and each gains 5% Haste for 5 minutes, decaying 1% per minute and refreshable.
What do Xenomorph players actually complain about?
Two threads on r/DeadByDaylightKillers this week surfaced the same two frustrations, and both are worth knowing whichever side you play.
The first is the Turrets. Killer mains call flame Turrets "absolute overkill" in 1v4 — one argued they structurally force the Xenomorph to be under-tuned, because a kit that could survive its own counterplay would be a pubstomper. The other common ask is that the power should not fully reset after a hook, since most passively-recharging Killer powers refill on hook and this one does not.
The second is tunnel distribution in 2v8. Players report whole sections of the supersized maps with no Control Station, and note that good Survivors deliberately finish the Generators nearest the tunnels first. One player theorised that Control Stations share spawn slots with Chests and get overridden — treat that as a player theory, not a mechanic, because Behaviour has not documented Control Station spawn logic. What is documented is the count: seven stations, regardless of map size.
If you are weighing whether the Xenomorph is worth the 500 Auric Cells on power alone, our killer tier list places it in context against the rest of the roster, and the full list of all killers shows where it sits in release order.
FAQ
Is the DBD Alien Chapter available with Iridescent Shards? No. Alien is a licensed Chapter, so neither The Xenomorph nor Ellen Ripley can be unlocked with Iridescent Shards. Auric Cells or a store purchase are the only routes — 1,000 Auric Cells for the Chapter, or 500 Auric Cells per character.
How do you open the secret room on Nostromo Wreckage? Find the cosmonaut corpse holding the Keycard, which spawns at a random spot on the map. Take it to the control panel in the left wing, insert it, then input Left, Down, Up, Right. The airlock opens into the MU/TH/UR 6000 room, and the Chest inside always contains either a Utility Flashlight or an Engineer's Toolbox.
How much fire does it take to stop the Xenomorph? 125 Charges. A Remote Flame Turret fires within 10 metres when it has line of sight, and in 2v8 any Turret that knocks the Killer out of Crawler Mode is destroyed doing it.
How fast is the Xenomorph in its tunnels? 18 m/s, roughly four times its 4.6 m/s surface speed, Undetectable the whole way, charging Crawler Mode at 8 Charges per second versus 1 above ground.
Does Ellen Ripley look like Sigourney Weaver in DBD? No. Behaviour did not license Sigourney Weaver's likeness, so the in-game Ellen Ripley uses an original face and is voiced by Molly Daisy.
When does the 2v8 Alien event end? 2v8 (V9 - Alien) runs from 8 September to 29 September 2026. After it ends the Xenomorph returns to 1v4 only, without the four Innate Skills it gets in the mode.
Can you force Nostromo Wreckage to spawn? Partially. The secret Airlock Doors Offering raises the chance of loading into Nostromo Wreckage to 20%. There is no Offering that guarantees it.
Where this leaves you
The Alien Chapter is the rare licensed DLC where the map is the better half of the purchase — and the map is free. If you only want the Xenomorph, 500 Auric Cells buys a Killer whose 1v4 version is meaningfully weaker than the 2v8 version everyone has been learning on for over two weeks. Survivors: stop moving while the Killer is in a tunnel, and actually run the Keycard.
More Dead by Daylight guides:
- DBD 2v8 September 2026: end date, all 16 Killers and the Xenomorph
- DBD killer tier list, September 2026
- Every DBD map and realm
- All killers in Dead by Daylight, 2026
Sources: Official Dead by Daylight Wiki pages for Alien, The Xenomorph, Ellen Ripley, Nostromo Wreckage, 2v8 and Auric Cells; Behaviour Interactive's published 10.1.2 patch notes. Accurate as of Patch 10.1.2a, 23 September 2026.
