Most Killer lists you will find are a screenshot of a character select screen from two years ago. This one is a working roster: every Killer, the human being underneath, the power they hold, the chapter that sold them, and the day they arrived.
It also answers the question the lists never do — which of these you can actually still buy. Two Killers have left the store permanently, fifteen are on a price cut that never expires, and the rest sit at full price. Verified against the live build, Patch 10.1.2a, on 20 September 2026.
Quick answer. Dead by Daylight has 44 Killers as of Patch 10.1.2a. The wiki's roster page puts it plainly: "There are currently 44 Killers featured in Dead by Daylight, of which 25 are Original Characters (created by BHVR) and 19 are Licensed Characters." The newest is The Judgment, added with Chorus of Sin on 25 August 2026. Two are no longer purchasable — The Shape (the HALLOWEEN Chapter left the store on 19 January 2026) and The Cenobite (Hellraiser left on 4 April 2025) — though anyone who already owns them keeps them. Fifteen Killers from retired chapters are permanently half price. The next Killer is Art the Clown in the announced Terrifier chapter.
How many Killers are in Dead by Daylight in 2026?
Forty-four. That number has moved four times in the last twelve months, which is why so many roster pages are wrong: The Krasue arrived on 23 September 2025, The First on 27 January 2026, The Slasher on 16 June 2026 and The Judgment on 25 August 2026.
The split is 25 Original Killers designed by Behaviour Interactive and 19 Licensed Killers brought in from film, television, games and manga. That ratio matters more than it looks. Original Killers can be unlocked with the free currency you earn by playing. Licensed Killers cannot — every licensed chapter in the store is priced in real money or Auric Cells only, with no Iridescent Shard option. Buy Jason and it is $4.99 or 500 Auric Cells, full stop. Buy the original Chorus of Sin chapter and you have a shard route: 18,000 Iridescent Shards, or 1,000 Auric Cells, or $7.99.
There are 51 released Chapter DLCs, and that number lines up with neither the Killer count nor BHVR's own chapter numbering. Ten chapters shipped a Survivor and no Killer: Left Behind, Ash vs Evil Dead, Nicolas Cage, Alan Wake, Tomb Raider, Steady Pulse, The Walking Dead, The Life Road, Hour of the Witch and All-Kill: Comeback on 17 March 2026. Strip those ten out and the August 2026 release lands exactly where its store page says it does — Chapter 41. Seven chapters went the other way and shipped a Killer alone: LEATHERFACE, Ghost Face, Hellraiser, Chucky, Tokyo Ghoul, Five Nights at Freddy's and Jason.
All 44 Dead by Daylight Killers
Sorted by release order, which is also the internal CharID order the game uses (The Trapper is K01, The Judgment is K44). A dash in the real-name column means the character has no revealed human identity — The Demogorgon, The Dredge, The Xenomorph, The Unknown and The Judgment are all unnamed by design.
| # | Killer | Real name | Power | Chapter | Released |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Trapper | Evan MacMillan | Bear Trap | Base Game | 14 June 2016 |
| 2 | The Wraith | Philip Ojomo | Wailing Bell | Base Game | 14 June 2016 |
| 3 | The Hillbilly | Max Thompson Jr. | Chainsaw | Base Game | 14 June 2016 |
| 4 | The Nurse | Sally Smithson | Spencer's Last Breath | The Last Breath Chapter | 18 August 2016 |
| 5 | The Shape | Michael Myers | Evil Within | The HALLOWEEN Chapter | 25 October 2016 |
| 6 | The Hag | Lisa Sherwood | Blackened Catalyst | Of Flesh and Mud | 8 December 2016 |
