Art the Clown went playable at 15:00 UTC on 28 October 2026. That is when Behaviour posted the 10.3.0 Terrifier PTB patch notes to Steam, and within 40 minutes the copy on the main subreddit had more than 400 upvotes and 178 comments. One of the top replies summed up the mood: "How the hell does art the clown of all people have a more complicated kit than Vecna lmao".
This page started as our 2 October first look, written when Behaviour had shown a model and nothing else. Everything below now comes from the official notes, Behaviour's own Terrifier announcement and the Chapter's Steam store listing.
Quick answer (28 October 2026, 10.3.0 PTB): Art the Clown is The Terrifier. His power, Bag of Toys, hands you two random single-use weapons at a time: Acid Bottle, Flail, Handgun, Flamethrower and Bike Horn. Four of them build Deadliness until they can down injured Survivors on their own, and the fifth, the Bike Horn, instead regresses Generator and healing progress at maximum. His perks are Funny Business, Kill Spree and Laughingstock. The Chapter also adds a Survivor, Sienna Shaw (Valkyrie's Rage, Shared Trauma, Best Gift Ever), and a new map, Hartshorne Mall. The PTB is Steam-only. Behaviour's Steam listing for the DLC shows 24 November 2026, not the 17 November date that leak accounts have been passing around.
When does Art the Clown come out in Dead by Daylight?
Behaviour has published two Terrifier dates, and leak accounts supplied a third.
| Milestone | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 10.3.0 PTB opens (Steam only) | 28 October 2026, 15:00 UTC | Official PTB patch notes on Steam |
| Terrifier DLC release | 24 November 2026 ("coming soon") | Dead by Daylight: Terrifier Steam listing |
| Rumoured live date | 17 November 2026 | Leak accounts, 1 October; never confirmed by Behaviour |
| Chucky leaves all stores | 24 November 2026, 11am ET | Behaviour KB 563 |
So the first-party date is the one on Steam. A store listing can still move before launch, but 24 November is the only release date Behaviour itself has put anywhere. It is also the day Chucky becomes unavailable to buy (from 11am ET), so one licensed Killer leaves the store on the same Tuesday another is listed to arrive.
The PTB notes give no closing date for the test build. Earlier PTBs ran for roughly a week, but that is a pattern, not a promise.
What is Art the Clown's power, Bag of Toys?
Hold the Ability button and Art reaches into his trash bag and offers you two random Toys. Pick one and the bag goes on cooldown. Every Toy is single-use. You ready it with the Power button and fire it with Attack.
The core loop, in Behaviour's words: "Use a Toy to inflict a Torture effect on an injured Survivor. Then, use a different Toy on the Survivor to down them and inflict Terrified." Toys damage healthy Survivors normally. Against an injured Survivor they apply Torture instead of downing, until that Toy has levelled up.
| Toy | What it does |
|---|---|
| Acid Bottle | Thrown at Survivors, or used to leave Acid Puddles. Causes Torture |
| Flail | Sweeping attack that can hit over certain obstacles. Causes Torture |
| Handgun | Fires a bullet. Causes Torture |
| Flamethrower | Stream of fire that can set Pallets, Windows and Generators alight. Causes Torture |
| Bike Horn | Reveals Survivors with Killer Instinct, applies Oblivious and resets any active Torture timers |
How does Deadliness work?
Every time a Toy applies Torture, that Toy gains one point of Deadliness. Once it hits maximum Deadliness, a damage Toy can down injured Survivors on its own. The Bike Horn is the exception: at maximum it will "interrupt any Survivors repairing a Generator or healing, and instantly regress their progress."
There is a second way to level up. Art has a special action, Taunt, on the Ability button. Taunting a hooked or downed Survivor who is Terrified gives every Toy 1 point of Deadliness and removes their Terrified status. In practice the kit snowballs. The first few downs are slow two-Toy combos, and once your Toys are at maximum the bag starts downing people outright.
Two things the in-game text does not tell you yet:
- The notes literally say the Bike Horn applies Oblivious "for X seconds". That is a placeholder, so the duration has not been published.
- Behaviour's known-issues list admits the power description "does not specify that Horn Oblivious and Deadliness Score only trigger when multiple Survivors are detected." If one honk on a single Survivor seems to do nothing, that is why.
Behaviour's announcement adds that "Each weapon will have its own unique Mini-Mori." That ties into the Mori system rework further down.
What are Art the Clown's perks?
