For over three decades, Montreal’s Behaviour Interactive has been a quiet titan in the gaming industry. Veteran industry figures like Jean-François Mercure-Burroughs, VP of Operations, have witnessed this evolution firsthand. Starting his career in a completely different field, installing sawmill equipment across North America, Mercure-Burroughs joined the studio back when it was still known as Artificial Mind and Movement.
From developing proprietary engines for the PlayStation 3 to navigating the explosive success of Dead by Daylight, his journey mirrors the massive structural shifts of the company itself. At the XP Game Summit (XP26), we sat down with Mercure-Burroughs to discuss how Behaviour transitioned from a work-for-hire studio into an international powerhouse, their strategy for expanding the “Horror Hall of Fame,” and why eliminating crunch is a fundamental operational requirement.
The Catalyst: How Dead by Daylight Altered Behaviour’s DNA
For years, Behaviour operated primarily as a highly reliable work-for-hire studio, delivering everything from children’s titles to movie tie-ins. But around 2016, a structural divergence occurred: the studio was parallel-developing a massive licensed franchise title, Warhammer 40K: Eternal Crusade, alongside a much smaller internal project called Dead by Daylight.
Internally, expectations were flipped.
“I was working on the bigger Warhammer title and thought that would be the major release… It didn’t really pan out the way we hoped. Meanwhile, Dead by Daylight absolutely exploded.”
The asymmetric multiplayer horror game didn’t just succeed, it fundamentally altered how Behaviour operated. It forced the company to transition from a pure work-for-hire pipeline into a hybrid entity managing both original live-service intellectual properties and major partner projects.
Recently, the studio eliminated the internal divisions between original IP teams and partner project teams entirely, reorganizing into a single, unified production framework.
“We don’t really separate them anymore. We just have projects, whether they’re original IPs or partner productions… There’s more mobility and more sharing of expertise.”
Building the “Horror Hall of Fame”
Dead by Daylight has earned a reputation as the Fortnite of the horror genre, seamlessly incorporating iconic characters from Alien, Resident Evil, and Child’s Play. According to Mercure-Burroughs, this wasn’t accidental; it was the core architectural vision for the game.
“The vision was to create a hall of fame for horror characters. So it made sense to pursue those licenses. At the beginning it was difficult to convince licensors, but as the game became successful it got easier.”
Bridging the gap between Hollywood film studios and game mechanics, however, introduces distinct operational hurdles. Game developers inherently understand systemic constraints, whereas film authors or directors occasionally struggle with the realities of interactive adaptation.
“With Dead by Daylight, gameplay rules matter. Characters need to fit into the mechanics. Chucky, for example, created some fun challenges because of his size. So it’s always about figuring out how to adapt a character into the gameplay experience.”
This commitment to the horror genre has driven Behaviour’s external growth strategy. The studio’s recent corporate acquisitions, including Red Hook Studios (Darkest Dungeon) and the partnership/acquisition elements surrounding 7 Days to Die are part of a calculated effort to expand their footprint beyond a single successful game.
“It fits into that idea of building a broader horror hall of fame beyond Dead by Daylight. We want to grow within the horror space overall.”
Operationalizing Sustainability: The Reality of No-Crunch Culture
As Behaviour grew, doubling its headcount since the pandemic and opening international offices in Toronto, the UK, and Amsterdam, maintaining studio culture became an explicit operational focus. Behaviour previously made industry headlines for its strict stance against crunch culture, a philosophy Mercure-Burroughs defends from a practical production standpoint.
While live-service emergencies require immediate, all-hands fixes, day-to-day production is governed by a strict rule: overtime is a failure of planning, not a feature of development.
“There’s always pressure in game development. I’m not saying overtime never happens — of course it does sometimes — but we never plan for overtime. That’s an important distinction.”
During the studio’s early days of manufacturing licensed movie games, immovable Hollywood release dates routinely forced teams into crunch scenarios. In 2015, the studio made a conscious, operational pivot toward rigorous scoping, risk mitigation, and proactive design simplification.
Crunch Mitigation Strategy:
Design Simplification ──► Scope Adjustment ──► Resource Allocation (Up to Diminishing Returns)
“Overtime shouldn’t be the default solution. Often what people really need is time and rest so they can make better decisions. Adding people can help up to a point, but simplifying the design or adjusting scope should usually happen first… Our CEO has always emphasized: when your work is done, go home.”
The Work-for-Hire Arm: Premium Collaborations
Though original IPs like Dead by Daylight dominate headlines, Behaviour has maintained and upgraded its legacy work-for-hire business. The studio leverages its deep institutional knowledge of running complex live-service systems to secure premium partnerships with industry leaders like Microsoft, Ubisoft and 2K.
The market for licensed children’s games and cheap movie tie-ins has largely dried up, but Behaviour’s ability to reliably co-develop large scale projects remains a core economic pillar. Working alongside world-class external publishers provides Behaviour’s production teams with unique insights into foreign workflows, creating a continuous loop of operational improvement.
“One of the great things about Behaviour is that we work with major publishers and partners, so we get exposure to a lot of different development approaches… We can’t share code or assets, obviously, but we can absolutely share production perspectives and lessons learned.”
By combining the financial stability of premium co-development with a disciplined approach to original IP expansion, Behaviour Interactive has created a sustainable, scalable model. It serves as proof that a studio can build a global horror empire while keeping its teams resting, refueled, and heading home on time.
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