ATG Game Review: Dead by Daylight

Hello hello everyone I know it’s been a while since you have heard from me but Amanda is back to bring you a new PS4 game review! This time it’s for the game Dead by Daylight an awesome little horror game that dropped for free last month on PS+! So while you guys may have been missing me and some of my lists, I have been here and there on the site posting things up for Kevin and our Kitten and just generally running things around here… but I thought it was about time to get my feet wet again in writing so here I am.

So last month Kevin had brought my attention to a game called Dead by Daylight it was something he had been wanting to try for almost a year now but with having a young kiddo in the house really didn’t have the time to do. However, now I have a PS4 and so he told me that it was free on PS+ and I jumped at getting it as I do so love my horror things. I have to admit this game is grim and amazing, and heart stopping, and adrenaline pumping, and horror filled, but not at all gory really! I know it all really sounds odd to say that way but I will explain as I go through what the game is and what I think of the graphics and things like that.

So the game synopsis is easy, it’s basically a horror slasher version of the old game Evolve. You remember Evolve right where you play as space marines against a monster but in this one you can actually play as the monster too and eat space marines? Well similar principle in this game but you have survivors and you have killers and you can play as either or depending on the game. That’s right, you can be a survivor who has to escape the serial killer or you get to play as the killer him/herself and hunt down the survivors! This game basically dumps 4 survivors onto a map with a killer and says “you guys find a way to escape before the last guy gets ya and sacrifices you to a formless dark entity! Enjoy!�?

So when you get thrown in as a survivor, your job is to go around the map and get generators started. Once enough generators are going then you get to go and open some doors and escape…hopefully. You see, the killer is on the map too and every little breath you take…every little step you take he’ll be watching you! But seriously, a lot of the things you do like fixing the generators will make noise, if you get hurt you breathe harder and gasp in pain as you move. Everything is truly stacked against the survivors even to how “fast�? you run which honestly when you know a baddie is on your tail seems like a slow stroll through a corn field…a dark…crow filled…dangerous…deadly corn field! As the selected slasher gets closer to you you hear a heartbeat, even if you can’t see the killer yet you hear this heartbeat. As the killer gets closer the heartbeat gets faster and louder! This is NERVE WRACKING in the extreme. The last time I was ever this nervous in a video game was playing one of the COD games and they had you crawling through tall grass with enemy walking all around you just a step or two away from finding you. In that game I found myself holding my breath, in this one I find myself looking around my own room for the killer and wishing that damned heartbeat would shut the hell up! Now you can jump into these storage closets spread around the map but if the slasher finds you it’s an automatic grab and carry instead of him trying to slash you twice. So now real quick, let’s talk Slasher before we get onto the whole subject of the survivors not ummmm surviving!

Slasher, stalker, killer, there are tons of names for you but all that matters is that you were chosen by the entity to hunt down survivors and sacrifice them to the darkness that has called you. The entity is kinda formless darkness until you catch a survivor and hang him/her up on a meathook somewhere. Just as there are a ton of survivors to choose from there are like 12 or so Slashers to choose from as well. Some are kinda generic slashers like the trapper and the hag but others are well known licensed killers like Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leatherface, and several others. The well known ones are on paid DLC so right now I have not played as any of them. Right now my favorite killer to use is the Hag as I can almost even as a newbie at the game almost get a perfect game when I do good! As the killer you get to go around and break generators while you hunt down victims. Once you see a victim, you need to hit them twice then pick them up and take them to a hanging meat hook where you hang them in sacrifice to the entity. As the killer you will get visual cues for when the victims make loud noises, such as losing a skill check while repairing or healing or when they jump over a wall or something. You can use these visual cues to chase your victim. Once you find them, catching up to them really isn’t too hard even though just like in the movies you never seem to move faster than a brisk walk….victims just don’t run fast. As you chase them and catch up to them you will want to try to hit them…if you hit them once they stagger away slower and leave blood trails and scratches that you can chase. A second hit sends a wounded person into a dying state. At this point if you leave them alone they can try to revive or just bleed out. What you want to do however, is pick them up and as they struggle in your grasp find the nearest meat hook and hang them from it.

