Dead By Daylight is one of my personal favourite games. I’m a huge horror nerd so when I discovered this game back in 2018 I played it all the time. Though my love for it runs deep it’s not without its faults and recently those faults are more exposed than ever. Between recent scandals and upset fans, I’m going to discuss why Dead by Daylight is turning into a mess of a game.
Gameplay
You have two options when it comes to gameplay. You can be a killer or a survivor. Overall while I think the survivor side is more fun both sides can be so frustrating. When I’m a survivor going up against a bad killer I have no fun. When I play killer I get one good game for every ten bad ones. Playing killer feels like a chore most of the time. You’re having to focus on so many different things at once. Hooking the survivors, kicking the generators, protecting totems, using your killer power etc. It’s exhausting.
Are the killer’s powers cool and fun to use? Yes. Are some of those powers weak as hell and need buffed? Also yes.
The matchmaking system only makes these issues ten times worse. The new system they implemented for matchmaking doesn’t take into account skill, it only goes of how many times you kill or escape which is in no way a good indicator of how well you play. You’re caught between people who are too far above or below your skill level. It’s a frustratingly bad system and that mixed with all the bugs and glitches means you get a less enjoyable time.
The Rift
Dead by Daylight needed a lot of things and a battle pass wasn’t one of them. They called this battle pass the Rift. I generally dislike battle passes as a whole but Dead by Daylight’s is hell to complete. The only good items are near the end of the pass and grinding for it is so tedious. I only completed one battle pass before deciding to never do it again, even if it meant missing out on cool outfits. I feel like they’d benefit so much from having a break from the pass so they’d have more time to add content that actually worth grinding for. Not just minor charms you hardly see on your survivor character.
It is like your typical battle pass but it does have one exception. In addition to completing the challenges and gaining cosmetics and charms, you also gain additional lore for the characters. This is found in the Tomes.
The new lore additions swing between being a hit or a miss. One of the worst offenders in my opinion is Dwight Fairfield’s Tome lore. Since his release, Dwight was a quiet, spineless nerd. In the Tome, it showed him committing a crime. The character I knew and loved for years was now suddenly capable of drugging someone? It didn’t make sense. The Tomes either mischaracterize the character, make contradictions or just make weird choices.
The Lore
Setting the Tomes aside, I have to talk about the more recent backstories of the characters. The original backstories they’re giving the characters now are becoming far too convoluted. For example the most recent killer, the Artist, just had every tragedy thrown into her backstory. What should be a fun and enjoyable read had become a boring wall of text. The same happened with the Twins and the Blight’s backstory. It was nearly three original killers in a row I found myself bored by.
While I think they did it well in the ‘All-Kill’ chapter it’s still a big issue. I know they’re better capable of being better than this. Plague, Spirit and The Deathslinger all have gripping, solid backstories with just the right amount of detail. They can create amazing original content they just have to scale it back.
Behaviour Interactive
And last but not least let’s talk about the company itself, Behaviour Interactive. The problem is easy to see. They want to put profit and exposure over the health of the game. It doesn’t feel like horror fans are in charge of the game anymore. They’re shovelling more coal onto an already out of control fire.
This was an underlying feeling in the past but it exploded with the recent Pinhead scandal. We got Pinhead in-game but at the cost of tricking fans into supporting an NFT. Fans, streamers and even some company employees all tweeted about how horribly deceptive it was. It’s been shoved under the rug as per usual. As a reference for how much people hated it, every Dead by Daylight DLC has around 1,000 positive or mixed steam reviews. The Pinhead DLC has nearly 2,000 negative reviews.
Seeing the hype among fans for this character only for it to be crushed a week or so after its release was gutting. I think that’s the perfect metaphor for the game‘s current state. It can get you so excited but it can let you down in such a spectacular way.
Conclusion
With all this in mind, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I still love this game with all my heart. I’m still going to play it till the early hours of the morning and support DBD content creators. It’s just not the same game that I fell in love with 4 years ago. Going forwards it needs to do better. They are capable of listening to fan feedback but they need to slow down and take the time needed to implement the bigger changes it needs to keep the game alive.
Have a play for yourself and see what you think.
What are your thoughts on Dead by Daylight? Let us know by leaving a comment below!
