Review: Dead by Daylight

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At a Glance: Genre: Survival Horror Modes: Co-op Multi-player Controller Support: Partial Platforms: Microsoft Windows

Dead by Daylight is described as “a multiplayer (4vs1) horror game where one player takes on the role of the savage killer, and the other four players play as survivors trying to escape the killer and avoid being caught and killed.” Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it would be if you weren’t constantly screaming and running for your life. This game has a tremendous atmosphere and feel to it unlike any game I’ve played. It’s dark, it’s dirty, it’s creepy, and it’s just plain unnerving at times. I will review the game in it’s beta form.

The beta contains one map. The goal of the 4 survivors is simple: start enough generators to open the powered doors and escape. Generators do take awhile to repair and multiple survivors can work on the same generator to speed things up. To add some difficulty and a twist to the game-play, a sounder plays while you repair the generator and a circular skill-shot icon appears. If you stop it in the bright white area of the circle, you repair the generator faster. Stopping the skill-shot in the grey area allows you to continue working on the generator. However if you miss altogether, the generator backfires, stops repairs for a few seconds, and the explosion is visible to the killer who now knows where some fresh meat is located. Once all the necessary generators are started, a sounder plays and the two exits light up on the screen. It then becomes a race to get to the exit, open the door, and escape with your life. The survivor is played in a third-person aspect so you are able to see more of the environment around you.

Playing as the killer has some unique game-play mechanics I really haven’t encountered in a video game before. The killer is played from a first-person perspective to give you that thrilling chase feel while you play. Your goal is obvious: slaughter and sacrifice all the survivors. In the beta, there is one killer that is playable. When the game releases in a few days, there will be 3 playable killers available, each with their own special brand of killing. The available killer is a trapper who simply places bear traps to try and slow down survivors. He carries a machete and wears a mask not unlike Jason Voorhees. Striking a survivor once with the machete wounds them and slows their movement. A second hit will put them to the ground. Striking isn’t as easy as you’d think; the killer seems to enjoy the chase by taking time to wipe his blade off on the first hit on a survivor or taking time to break down a barricade that a survivor threw in his path to escape. Once a survivor hit the ground, the killer actually picks up and carries the survivor to one of many meat hooks scattered around. Yes, a gigantic meat hook. Survivors have the ability to squirm while being carried and if the killer takes took long, the survivor drops to the ground and the chase is on again. Once the killer reaches the meat hook, he slams the survivor on the hook back first and leaves them dangling. Gruesome.

A survivor being placed on the hook begins the sacrifice. The survivor has options: do they try to struggle and pull themselves off the hook or do they not struggle and try to buy time for a friend to come save them? Failed struggle attempts lower the survivors remaining health and speeds up the sacrifice. The killer also has options: does he wait and make sure the hanging survivor is sacrificed or does he set a trap and head off finding more flesh to carve? Choices, choices. Once the health bar of the hanging survivor empties, gigantic terrifying spider legs draw around the victim and impales them, taking them back into the dark and ominous sky.

The game is all procedurally generated. Simply put, the game, the map, the objectives are all randomized every time you play. It’s never the same game twice. There are, essentially, skill trees available. Perks and abilities you can unlock that adds an RPG-type element. For example, you can unlock trapper gloves that allow you to set bear traps 2 seconds faster as the killer. While they aren’t game breaking, they are some added perks that can save you time and give you a slight advantage while playing the game. Unfortunately, the beta did not allow point currency to be earned in friends-only games and I am unsure if the main release will be the same. Also, an added win option is available to the survivors. If there is only one survivor remaining, a randomly generated trapdoor will open somewhere in the map. The survivor can jump through that trapdoor to escape without having to finish starting the generators and escaping through the main doors. Good luck finding it. You better hope the killer didn’t find it first.

The game is running on the Unreal 4 engine so the graphics are very well done. It’s a dark, scary, and foreboding arena. It carries a certain ambiance and fear factor with it. Sound is a huge factor in this game and is very well done. When survivors are struck, they bleed but they also moan and cry a lot which can give away your hiding spot or escape route. There are birds randomly spawned throughout the map that fly and caw as you run past them. You can hear the generators being worked on, and of course generators exploding when skill-shot attempts are failed. As the killer gets closer to survivors, the survivors can hear their heartbeat get louder and faster as a warning signal to run or hide. The game-play is so simple, and yet so unique given the options and interactions you have. Finally, the game has infinite replayability, especially with the additional maps and killers coming out on release.

It is currently in beta, so it isn’t without its quirks and bugs. We had several experiences where players couldn’t load into the lobby properly and had to restart the game. Occasionally, a minor graphical glitch occurs when the killer is placing the survivor on the meat hook. The survivor is actually dangling in the air not connected to the hook at all. We also ran into a bug where we freed a survivor from the meat hook but they got stuck in the terrain and couldn’t move for approximately five seconds. Hopefully these issues, especially the lobby issue, will be addressed before the game is released on June 14th.

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