Dead by Daylight: State of the Game and Silent Hill Chapter

The last time I wrote about Dead by Daylight here, I expressed a lot of clear frustrations. The balance of the game encouraged incredibly toxic behavior because that’s what resulted in points and level game. The new DLC (featuring The Legion) broke a lot of core game mechanics and introduced a killer who could tunnel everyone out of the game just by using their power. The list goes on. I went from playing the game in all my free time to maybe playing once a week for two or three games.

I follow a lot of Dead by Daylight streamers on Twitch. They expressed the same frustrations as me, but kept playing the game as part of their careers. I stuck around because I made genuine friends through their community and had a lot of fun laughing and screaming with the lows and genuinely scary highs of the game. All of us wanted the game to be better and expressed our concerns to the team at Behaviour Interactive when we could.

The development team at Behaviour works hard. It’s not an excuse, but the tiny little indie company that developed Dead by Daylight had no way of knowing their game would A) be played at all, B) be a massive hit on a global scale, and C) grow so large that they could obtain licenses for some of the biggest horror movie franchises of all time. Characters like The Hillbilly were meant to reference movie characters like Leatherface; within two years, they had the actual Texas Chainsaw Massacre license and added Leatherface (aka The Cannibal) to the game. Halloween, Saw, Stranger Things, Ash vs Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, Left 4 Dead, and Scream (okay, technically the Ghostface mask, but we know what it’s supposed to be) have all been added to the game on top of 13 original killers and 14 original survivors. Behaviour had a lot of growing pains and had to play catch-up.

The game launched with one person designing maps; now there’s a team. There are dedicated community managers around the world interacting with the global fan base, sharing information with us and reporting back on our concerns to the development team. There are dedicated story editors, programmers for all the different facets of the game, and so much more. The hard work they’ve put in to actually support the health of the game is starting to pay off. The game isn’t perfect, but it’s a whole lot healthier than it was when I last regularly played.

Dead by Daylight celebrated it’s 4th anniversary on Tuesday, 26 May. They made the most of the new normal with a great mix of video montages and live discussions. Lots of things were announced. Dead by Daylight Mobile’s dedicated team (yes, their own team—how’s that for growth?) explained their own road map of new content one month, quality of life development the next. Winners of the cosmetic contest were announced, meaning fans are going to have their own creations adapted into the actual game. Cross-play between consoles and PC was confirmed to be coming this summer and cross-progression (where your achievements on one console/PC would carry over to the others) is being explored. Do you know how badly I want cross-progression since I play on three platforms?

Then there was the new DLC announcement. They got the Silent Hill license. Dead by Daylight has access to one of the most iconic horror game franchises of all time now. Pyramidhead (The Executioner) is the new killer, and Cheryl Mason (Silent Hill 2) is the new survivor. The map is the Midwich Elementary School and it’s filled with Easter eggs for long time fans of Silent Hill. The DLC will also introduce a new cosmetic mechanic, the Legacy skin, that lets characters swap out for other characters entirely. Cheryl Mason can become Heather Mason with the press of a button.

I’m not exaggerating when I say this. I actually cried when I saw Cheryl Mason appear onscreen, peaking through a door in the classroom. Silent Hill is one of my all time favorite game universes. I wrote fan fiction. I saw both movies in theaters multiple times and own the DVDs. I have the original games and the remastered editions. I have the soundtracks. I have fan art and official products. I will stop at conventions to admire every Silent Hill cosplayer I see.

Seeing Silent Hill characters, locations, and sound elements licensed to another game that I’m a fan of filled me with incredible joy and excitement. I will be a Cheryl/Heather main and I’m going to try like hell to make The Executioner work for me as a killer. I heard the rumors about this being the new chapter and dismissed them outright since Konami is so protective of Silent Hill, they’ve cancelled some of their own games in the series to preserve the brand (RIP PT). I still can’t believe it’s actually happening.

I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the new DLC by way of the Public Test Build on PC. I’m fully back on board with Dead by Daylight. Everything is so smooth now. The game looks great and the dedicated servers are finally starting to feel in sync between killer and survivor. The level of detail being added to maps (started with the previous DLC for The Deathslinger’s ghost town, continued with the overhaul of The Doctor’s hospital, and now in Midwich Elementary School) is gorgeous. There’s a dark beauty to everything and so much to explore.

Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. The biggest hole right now is accessibility options. We’re celebrating the 4th anniversary of this game and there are still no accessibility options when it comes to onscreen graphics. There is no color blind mode. Red/green color blindness is not the only variant, but many of the game mechanics rely on bright red graphics on otherworldly green maps. There is no way to adjust the brightness or contrast for people with light sensitivity issues like me. I’ve lost many matches as killer and survivor because I physically cannot see what is happening around me in large sections of maps. All I wants is that standard horror game option of “adjust the slider until [graphic] is just visible” so I have a fair chance of playing the game.

They’re also sticking to their guns with with killer effects that create unintended strobing effects onscreen (Plague, Legion, the broken status effect, interacting with Demogorgon’s portals). It’s a meme, but Clown has not been deleted yet with his migraine-inducing fog effects. I’m not the only person who has gotten a migraine from just one match with Clown if I wind up in the smoke effect too much. I’m not alone in having to take a break after a Plague game because the cracks in the onscreen infection effect create a strobing pattern if you move your mouse too quickly. Pyramidhead’s overlay effect is not nearly as disruptive, so maybe Behaviour actually is listening to our complaints about that style choice.

There is no official release date yet for the Silent Hill chapter. Dead by Daylight doesn’t typically announce that stuff in advance. If we go by the pattern in the past, it should be available to purchase on all platforms except for the Nintendo Switch on 16 June. This is assuming everything goes well in the PTB, the PS4 store doesn’t hold up the release of the DLC, Steam doesn’t crash, and no major game-breaking bugs happen when the DLC data file is pushed out to every user. The Switch takes longer because Nintendo is not the best at online interaction.

Dead by Daylight is available to purchase on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch. Dead by Daylight Mobile is available for free in iOS and Android app stores. Consider supporting me by purchasing Dead by Daylight and its DLCs for PC on Humble Bundle.

***

Sketching Details is now on Patreon. Subscribe for as little as $1/month for access to exclusive articles, videos, and content.