Dead by Daylight

Ten years after launch, Dead by Daylight is less a horror game you finish than one you keep coming back to. Chapters keep arriving, the Rift keeps cycling, and the trial still runs on the same loop: repair, hide, run, unhook, repeat.

What one trial actually asks

A trial is built around generators. Survivors have to repair five of the seven on the map to power the Exit Gates, then open a gate and walk out. Skill checks appear while you work; fail one and the Killer is alerted while your repair progress drops. Two Survivors on the same generator finish it faster than one, which is the first hint that this is a team game whether you like it or not.

The Killer's side of that is simple to describe and hard to do: patrol, damage generators, find people, and turn one hit into another. Survivors running leave scratch marks, so a chase is a trail you can read. If the trail goes cold, lockers are the next place to look. Survivors have their own answers, dropping pallets in the Killer's path, vaulting through windows and blinding with a flashlight. Most Killers are faster than Survivors, so surviving a chase is usually about buying seconds rather than winning the footrace.

Hooks, and the ways out

Damage works in steps. A basic attack puts a Survivor in the Injured State, a second puts them in the Dying State, and from there the Killer can pick them up and carry them to a hook. Wiggle while you are carried and you can slip free. That two-hit ladder is the default rather than a law: a Killer's power changes the maths, and so do status effects like the Endurance a Survivor gets after being unhooked, which absorbs a hit that would normally put them down.

Hooks run on states. A Survivor left hanging moves into a struggle phase while still on the same hook, and the sacrifice completes at the end of that phase. Being rescued and hooked again pushes the same Survivor further along that track, so a hooked teammate is a timer rather than a fixed count.

You are not helpless up there, but the options are narrow. Attempting to unhook yourself is only available in a few situations, such as when you are one of two Survivors left, or when you bring a Luck offering or run the Slippery Meat or Up the Ante perk. Those conditions matter: do not assume every hooked Survivor has a reliable way to escape without help.

The Exit Gates are not the only way out. The Hatch is the other one, and it is tied to the last Survivor left in the trial. That is the shape of a bad match: everyone else is gone, and the question becomes whether you can find the one thing that still gets you out.

All of that describes the standard trial, one Killer against four Survivors. Limited-time modes with different team sizes sit on top of the game from time to time, and this review is about the version you get on a normal night.

Perks, and the long climb

Every trial pays Bloodpoints, and Bloodpoints are the progression currency. You spend them in a character's Bloodweb on Perks, Add-Ons, Offerings and Items, and emptying a Bloodweb is what levels that character and opens the next one. Survivors buy Items in there as well. Killers do not, which is the clearest difference between the two sides away from the map.

Prestige is the part that matters for a build. Prestiging a character shares their unique Perks with your other characters on the same side, so the roster you level is the roster you can borrow from. That is what turns a shelf of separate progress bars into a shared toolkit, and it is why planning the climb beats grinding it at random.

Outside the trial there are a few more systems worth knowing. Iridescent Shards come from levelling your account and from daily and weekly Rituals. The Rift is a seasonal track with a free side and a premium side, and rewards for tiers you have already earned are handed over when you unlock the pass, so progress you made first is not lost. Grades run from Ash IV up to Iridescent I and reset on the 13th of each month, while matchmaking uses a hidden skill rating instead. Each Killer carries their own rating and Survivors share one between them, and both sides have their own Grade rewards.

Free, paid, and licensed

Dead by Daylight is not free to play. You buy the game, and the spending after that lives in the roster: Chapters are paid packs that unlock new Killers, Survivors and exclusive items. Maps stay free for everyone, including the ones that arrive with licensed Chapters, so nobody needs to buy a crossover to play on its map.

There is more than one way to add a character. Individual characters are also sold in the in-game store. Check the currency options for the specific character and compare the contents of its Chapter before buying; availability and bundled extras vary.

Licensed Chapters are why the roster keeps drawing from film, television and games, and original Chapters still land beside them. Chorus of Sin is the recent example of the second kind, adding the Killer The Judgment and the Survivor Aurora Stardotter with no outside licence attached. Cosmetics and the Rift sit on top of all of it, and they are as optional as cosmetics usually are.

Cross-play, and where your progress lives

Cross-play covers PC through Steam, the Microsoft Store and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch.

Cross-progression is the fiddlier system, because it does not treat everything you own the same way. Currencies pool: Bloodpoints, Iridescent Shards and Rift Fragments accumulate into one shared wallet across the platforms you link. Character progress takes the higher number instead, so a character at level 50 on one platform stays at level 50 everywhere rather than being added to anything, and items and offerings follow the same rule.

Two exceptions are worth reading properly before you start pressing buttons. Auric Cells on Nintendo Switch stay with the Switch account and cannot be shared, and DLC can move from other platforms to Switch but not back the other way. Syncing is also permanent: once your platform accounts are synced to a Behaviour Account they cannot be unsynced, and support will not make an exception. Cosmetics mostly travel, platform-exclusive ones do not, and achievements stay where you earned them.

What we actually think

The tension in a trial comes from how little stays private. Generators make noise, injuries make noise, a failed skill check or a rushed vault hands the Killer a noise alert, and keeping the Killer occupied gives the other Survivors time to work on generators. It is not a one-way street, though. Killer powers change what information you can rely on, so listening is only part of staying alive.

What we would change is the climb. Getting a new character to the point where they are interesting takes Bloodpoints and time, and the Perk route means a new player is working on a few characters before any single one of them feels finished. The game is at its best when it is tense and at its dullest when it turns into a shopping list.

If you want a game where being quiet is a skill, where a bad decision can cost the whole trial, and where the map's layout changes every time you play, Dead by Daylight is built for exactly that. It is also ten years deep, so the roster is enormous and the front door is not the friendliest part of the building. Go in expecting to lose a lot early, and the loop underneath all of it still holds up.