On the morning of 1 October 2026, Behaviour Interactive ran its October of Horror Broadcast and showed Art the Clown moving inside Dead by Daylight for the first time. Within twelve hours a frame-by-frame comparison of his in-game face against the films had pulled 328 upvotes and 106 comments on the main subreddit, and a second thread asking the Killer community what it thought of the model had another 112 upvotes and 75 replies. Almost none of that conversation was about whether the Chapter looks good. It was about the head.
This is what Behaviour actually confirmed, what it pointedly did not, and why every release date you have seen for the Terrifier Chapter today is somebody's guess.
TLDR: Art the Clown's in-game model was revealed on 1 October 2026 during the October of Horror Broadcast, a 67-minute stream that has since passed 99,000 views. The Terrifier Chapter was first announced in June 2026 at the 10th Anniversary Broadcast with a November 2026 window, and that window is still the only timing Behaviour has ever published. There is no PTB date, no live date and no confirmed Survivor. The live game is still on Patch 10.1.2a from 17 September 2026, and Chapter 41: Chorus of Sin remains the newest released Chapter. Four other cosmetic drops were announced the same morning, one of them with a hard date.
What was actually confirmed on 1 October
The broadcast went live at 11AM ET on 1 October 2026 and ran 67 minutes. Behaviour's own description framed it as "a month full of spooky surprises," which is accurate in that it was mostly a cosmetics showcase — the Terrifier segment was the headline, not the bulk.
The confirmed facts out of it are short, and that is the point:
- Art the Clown's in-game model exists and was shown in motion, inside a fenced industrial-looking environment, both idle and carrying a weapon.
- The Chapter is still a Chapter, not a cosmetic collaboration. Art is a playable Killer.
- Nothing changed about the November 2026 window announced in June.
That is it. No power name, no perk names, no Survivor reveal, no map, no PTB date. If a page is giving you Art's three perks today, it is inventing them.
Why there is still no release date
The timing confusion is worth unpicking, because it is where most of the bad information is coming from.
The Terrifier Chapter was revealed in June 2026 during Dead by Daylight's 10th Anniversary Broadcast, with David Howard Thornton — the actor who plays Art in Damien Leone's films — appearing on stage in full costume and makeup. IGN's report from that day, updated 15 June 2026, put it plainly: Art the Clown is coming "as part of a new Chapter in November," with the Chapter "currently planned to arrive at some point in November 2026."
Three and a half months later, that is still the most precise thing Behaviour has said. There is no announced PTB date and no announced live date.
What we do know is Behaviour's own cadence, which is consistent and documented. A Public Test Build opens on a Tuesday evening ET, three weeks before the Chapter's scheduled release, and stays open for six days before closing on a Monday evening. That pattern is the reason community estimates exist at all: if you assume a mid-November release and work backwards three weeks, you land in late October for the PTB.
Two of those estimates are circulating widely right now. A Terrifier fan account posted on 1 October that the PTB lands on 27 October with a live release on 17 November. GamesRadar, separately, suggested the release is "likely to be around Tuesday, November 24, 2026," reasoning from the three-month Chapter schedule and the November window.
Both are arithmetic, not information. They are internally consistent with Behaviour's PTB cadence, which is exactly why they sound credible — and exactly why neither proves anything. Behaviour has published no date. Treat 27 October and 17 November as a plausible shape, not a diary entry, and do not plan time off around them.
The model reaction, and why it happened
The facial-analysis thread that blew up overnight was not a pile-on about quality. It was a specific, repeated structural complaint, and the same observation surfaced independently across both subreddits.
The recurring criticism is that the in-game head reads as too narrow and too smooth. Players described it as "way too V shaped," compared the silhouette to a balloon and to a lightbulb, and said the surface had been "smoothed out way too much" against the film makeup, which has visible texture and asymmetry. One comparison went further: that the model sits far enough from Thornton's actual face that it raises the question of whether a likeness was available to work from at all.