As a survivor if you are running from the baddies you have several options. Jumping into cabinets and hope they didn’t see or hear you go in, run, knock pallets into their way (baddies must destroy pallets or walk around them either of which can throw them off your trail) or you can jump over walls and out windows and such. If you can find a good place to hunker down and not move it is hard for the slashers to see you if you’re in dark clothing. The waiting is horrible on the nerves though as is the running because you have to zigzag and such so they hopefully miss hitting you because you can NOT outrun these guys without putting some sort of obstacle in their way! Now if they capture you they will lift you up and you have to use your left stick to struggle in their grasp and hopefully you can wiggle out before they get you to the meat hook. If they do get you to the meat hook they will ram the thing through your chest hanging you there for the entity to come and grab up for dinner. You have 3 or 4 chances to try and escape but honestly, I have yet to see that work and everytime you try it brings you one step closer to the entity being summoned. Once the entity is summoned, you are basically screwed unless your teammates can come and rescue you so at this point you can either give in and let the entity kill you or you can struggle by smashing the X button rapidly just buying time for your teammates to hopefully grab you off the hook! Now if somehow you do escape the hook, the next time you get put up onto it you are automatically put to the next stage from where you escaped…so basically unless you have fast friends kiss your ass goodbye after the second time!

Special moves can be used however for both survivors and the killers. These are bought through bloodpoints that you gain from playing the game and then unlocked in something called the bloodweb. As you play the game you get several areas that you are judged in and given bloodpoints for. These bloodpoints are then spent in the bloodweb where things cost anywhere from 3000bp and upwards. When you finish a section of bloodweb a new one appears and your character gains a level. What you are unlocking in the bloodweb are the things in your initial load out like Toolboxes, First Aid kits, offerings to the entity to gain extra bloodpoints in other areas or a deepening of the mist or more hooks per level ect! You also unlock new skills like being able to heal without a first aid kit or sprinting if you are a survivor or if you are a killer things like the Crows warning you where people are and better fear auras can be unlocked. Two of my favorite killers lay traps for those they are hunting. The trapper lays actual bear traps so in the bloodweb you can unlock things that make the prey either bleed more or less when trapped, speed up the traps being put out and more. As the Hag, I LOVE her traps as if you are close enough to the when they go off they make a scary popup of you appear but if you are nearby you can teleport to it thus getting the drop on your prey! Things you can unlock for her are things that make the traps last longer and the distance that the teleport works be longer and such like that. Everyone can unlock things to sacrifice to the Entity that can get you more bloodpoints in certain categories, or lessen or thicken the mist on a board. One nice one the killers can get I found is to sacrifice something that makes it where all the survivors start spread across the board instead of near each other!

A big thing between the Survivors and the Killers is the graphics. Now overall in the game, the graphics are not the greatest.They aren’t very realistic I don’t think for the human forms though the location backdrops and foregrounds do look pretty good. As I said earlier it’s a gruesome game without much gore. The worst of the gore is a little blood when a survivor gets slashed and a quick blood spray when you get hooked. Otherwise, the blood doesn’t pool or stay or anything like that. The biggest thing with the graphics though is the point of view as you play. Survivors get a third person point of view so you can swing the camera too and fro and see all around and use this to peek around corners and such giving the survivors a small bit of perk compared to the killer. Why I say this is because the killer is stuck with a first person viewpoint and can only see whats right in front of him/her. This is a major downfall for the killer especially when confronted by something he has to break through because it will make you look at what you’re breaking instead of the person running from you, same when you climb through windows you see the window ledge instead of the hunted person. This gives people a good chance to slip out of sight if they are good.

All in all, I have been loving this game but I have to admit there is a huge difference in skill sets needed to play survivor vs playing killer. I am having troubles trying to play as a survivor though I know it is possible as I have seen people escape, however after just a few games I have basically gotten the hang of the killer and usually get 3 out of 4 kills now with the Hag. Between nerves and planning, it is a totally different approach between the two playing styles that are seen in this game.

If you are a lover of all things horror I do recommend this game however. From the dark foreboding graphics to the blood curdling screams as you get hooked I find this game nothing but fun…even if I am playing a losing game as a survivor!