Dead by Daylight

Dead by Daylight
Developer(s)	Behaviour Interactive
Publisher(s)	Starbreeze Studios
Director(s)	Ash Pannel
Producer(s)	Mathieu Cote
Designer(s)	Dave Richard
Engine	Unreal Engine 4
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	Microsoft Windows‹See Tfd› WW: June 14, 2016
Genre(s)	Survival horror
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Dead by Daylight is an asymmetric survival horror video game^[1] developed by Behavior Interactive and published by Starbreeze Studios.^[2][3][4] The game was released for Microsoft Windows on June 14, 2016.^[5][6]

Gameplay

A group of survivors – anywhere from one to four players (typically four) – must elude one player who is the killer in an enclosed area at night which will either be a secluded forest, an abandoned junkyard, a decrepit cornfield, a haunted asylum, or the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois. The survivors’ perspectives are third-person, while the killer’s perspective is first-person.^[1]

Survivors

When playing as a survivor, players assume the role of Jake Park, Meg Thomas, Dwight Fairfield, Claudette Morel, Nea Karlsson, or Laurie Strode.^[7][8] The goal of the survivors is to escape the enclosed area, which can be done in one of two ways: either by repairing a certain number of disabled generators (usually, the number of generators is one greater than the number of survivors playing) to provide power to switches which open large metal doors leading out of the area, or by escaping through a trapdoor (hatch) which only opens when there is one survivor left and at least two generators have been successfully repaired. The trap door will appear at one of several predetermined locations.^[9] The survivors' movement options consist of sprinting, walking, or crouch-walking. They must elude the killer by using the darkness, crouching behind objects, and hiding in buildings, foliage, or inside lockers.

In dealing with the killer, survivors can also make use of a handful of items and traps in the area – searching chests inside buildings will sometimes yield first-aid kits (which allow the survivors to heal themselves rather than wait for a teammate), flashlights (which can be used to temporarily blind the killer), and tool-kits (which can be used both to repair generators faster and to disable the sacrificial meat hooks). One trap that survivors can use is a massive wooden pallet, many of which are placed upright, and can be pulled down when a survivor runs past them – if the killer is right behind them, the pallet will stun the killer for a brief period of time.^[9] The survivor can also vault over fallen pallets and climb through windows significantly faster than the lumbering killer can.

Repairing each generator takes a lengthy period of time, often featuring occasional and random reflex tests, where a needle appears within a circle on-screen and spins around, and the player must hit either the space bar or the left mouse button when the needle is within a certain section of the circle. Failure to do so will cause an explosion that will set back the progress of the generator repair, and also alert the killer.^[10] This same reflex trial appears when players attempt to heal their teammates.

If a survivor is caught by the killer, they can attempt to wiggle out of the killer’s grasp while he is carrying them, and attempt to run away. If the killer succeeds in impaling a survivor on one of the many meat hooks in the area, a teammate can rescue the impaled survivor or, more rarely, the impaled survivor can pull themselves off the hook (although attempting this is likely to backfire and injure the survivor further, drawing them closer to death).

Once all generators are repaired, a survivor must find a switch next to one of the possible exit doors and hold it for a period of time in order to open the door. The game only ends when all survivors have either escaped or been killed – thus, while some survivors may escape and finish early, those still inside must keep playing. Players who have escaped or died have the ability to observe the remaining players through the game's conclusion, or return to the menu and join a new game.

Other technical advantages that survivors have include the ability to see the location of heavily injured teammates – thus easily drawing them to their location for a rescue – and can similarly see the locations of newly repaired generators and the exit doors once all necessary generators are repaired. When the killer is near, the survivors will hear a heartbeat, and eventually tense music, both of which increase in intensity with proximity to the killer. They can also see a red light emanating from the killer’s eyes which shows his approximate field of view.

Killers

As the killer, players assume the role of either the Trapper, the Wraith, the Hillbilly, the Nurse or Michael Myers; each of which has his/her own unique ability.^[11][12][13] The killer cannot run or crouch, but simply walks at a very fast pace which is slightly faster than the pace of a sprinting survivor. When hunting the survivors, the killer must capture them by either striking them twice with his/her weapon (the first hit reduces the survivor to a limp, while the second hit drops them to crawling on the ground), or can grab them in one move by either catching them inside lockers, while attempting to vault over pallets or through windows, while repairing a generator, or attempting to escape through a trap door. The Hillbilly's chainsaw attack will also drop survivors to crawling on the ground in one hit.