The sharpest note was about expression rather than geometry. As one player put it, Art "should barely ever look actually angry since he is usually grinning in the movies, that's kind of his whole thing." The shown model has a snarling, teeth-bared idle. That is a reasonable adaptation choice for a Killer that needs to read as threatening at 20 metres in the Fog, and it is also the single biggest departure from the character the licence is selling.
One other thing is worth saying plainly: this is a pre-release model shown on a broadcast stream, not a shipped asset. Behaviour has revised licensed Killer faces between reveal and release before. It has also shipped them unchanged. Nobody outside Behaviour knows which this will be, and a PTB — whenever it opens — is the first point at which the question gets a real answer.
Will there be a Terrifier Survivor?
Unknown, and that is the honest answer rather than a hedge.
Dead by Daylight has shipped seven Killer-only Chapters: Leatherface, Ghost Face, Hellraiser, Chucky, Tokyo Ghoul, Five Nights at Freddy's and most recently Jason. Licensed horror properties with a single iconic antagonist and no obvious recurring final girl are exactly the profile that tends to land in that bucket, and Terrifier fits it on paper — though the films do have candidates.
Behaviour has not said either way, and no Survivor was shown on 1 October. If you see a named Terrifier Survivor today, check whether the source is quoting Behaviour or quoting another site that was also guessing.
What Art will cost you
Here the rules are unambiguous, because they are the same for every licensed character in the game.
Licensed characters cost 500 Auric Cells. They have no Iridescent Shard price at all — not a discounted one, none. The legacy 250 and 125 Shard discounts that apply to older original characters do not extend to licensed ones, and no amount of grinding converts into them. Bloodpoints cannot be exchanged for Auric Cells, Iridescent Shards or Rift Fragments, so the Bloodweb does not help you here either.
What is reachable without spending is his perks. Licensed Killer perks still rotate through the Shrine of Secrets, which resets every Tuesday at 15:00 UTC with four perks, priced at 2,000, 4,000 and 6,000 Iridescent Shards for tiers I through III. That is the free path to running Art's perks on other Killers once the Chapter is out — not to playing Art himself.
For context on where he will land, Dead by Daylight currently has 44 Killers, 25 original and 19 licensed. Art would be the 20th licensed Killer and, by Chapter numbering, Chapter 42.
Everything else announced that morning
The Terrifier segment was the headline, but four other drops were shown, and one of them carries the only hard date out of the entire broadcast.
The Hallowed Blight is back. Behaviour's collection trailer states it directly: "The Hallowed Blight is back, and not even Jason can escape its putrid clutches. The Slasher takes on a twisted new form alongside The Houndmaster and The Knight in a fresh set of Very Rare Outfits." Three Killers, Very Rare tier. The Jason skin drew the most attention, including a detail players spotted immediately — the tag on his serum canister reads 1313.
The Academia Rift arrives 6 October. The New Releases trailer puts a date card on screen for it, which makes this the one dated item from the broadcast. The Rift cosmetics shown are themed around Claudette Morel, Vee Boonyasak and Renato Lyra.
The Diablo Collection. Six characters: The Artist, The Dredge, The Nurse, David, Taurie and Zarina.
The November Days Collection, themed around the Day of the Dead and including Ghost Face, and the Stranger Things Collection returns. No dates were given for either beyond the implied October-into-November run.
What patch you are actually on
Worth stating because a lot of coverage this week is conflating the broadcast with a patch.
The live build is 10.1.2a, a server-side update from 17 September 2026. Chapter 41: Chorus of Sin, which brought The Judgment and Aurora Stardotter, released on 25 August 2026 and is still the newest released Chapter. Patch 10.2.0 is not live — its Public Test Build opened on 15 September 2026 carrying 58 perk changes, and Behaviour has not published a live release date for it. If a site tells you 10.2.0 shipped, it did not.
That matters for the Terrifier timeline too. 10.2.0 has to land before Chapter 42 does, and Behaviour has not dated that either.
