Dead by Daylight x Tokyo Ghoul: Release date, Kaneki’s abilities & more

A new Killer will soon stalk Survivors when Dead by Daylight’s Tokyo Ghoul collab introduces Ken Kaneki. Here’s what players need to know.

The protagonist of the celebrated Tokyo Ghoul manga and anime is Ken Kaneki, a studious and simple man whose life gets turned upside down after an accident.

While an emergency surgery keeps Kaneki in the land of the living, the transplant he receives comes from a ghoul, thus turning him into a human-ghoul hybrid.

This is the entity Dead by Daylight players will face off against in the upcoming Tokyo Ghoul crossover. Here’s what developer Behaviour Interactive has confirmed, so far.

Dead by Daylight x Tokyo Ghoul release date

The Tokyo Ghoul collab arrives on Wednesday, April 2. This DbD crossover will bring Ken Kaneki to the game for the first time, though he’ll be different from the half-ghoul that fans knew in the manga and anime series.

Shueisha/Behaviour Interactive

Dead by Daylight’s unqiue spin on Ken Kaneki

In a PS Blog post, DbD developers said their reimagining of Kaneki sees the character’s mind being pushed to its “breaking point” by the torment he endures from the ghoul, Jason. Kaneki overpowers the ghoul, but quickly gets thrust into The Entity’s Realm.

He loses his humanity in the process and finds himself overwhelmed by a “ghoulish desire for cruelty.”

Survivors will especially see this cruelty made manifest when the character’s Kagune abilities surface as lethal tentacles from his back.

To explain why the team drastically changed Kaneki’s personality, Behaviour’s Senior Copywriter Mitch Findlay Brown said that instead of making him a Survivor, “we felt it would be more interesting to really lean into the horror and present an alternate reality where Kaneki became exactly what he feared.”

One thing will remain the same, however. The voice of Kaneki in the anime, Natsuki Hanae, will return to deliver original lines for the new DbD chapter.

Shueisha/Behaviour Interactive

Ken Kaneki’s abilities in Dead by Daylight

According to Creative Director Dave Richard, while fans have seen Kaneki make use of his powers in previous incarnations of Tokyo Ghoul, he’ll wield them “maliciously” in the DbD experience.

To ensure the Kaneki Killer character embraces his inner ghoul, players will use the Killer Power to propel him around the map with the Kagune tentacles. Users will even be able to chain these movements together, then strike at Survivors.

Successfully attacking opponents in this way will activate Enraged Mode, boosting Kaneki’s strength and allowing for another lunge in the movement chain.

The character’s unique Perks include the following – Hex: Nothing But Misery, Forever Entwined, and None Are Free. These should encourage players to engage Survivors more aggressively, since “Kaneki is not one to wait around and bide his time.”

His viciousness won’t stop there as fans can expect the hybrid’s “cannibalistic tendencies” to sit center stage, giving new meaning to the phrase, “eat your heart out.”

Tokyo Ghoul takes over Dead by Daylight on April 2, 2025.