Dead by Daylight | Steam

Buy Dead by Daylight on Steam (PC)

About the game

Strictly speaking, there are two ways to play: four online players join forces against a single killer, who is also an online player. So you can be designated as the killer or be one of the 4 people tasked with defeating him. It all adds up to a lot of pressure!

Super-villains

There are a number of supervillains to face or play as, and there are a number of downloadable characters drawn from popular culture, such as Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street, John Kramer from Saw, Evil Ash from Evil Dead and The Scream-faced killer from the Scream film series.

There are sixteen initial killers, most of whom have a word name preceded by 'the/le': The Nurse, The Clown, The Trapper, with only The Ghost Face having an adjective.

Bad guys can walk quite fast. So in a chase, the bad guys will always win. Villains have to hit their victims twice, once to injure them and slow them down, and a second time to neutralise them completely. Injured players can be caught more easily trying to evade the killer, while those at full strength can better resist and dodge.

Survival tactics

There are a total of seventeen survivors that the four players can choose to embody. Diversity is pretty good with most people able to choose avatars that match their preferred look. As the bad guys can outrun the survivors in a straight line race, the survivors need to be a little resourceful in order to escape. They have to repair a number of generators (usually five, one for each player, including the killer), in order to fix the doors that will free them.

Another means of escape is to reach an escape hatch that opens automatically when there is only one survivor left. More than one survivor means that the hatch will need a key to be located and used if this means of escape is to be exploited.

Player movement is fairly varied, with two cadences: walking and sprinting, although, as mentioned above, sprinting is still slightly slower than the villain. Players can also crouch and crawl, which comes in handy when trying to avoid the killer by staying out of his line of sight.

Players can't outrun the bad guys, so they have to get out of the killer's line of sight to avoid being spotted or during the chase, when the bad guy is still far enough away to be dodged.

Keep your eyes wide open

As well as keeping an eye on the bad guy (when you're playing the bad guy you've only got one job: to get the survivors from life to death), the survivors need to keep an eye out for the following items:

- Torches - Shine the torch into the killer's eyes and it will momentarily dazzle him, allowing survivors to rescue a captured friend before the villain can slaughter him.

- Med-kits - first-aid kits are essential for treating yourself so that a friend doesn't have to take the risk of coming to treat you.

- Toolboxes - can be used to sabotage the meat hooks on which the villain displays his corpses, and they can also safely trigger bear traps, making the area safe for survivors.

- Maps - maps can be used to locate objects, making life a whole lot easier!

Pallets - these huge wooden crates can be stacked on the ledge and dropped by a passing survivor on the bad guy, momentarily stunning him, so that the survivor can move on and try to find a place to be forgotten.