All three values below are the PTB numbers from the official notes (Tier I/II/III). PTB numbers often change before release. In the 10.2.0 cycle, several perks shipped with different values from the ones tested, so treat these as provisional.
| Perk | Effect on the 10.3.0 PTB |
|---|---|
| Funny Business | Whenever you damage a Generator, gain 10% Haste for 10 s plus one random effect: keep the Haste 5 s longer, get stunned for 2 s, block that Generator for 30 s, or "Confetti! But nothing happens." Cooldown 60/50/40 s. The same effect cannot roll twice in a row |
| Kill Spree | Once all remaining Survivors have 2 Hook States and every Generator is done, you can kill Survivors. Both Exit Gate switches are blocked while you do it. This ends 6/8/10 s after you finish killing a Survivor |
| Laughingstock | Survivors within 12 m of a completed Generator are Exhausted and Oblivious. The effect lingers 3/4/5 s after they leave. You see completed Generators' Auras |
Funny Business is a gamble by design. One of its four outcomes stuns you, and one does nothing at all. The guaranteed 10% Haste each time it activates (once per 60/50/40 s cooldown) is the real value, and a 30-second Generator block is the jackpot. The subreddit noticed straight away that it is basically a Killer version of the Survivor perk Dramaturgy.
Kill Spree is an endgame execution perk with a strict gate. It needs every remaining Survivor on 2 Hook States and all Generators done. If both are true, the gate switches lock while you work. It is strong in the matches it fits and dead weight in the rest.
Laughingstock gets stronger as the match goes on, because every completed Generator becomes another 12 m zone. Exhausted near completed Generators shuts off Sprint Burst and Lithe on the loops around finished objectives, and the Oblivious means those Survivors lose their Terror Radius warning.
Who is Sienna Shaw and what are her perks?
Sienna Shaw, the final girl of the Terrifier films, is the Chapter's Survivor. Behaviour describes her as "A young woman haunted by tragedy" whose destiny is "supernaturally entwined with Art the Clown's."
| Perk | Effect on the 10.3.0 PTB |
|---|---|
| Valkyrie's Rage | After being chased for 40/35/30 s, your next pallet stun lasts 75% longer |
| Shared Trauma | When you take a protection hit, all Survivors within 12 m recover from Exhausted while running for 30/35/40 s. You see the Auras of Exhausted Survivors within 32 m |
| Best Gift Ever | Start with 4/5/6 Tokens. The first time you drop each item type, spend 1 Token. The item is consumed by the Entity and you gain a passive bonus based on its type |
Best Gift Ever is the interesting one, because it turns items you would otherwise throw away into passive bonuses:
- Flashlight: every Killer stun also blinds them for 2 s
- Fog Vial: after a fast vault, your scratch marks fade 50% faster for 5 s
- Key: +1 rummage on each chest
- Map: Auras you see for a duration last +1 s
- Medkit: while healing someone else, you also gain healing progress at 25% speed
- Toolbox: you see the Auras of the 3 Generators closest to each other
It has a known bug already. Behaviour lists "Deathslinger gets blinded when his chain breaks if the Survivor has the Flashlight 'buff'."
What is the new Hartshorne Mall map?
Hartshorne Mall is the Chapter's new map. The notes introduce it as part of "The Subdivisions realm", and its lore ties back to Dwight. In Behaviour's words, he was "no older than five when he lost his parents in the Hartshorne Mall", ducked behind a door marked "Employees Only" and "found himself somewhere completely different." The Steam store screenshots show an arcade, long tiled corridors and a multi-level central atrium.
What else is in the 10.3.0 PTB?
Gore settings and the Mori rework
A new Gore Customization block sits under Gameplay in Settings. Death Sequences can be toggled to reduce their goriness, Natural Blood Color can be switched to "a neutral green tone", and Regional Streamer Mode also anonymises all player information.
Moris are being split into three categories: Finisher, Power, and Memento Mori offering and Perk. Each one outranks the category below it when its trigger conditions are met, and all of them now run off the Killer's Attack input. The Terrifier is the first Killer built on this system, and Behaviour says it "will roll out to previously released Killers over time." The 22 October community stream recap called the third category "Short" Mori and said older Killers will use their current Mori for both the finisher and short cases for now.
Perk updates
Behaviour's framing: "we were conservative with some of the numbers and after reviewing, we felt they could be buffed further."
| Perk | 10.3.0 PTB | Was |
|---|---|---|
| Calm Spirit | Bless, cleanse and unlock chests 23/24/25% faster | 8/9/10% |
| Slippery Meat | Others unhook you 65/70/75% faster, 7% Haste after unhook | 90/95/100%, 5% Haste |
| Dark Sense | Now earns a Token at Trial start and per completed Generator (up to 5), spent when the Killer is within 20 m | Triggered on Generator completion only |
| Dark Arrogance | Vault 15% faster, successful basic-attack cooldown 13/14/15% shorter, blinds, stuns and missed attacks 15% longer | 25% vault, all recovery 10%, blind and stun only at 25% |
| Ravenous | Exposed for 60/65/70 s at 4 Tokens | 80/85/90 s |
| Whispers | 7% Haste while outside range | 5% |
The Ravenous change comes with the best dev note in the patch: "Once upon a time, Vigil drastically decreased a lot of Status Effects, including Exposed. In a post-Vigil world, we felt the Exposed duration was a little too long."