The killer can initially only kill the survivors by sacrificing them by placing them on one of the many meat hooks in the area and waiting for the demonic claws to eventually finish off the survivor, carrying their soul into the sky. After a player has earned enough experience points as the killer, certain single-use items can be unlocked that include the ability to finish off survivors instantly with their weapon, rather than the lengthy process of taking them to the meat hooks.

The first time a survivor is hooked they enter the normal phase. In this phase the player has a low chance of escaping unless helped by another survivor. If the player escapes and is hooked a second time they will enter the struggle phase, in which the player has to resist the entity trying to stab him/ her by pressing the spacebar multiple times. If the player is hooked a third time they will die instantly.

Just as the survivors can use the wooden pallet traps (which the killer can destroy with their foot after activation), the Trapper can make use of bear traps lying around the area, and set them for survivors to trip and become trapped in them. However, it is possible for the killer to become stuck in a bear trap as well, causing minor inconvenience as he resets it with his foot.

The killer, despite walking at a fast pace, is slower in most other movements: After striking a player, the killer will stop to wipe the blood off their weapon. The killer is also slower in climbing through windows, and cannot leap over the impromptu barricades survivors can lay into their path, but can spend a lengthy amount of time destroying the barricades. The killer also has X-ray vision similar to the survivors, only for the killer it can be used to see the locations of every single generator and meat hook on the map.

Bloodweb

Both survivors and killers are able to unlock items, perks, and offerings through the Bloodweb. Every action performed in a match gives the player a number of Bloodpoints, and the sum are added to the player's total at the end of the match. Each level of the Bloodweb is procedurally generated, and gets larger as the character gains levels. The rewards are connected to each other in a radial tree, and players must purchase rewards along the progression path to gain access to others. Once every reward on the tree has been purchased, the Bloodweb will generate a new level for the player to progress to, increasing that character's level.

The Bloodweb may contain items, add-ons for items that increase their efficiency, offerings that can be spent at the start of the round to influence the match's conditions, and perks that make the character more powerful. Offerings and add-ons may only be used in one match, whereas items can be re-used until the player dies or loses them, and perks are permanent. Items can also be acquired from chests on the map, but this does not affect the character's Bloodweb. Since a killer's special ability is tied to their item and killers are invulnerable, their items are permanent and cannot be changed.

Synopsis

Setting

The game takes place across four locales (split into thirteen maps in total)^[14] which are based on the places the killers became murderers. Over time, the evilness of their actions accumulated there until it attracted the attention of the Entity, an unknown force of darkness from a place with no name. The Entity pulls those who encounter it into a purgatory of its own construction, where they must play an endless game of life or death in the Entity's recreations. The killers, who worship the Entity, are tasked with hunting down the survivors and sacrificing them, while the survivors seek an escape from the nightmare.

Plot

The Entity, a supernatural being hailing from some ancient, evil place, is awakened from its slumber whenever it is summoned by actions of great violence and malice. The killers, exclusively serial murderers, are pulled out of reality by it and convinced to do its bidding. In order to maintain its existence, the Entity requires sacrifices, and demands that they hunt and kill the survivors so it can feed off their hope and steal a piece of their soul upon death. Then they are brought back to life to repeat the trial, endlessly attempting to escape.

The survivors are pulled into the Entity's constructed world when they wander too close to the places the killers were taken from, disappearing from the real world without a trace. They end up at a lonely campfire, where they rest between trials, until a killer pursues them again. Escaping from the grounds always takes the survivors back to the campfire, and offerings can be created to be burnt at it and appeal for the Entity's favor. Since the Entity feeds off the hope of the survivors to escape, it helps them just as much as the killers, acting as an impartial observer of the hunt, stepping in only to claim those hanged on its hooks.

Reception

It has a score of 71% on Metacritic.^[15] GameSpot awarded it a score of 6.0 out of 10, saying "Dead by Daylight executes the concept of a competitive horror game well, but only to a point".^[16]

Sales

Dead by Daylight sales topped 1 million units after two months on sale.^[17]

See also

• Friday the 13th: The Game

References

External links

• Official website