What to do between now and the PTB
There is no action item attached to a reveal, so the honest advice is small:
- Bank Iridescent Shards if you intend to pull Art's perks out of the Shrine later. 6,000 Shards gets you one perk at tier III, and the Shrine rotates weekly.
- Do not pre-commit Auric Cells on the assumption of a bundle discount. Nothing about Chapter 42's store layout has been announced.
- Ignore any perk list or power name circulating before the PTB. There is no first-party source for either.
Art the Clown is not new to games — he appeared in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Warzone during their 2024 Halloween event via a Terrifier bundle, and Terrifier: The ARTcade Game exists as a standalone title. Dead by Daylight is the first time he will be a playable antagonist against other people, which is a meaningfully different bar for the model to clear. November is the window. That is all anyone has.
For where the current roster sits while you wait, our DBD killer tier list ranks every Killer on the live patch, and the full list of all 44 Killers covers the original and licensed split Art is about to change. The most recent licensed Killer, Jason, is the closest template for how a Killer-only licensed Chapter actually lands. For the rest of the month, the Halloween event rundown and the live October 2026 Twitch drops are both worth having open, and the 58 perk changes on the 10.2.0 test build are what lands before Chapter 42 does.
FAQ
When is the Dead by Daylight Terrifier Chapter releasing? Behaviour Interactive has only ever said November 2026, announced in June 2026 at the 10th Anniversary Broadcast and unchanged as of 2 October 2026. There is no published day-of-month release date and no published PTB date.
Is 27 October the Terrifier PTB date? It is a community estimate, not an announcement. A fan account posted a 27 October PTB and 17 November release on 1 October 2026. It is consistent with Behaviour's PTB cadence — Tuesday evening ET, three weeks before release, open for six days — but Behaviour has confirmed neither date.
Did Behaviour show Art the Clown's powers or perks? No. The 1 October 2026 broadcast showed his in-game model in motion and nothing mechanical. No power name, no perk names, no add-ons. Any perk list published before the Public Test Build is speculation.
Is there a Terrifier Survivor in the Chapter? Unconfirmed. No Survivor was shown on 1 October and Behaviour has not said whether the Chapter includes one. Dead by Daylight has shipped seven Killer-only Chapters, so it is a real possibility, but it is not confirmed either way.
What Chapter number is the Terrifier Chapter? Chapter 42. The most recent released Chapter is Chapter 41: Chorus of Sin, which launched on 25 August 2026 with The Judgment and Aurora Stardotter.
How much will Art the Clown cost? 500 Auric Cells. Licensed characters in Dead by Daylight have no Iridescent Shard price at all, and the 250 and 125 Shard discounts on older original characters do not apply to them. Bloodpoints cannot be converted into Auric Cells.
Can I unlock Art's perks for free? His perks, yes, eventually — licensed Killer perks rotate through the Shrine of Secrets, which resets every Tuesday at 15:00 UTC with four perks at 2,000, 4,000 and 6,000 Iridescent Shards for tiers I to III. The Killer himself cannot be unlocked with Shards.
Why are players unhappy with Art's model? The main complaint across both subreddits is structural rather than general: the head reads as too narrow and too smooth against the film makeup, described as "way too V shaped" and "smoothed out way too much," and the idle expression is a snarl where the character is defined by a grin.
What else was announced at the October of Horror Broadcast? The Hallowed Blight returns with Very Rare Outfits for The Slasher, The Houndmaster and The Knight; the Academia Rift arrives 6 October; the Diablo Collection covers The Artist, The Dredge, The Nurse, David, Taurie and Zarina; the November Days Collection includes Ghost Face; and the Stranger Things Collection returns.
What patch is Dead by Daylight on right now? 10.1.2a, a server-side update from 17 September 2026. Patch 10.2.0 is still on the Public Test Build, which opened on 15 September 2026 with 58 perk changes, and has no announced live date.