Our DBD patch notes hub tracks every version of Dark Arrogance from 10.2.0 to 10.2.2.
The quiet Lay Waste change
One bug fix is getting more attention than it looks like it should: "Fixed an issue where the Perk Lay Waste had the Generator regression speed increase applied before other Generator regression Perks were triggered." A Reddit thread is already calling this a nerf, because it changes the order in which Lay Waste stacks with other regression perks. It is listed as a fix, though, and Behaviour has not published new numbers for it.
How do you play the Terrifier PTB?
The PTB is Steam-only. Right-click Dead by Daylight in your Steam library, open Properties, then Betas, and select the public-test branch. The game redownloads and shows [public-test] next to its name. PTB progress never carries over to the live game. Characters you own through Steam stay unlocked on the PTB. Characters bought through other stores or the in-game store do not, but the PTB gives you Auric Cells to buy them there.
How much will Art the Clown cost?
Steam has not shown a price yet. According to the store page, buying the DLC on Steam unlocks the Art Crispies Cereal charm and the Clown Cafe Banner. In game, expect 500 Auric Cells: that is the standard price for new characters, licensed or original, and the 250 and 125 discounts only apply to older original characters. Behaviour has not posted Art's in-game price yet, so treat 500 as the expected price rather than a confirmed one. His perks reach the Shrine of Secrets eventually, but the Killer himself still has to be bought. Our Auric Cells price guide breaks down the cheapest pack mix for 500 Cells.
Is Art the Clown going to be good?
It is too early to place him confidently. What the kit tells you so far:
- Early game is slow. Without Deadliness, an injured Survivor needs two different Toys to go down, every Toy is single-use, and each pick puts the bag on cooldown.
- Late game is a cliff. Maximum-Deadliness Toys down injured Survivors outright, Taunt feeds every Toy at once, and a maxed Bike Horn interrupts repairs and heals and regresses their progress.
- Randomness is the tax. Two random Toys per opening means some pulls will not suit the chase you are in.
Our DBD killer tier list will place him once he has live data. Until then, the full DBD killers list shows where he fits in the roster. The community wiki counts him as the 45th Killer.
Want more Dead by Daylight guides? These are the pages to keep open through the Terrifier PTB:
- DBD patch notes hub
- DBD killer tier list
- Shrine of Secrets this week
- DBD roadmap: every confirmed Chapter and collab
FAQ
When does Art the Clown release in Dead by Daylight? Behaviour's Steam store listing for Dead by Daylight: Terrifier shows 24 November 2026 as of 28 October 2026. The 17 November date that has been circulating came from leak accounts and was never confirmed by Behaviour.
Is the Terrifier PTB live? Yes. The 10.3.0 Terrifier PTB opened on Steam on 28 October 2026, with patch notes posted at 15:00 UTC. It is Steam-only, and the notes do not say when it closes.
What are The Terrifier's perks? Funny Business (10% Haste plus a random effect when you damage a Generator, on a 60/50/40 s cooldown), Kill Spree (kill Survivors once everyone is on 2 Hook States and all Generators are done) and Laughingstock (Survivors near completed Generators are Exhausted and Oblivious). All values are PTB numbers and can change.
What are Sienna Shaw's perks? Valkyrie's Rage (75% longer pallet stun after being chased for 40/35/30 s), Shared Trauma (after a protection hit, Survivors within 12 m can recover from Exhausted while running for 30/35/40 s) and Best Gift Ever (drop items to turn them into passive bonuses).
What is Art the Clown's power called? Bag of Toys. It offers two random single-use Toys at a time: Acid Bottle, Flail, Handgun, Flamethrower and Bike Horn. Each gains Deadliness when it applies Torture. At maximum, the damage Toys can down injured Survivors on their own, while the Bike Horn interrupts and regresses repairs and heals.
What is the new Terrifier map? Hartshorne Mall, which the notes place in The Subdivisions realm. Its lore is about Dwight disappearing there when he was five or younger.
Can you turn off gore in Dead by Daylight? On the 10.3.0 PTB, yes. Gore Customization under Gameplay settings lets you tone down Death Sequences and switch blood to a neutral green.