| 7 | The Doctor | Herman Carter | Carter's Spark | Spark of Madness | 11 May 2017 |
| 8 | The Huntress | Anna | Hunting Hatchets | A Lullaby for the Dark | 27 July 2017 |
| 9 | The Cannibal | Bubba Sawyer | Bubba's Chainsaw | LEATHERFACE | 14 September 2017 |
| 10 | The Nightmare | Freddy Krueger | Dream Demon | A Nightmare on Elm Street | 26 October 2017 |
| 11 | The Pig | Amanda Young | Jigsaw's Baptism | The SAW Chapter | 23 January 2018 |
| 12 | The Clown | Kenneth Chase | The Afterpiece Tonic | Curtain Call | 12 June 2018 |
| 13 | The Spirit | Rin Yamaoka | Yamaoka's Haunting | Shattered Bloodline | 18 September 2018 |
| 14 | The Legion | Frank, Julie, Susie, Joey | Feral Frenzy | Darkness Among Us | 11 December 2018 |
| 15 | The Plague | Adiris | Vile Purge | Demise of the Faithful | 19 March 2019 |
| 16 | The Ghost Face | Danny Johnson | Night Shroud | Ghost Face | 18 June 2019 |
| 17 | The Demogorgon | — | Of the Abyss | Stranger Things | 17 September 2019 |
| 18 | The Oni | Kazan Yamaoka | Yamaoka's Wrath | Cursed Legacy | 3 December 2019 |
| 19 | The Deathslinger | Caleb Quinn | The Redeemer | Chains of Hate | 10 March 2020 |
| 20 | The Executioner | Pyramid Head | Rites of Judgement | Silent Hill | 16 June 2020 |
| 21 | The Blight | Talbot Grimes | Blighted Corruption | Descend Beyond | 8 September 2020 |
| 22 | The Twins | Charlotte and Victor Deshayes | Blood Bond | A Binding of Kin | 1 December 2020 |
| 23 | The Trickster | Hak Ji-woon | Showstopper | All-Kill | 30 March 2021 |
| 24 | The Nemesis | Nemesis T-Type | T-Virus | Resident Evil | 15 June 2021 |
| 25 | The Cenobite | Elliot Spencer | Summons of Pain | Hellraiser | 7 September 2021 |
| 26 | The Artist | Carmina Mora | Birds of Torment | Portrait of a Murder | 30 November 2021 |
| 27 | The Onryō | Sadako Yamamura | Deluge of Fear | Sadako Rising | 8 March 2022 |
| 28 | The Dredge | — | Reign of Darkness | Roots of Dread | 7 June 2022 |
| 29 | The Mastermind | Albert Wesker | Virulent Bound | Resident Evil: PROJECT W | 30 August 2022 |
| 30 | The Knight | Tarhos Kovács | Guardia Compagnia | Forged in Fog | 22 November 2022 |
| 31 | The Skull Merchant | Adriana Imai | Eyes in the Sky | Tools of Torment | 7 March 2023 |
| 32 | The Singularity | HUX-A7-13 | Quantum Instantiation | End Transmission | 13 June 2023 |
| 33 | The Xenomorph | — | Hidden Pursuit | Alien | 29 August 2023 |
| 34 | The Good Guy | Charles Lee Ray | Playtime's Over | Chucky | 28 November 2023 |
| 35 | The Unknown | — | UVX | All Things Wicked | 12 March 2024 |
| 36 | The Lich | Vecna | Vile Darkness | Dungeons and Dragons | 3 June 2024 |
| 37 | The Dark Lord | Dracula | Vampiric Shift | Castlevania | 27 August 2024 |
| 38 | The Houndmaster | Portia Maye | Scent of Blood | Doomed Course | 28 November 2024 |
| 39 | The Ghoul | Ken Kaneki | One-Eyed Terror | Tokyo Ghoul | 2 April 2025 |
| 40 | The Animatronic | William Afton | Fazbear's Fright | Five Nights at Freddy's | 17 June 2025 |
| 41 | The Krasue | Burong Sukapat | Unbodied Flesh | Sinister Grace | 23 September 2025 |
| 42 | The First | Henry Creel | Test Subject #001 | Stranger Things Chapter 2 | 27 January 2026 |
| 43 | The Slasher | Jason Voorhees | Omnipresent Evil | Jason | 16 June 2026 |
| 44 | The Judgment | — | Will of the Gods | Chorus of Sin | 25 August 2026 |
If you want these ranked by how well they actually perform rather than listed by date, our DBD Killer tier list grades all 44 at the current patch, and the best Killer perks tier list covers what to put on them.
Which Killers are licensed, and which are original?
