I had given Dead By Daylight about 2 full seconds of my attention for the first year of its life. I have never been one much for horror movies or even being startled...

I bought Dead By Daylight (DBD) in a pack with another game, Deathgarden. Little did I know I had found one of my favorite and most enjoyable games of my adult life packaged with a terrible piece of garbage game. Little did I know that that amazing game was DBD and that the game I actually wanted out of the bundle would be immediately uninstalled within the week.

The brilliance of DBD is that its not fair. Is asymmetrical, but but not just in its experience and play-styles. DBD is asymmetrical in its difficulty.

The joy of being a survivor is in the narrow victories, the nail-biting moments, and the cry-out-loud flubs.

The joy of being the killer is in the flawlessly executed strategy, the amazing chance plays, and yes, the power fantasy.

Both share a bit of game-play, they both find their fun in outwitting your opponent(s) and the mind-games at mid to high rank are as mesmerizing as they are sly.

If this wasn't enough to pull you through a multi-hour binge into the wee hours of the morning, the progression and currency systems are for the most part spot on, keeping you pushing harder and harder for your "blood points".


Content

The content in DBD is not lacking either. Years of DLC has pushed both the survivor and killer sides with endless combinations of perks, items, and offerings. Customizing and strategizing with your load-out helps fill up the downtime between matches and is a game all in itself.


Player-base

At time of writing the community is alive and well, with wait times measurable in seconds and not minutes. In such a ruthless game there is bound to be toxicity, but this mainly is found in the lower ranks.

Id say the one thing that needs the most rework is its disconnection/surrender system which penalizes all involved when a survivor disconnects a few minutes into the game. Again this is mainly a problem for lower to mid ranks where new/lower rank survivors tend to believe the games unfair asymmetry makes them deserving of leniency and a fitting reason for a "killer code of conduct" to not be "toxic". I only play survivor, and while frustrating at times it is definitely the more rewarding side for me and if you are one of these survivors that winges about such things, I say with love, "git gud scrub. You don't deserve any mercy."


Conclusion

In fact the higher the ranks, the more "fair" things become, even siding heavily with the survivors in the wee top tiers. This is part of the fun. Watching the power dynamic shift as you gain skill is one of the most rewarding parts of the game.

Now I am no pro, and my juking skills need tons of work, but transforming from a scared little survivor to a confident, mechanically minded, terrorizer of killers is very satisfying and has kept me coming back even after binging on the game for months.

All in all, its a simple game. We are adults playing a bloody version of hide and seek and in that simplicity its depth becomes apparent. The scrounging nature of man who will find an advantage no matter how small becomes apparent. The uniqueness of a real time battle of wits becomes apparent.

I won't be leaving anytime soon. See you at Coldwind farms. I'll be the one you can never quite catch.