Nineteen Killers come from a licence: The Shape (Halloween), The Cannibal (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), The Nightmare (A Nightmare on Elm Street), The Pig (Saw), The Ghost Face (Scream), The Demogorgon and The First (Stranger Things), The Executioner (Silent Hill), The Nemesis and The Mastermind (Resident Evil), The Cenobite (Hellraiser), The Onryō (Ring), The Xenomorph (Alien), The Good Guy (Child's Play), The Lich (Dungeons and Dragons), The Dark Lord (Castlevania), The Ghoul (Tokyo Ghoul), The Animatronic (Five Nights at Freddy's) and The Slasher (Friday the 13th).
The other 25 are Behaviour's own, and the practical difference is money. A licence is rented, not owned, which is why two of those nineteen are now unbuyable and why no original Killer has ever been removed from the store in ten years.
Which Killers can you no longer buy?
Two, and both are licensed.
The Shape. The HALLOWEEN Chapter, released 25 October 2016, stopped being sold on 19 January 2026. It is not just Michael Myers who went — Patch 1.2.1 had added the Haddonfield realm and the Lampkin Lane map to the base game, and per the wiki those were "removed from Dead by Daylight with the Chapter's retraction". A map every player had, licensed or not, disappeared from the rotation. Our full map and realm list reflects the post-removal pool.
The Cenobite. Hellraiser launched 7 September 2021 and left on 4 April 2025, announced a month ahead on 4 March 2025 with a Last Chance Sale. BHVR sent Pinhead off in character, quoting him directly in the announcement: "Oh please, no tears. They are a waste of good suffering." The knock-on effect reached players who never owned him. His three perks — Deadlock, Hex: Plaything and Scourge Hook: Gift of Pain — stayed in the Bloodweb under their original names for existing owners, but for everyone else they were renamed and converted into General Perks available to all Killers.
Both Killers remain fully playable for anyone who bought them first. Neither is coming back on a schedule anyone has published. The one precedent worth knowing is Stranger Things: delisted on 17 November 2021, restored on 6 November 2023 after the licence was renegotiated, and then extended with a second chapter — the story in our Stranger Things chapters guide. A retraction is not automatically permanent. It is also not a promise.
Which Killers are permanently half price?
Fifteen. This is the part of the roster almost nobody documents, and it is worth real money.
Between January and May 2024, BHVR retired 16 older chapters and folded them into four bundles — the Maddening Darkness Pack, Macabre Tales Pack, Old Wounds Pack and Endless Hunt Pack. Retired is not the same as retracted: the content is still there and still buyable individually in the in-game store. The wiki's wording on each retired chapter is identical and unambiguous. Of Flesh and Mud, for example: "With the retirement of the DLC, its content has been permanently halved in price, with The Hag and Ace costing 125 Auric Cells or 2,250 Iridescent Shards each."
| Price each | Killers |
|---|---|
| 125 Auric Cells / 2,250 Iridescent Shards | The Hag, The Doctor, The Clown, The Spirit |
| 250 Auric Cells / 4,500 Iridescent Shards | The Legion, The Plague, The Oni, The Deathslinger, The Blight, The Twins, The Trickster, The Artist, The Dredge, The Knight, The Skull Merchant |
The currency pages state the same thing from the other direction: every character, original or licensed, costs 500 Auric Cells, original characters up to and including Tools of Torment are discounted to 250 Auric Cells, and those up to and including Shattered Bloodline drop to 125. In shards, that is 9,000 at full price, 4,500 and 2,250 discounted.
So The Blight — still one of the strongest Killers in the game — costs exactly half of what The Judgment does, forever, with no sale required. If you are shard-limited rather than cash-limited, the retired list is where your first four or five unlocks should come from.
How fast is each Killer?
Movement speed is the single stat that shapes how a Killer plays, and there are only four values in the game.
| Speed | Killers |
|---|---|
| 96.25 percent / 3.85 m/s | The Nurse |
| 105 percent / 4.2 m/s in Stalker Mode | The Shape |
| 110 percent / 4.4 m/s | The Hag, The Huntress, The Spirit, The Deathslinger, The Blight, The Trickster, The Good Guy, The Animatronic, The First, The Slasher, The Judgment |
| 115 percent / 4.6 m/s | The other 31 Killers |
The Nurse is the outlier in both directions: slowest base speed in the game at 3.85 m/s, and the only Killer who ignores walls entirely. Every 110 percent Killer is paying for something — hatchets, a ranged spear, a phase-walk, a dash — and every 115 percent Killer is at the default chase speed a Survivor is balanced against at 4.0 m/s.
The Shape is the awkward one for list-makers. He is 105 percent while stalking in Evil Within, and 115 percent in Pursuer Mode and Evil Incarnate, so any list that gives him a single speed value is wrong.
Which Killers have the biggest and smallest terror radius?
Terror radius decides whether Survivors hear you coming, and the spread is wider than most players assume.
Four Killers run a 40 metre terror radius: The Hillbilly, The Blight, The Mastermind and The Ghoul. All four are mobility Killers, and the oversized heartbeat is the tax on crossing the map quickly.
Eight run 24 metres: The Hag, The Pig, The Spirit, The Ghost Face, The Trickster, The Onryō, The Skull Merchant and The Animatronic. The Huntress is alone at 20 metres, the smallest in the game — the trade-off for a lullaby that announces her from 45 metres away anyway.
The remaining 31 sit at the standard 32 metres. The Shape is again conditional, dropping to 16 metres in Pursuer Mode.
Who are the newest Killers, and who is next?
The last three additions came fast. The First (Henry Creel) arrived with Stranger Things Chapter 2 on 27 January 2026. The Slasher (Jason Voorhees) followed on 16 June 2026, closing a licence chase players had been asking about since 2016. The Judgment landed with Chorus of Sin on 25 August 2026 alongside Aurora Stardotter, and has already been walked back once: hotfix 10.1.2a on 17 September 2026 "Reverted the Divine Light curve window while Zealous to 0.6s (was 0.8s)", with BHVR's dev note explaining that "The Judgment's performance skyrocketed following HF2." The current state of that kit is in our Judgment guide.
Next is Chapter 42: Terrifier, bringing Art the Clown as the 45th Killer. It is tracked for a November 2026 window, BHVR has published no exact date, whether a Survivor ships alongside him is still unknown, and the chapter has not entered a Public Test Build. Chapter 43 is The Casting of Frank Stone, penciled for March 2027 with an original Killer called The Champion. On the current cadence — 44 Killers across 51 Chapter DLCs in ten years — the roster should cross 45 before the year ends.
One thing not to plan around: BHVR has published no 2026 Halloween event dates at the time of writing. Players in the subreddit are telling each other to hold their Auric Cells for a Halloween sale, and the pattern is real in past years, but there is no announced date to point at. Treat it as a pattern, not a promise.
More Dead by Daylight guides on timesaver.gg
- DBD Killer tier list — all 44 Killers ranked at the current patch
- Best Killer perks — what to run once you have picked one
- Shrine of Secrets this week — the weekly shard route to perks you do not own
FAQ
How many Killers are in Dead by Daylight? 44, as of Patch 10.1.2a on 20 September 2026. 25 are original BHVR characters and 19 are licensed.
Which Killer should I buy first? If you are spending shards, take one of the 15 half-price retired Killers — The Blight at 4,500 Iridescent Shards is the strongest value on that list. If you are spending real money and want perks that work on every Killer, The Nemesis (Lethal Pursuer, Hysteria, Eruption) and The Knight (Nowhere to Hide) are the two most commonly recommended by players for exactly that reason.
Can you unlock Killers for free in Dead by Daylight? Only original Killers. They can be bought with Iridescent Shards, which you earn by playing, at 9,000 shards for a current Killer or 4,500 and 2,250 for retired ones. Licensed Killers have no shard price and require Auric Cells or a direct purchase.
Which Dead by Daylight Killers are unavailable? The Shape, since the HALLOWEEN Chapter left the store on 19 January 2026, and The Cenobite, since Hellraiser left on 4 April 2025. Players who bought them beforehand keep them permanently and can still play them.
Who is the newest Killer in DBD? The Judgment, released with Chorus of Sin on 25 August 2026. Art the Clown from Terrifier is announced as the next one, with no confirmed date.
Who is the fastest Killer in DBD? No Killer moves faster than 115 percent, or 4.6 m/s, in base movement. Thirty-one of the 44 sit at that speed. The Nurse is the slowest at 3.85 m/s and crosses the map by blinking instead.
Do you lose a Killer if their chapter is retracted? No. Everything you owned before the retraction stays in your account and stays playable, including in ranked play. Only future purchases are blocked, and any cosmetics you had not already bought become unobtainable.
