Dead by Daylight occupies an odd space in my game collection. It is, on the one hand, a game I rarely play, and which I only reinstalled for this review. On the other hand, it is a game I unabashedly enjoy, and which I am always delighted to load up when one of my friends suggests we play it together. I understand how both of these facts are true, but it still feels like a contradiction and like I am doing something wrong when it comes to engaging with a game I enjoy. Still, I understand why I play it so infrequently, and also why it’s so much fun.

I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.

Dead by Daylight is a multiplayer survival horror game. Players have the option of playing either as one of four survivors or as a killer. As a survivor, players are focused on their survival. Players must repair enough generators to power the escape door, or survive long enough to escape via a secret hatch. Killers, on the other hand, are focused on killing, either through sacrificing the survivors on hooks dispersed throughout the level, or through sabotaging the players’ various escape attempts. The actual goals of the game are fairly easy to understand, even if putting them into practice becomes tricky.

All players have various perks and items they can bring with them into a level, and each character has their own skills and strengths. My preferred character, Claudette, for example, excels at healing others. For much of my rounds, I was scampering around the map, healing players injured by the killer, and thwarting the killer’s attempts to sacrifice them. Killers, too, have special abilities, with each round having the potential to vary wildly based on which killer appears in the round.

As this is exclusively a multiplayer game, much of how the round goes depends on the contributions of the other players, their loadouts, and their skills. While this could, in theory, lead to extreme skill gaps and unskilled players getting abandoned by their more experienced teammates, the structure of the point awards generally discourages abandoning teammates and encourages working cooperatively. Points are awarded throughout the match, not only for individual feats, like escaping the killer or repairing a generator, but also for helping other players, working together, and rescuing one another. While this doesn’t alleviate every opportunity for players to grief one another - especially between survivors and killers - it does encourage survivor groups to view one another as a team rather than just a group a players playing together. The points system is one of the more effective methods of encouraging player cooperation I’ve seen in a multiplayer game.

This is what we in the biz call “not great.”

Where Dead by Daylight truly excels, though, is in its atmosphere and how effective it is at bringing the player into its world. Even when surrounded by characters wearing tutus and bunny ears, I still felt my heart pound as I ran through a level. I tensed when I swung my camera around and watched the killer run past me, and I screamed when the killer spotted me. Even mechanics I usually hate - like quick-time events - feel well-placed here, punctuating the more mundane actions with a sense of tension and risk. Every round felt like a new exercise in survival, a new small narrative, and a new test of whether I could make it out of the horror with both body and mind intact.

It’s this sense of atmosphere and of real tension that make Dead by Daylight a fantastic experience of a game. With a fairly simple gameplay loop that nonetheless has ample opportunities for players to grow and improve, Dead by Daylight is free to pour its energy into crafting detailed maps and vibes for its players. It’s those vibes and the sense of terror that I can’t find in any other game that keeps me coming back.

Even if I don’t usually survive

The main criticism I have of Dead by Daylight is that ability to keep coming back to it. However much the rounds vary depending on the survivors’ skills and loadouts and which killer they’re paired with, the rounds do all ultimately play more or less the same. The survivors fix the generators, or die. The players open the door, or die. The players rescue one another, or die. New perks and items require points to unlock, and so there is a certain degree of grinding towards those perks required. The rounds look and feel mostly the same, but equally, they do such a good job of building atmosphere that it’s easy for me to overlook the repetitiveness. I have such a good time getting lost in that fear that I just want to keep going, even if I’ve done this five or six times already.

Dead by Daylight also makes the excellent decision to provide players with an avenue for that repetitiveness in allowing an easy switching both between survivor characters, and between playing survivor and killer. The killer experience is quite different from the survivor experience, and though I don’t play it often because I suck at it because I am on touchpad, it’s a breath of fresh air and a different kind of adrenaline I get pumping through my veins. There is a thrill to chasing and catching, to stalking and hunting, and Dead by Daylight captures it well.

Also, I get to run around in a zombie Christmas sweater.

When I think about why I don’t play Dead by Daylight more, I keep coming back to the idea that fear is an emotion best experienced in small doses. There’s a high to it, one that gets watered down when I play this game too much. Play it too much, and the experiential nature of it starts to wear off, replaced by the knowledge that this is a game, there is a loop, and I have been doing the same thing for two hours now. Reality sets back in, and the game loses its lustre.

I play it in short bursts, then, and for those short bursts, it’s something almost magical. I get to feel fear while being in control, get to join others like me on a quest for survival, and stare dimly into the mist, hoping I see nothing, but also hoping I catch a glimpse of a cosmic horror. It’s a fantastic rush, and I enjoy it every time.

Developer: Behaviour Interactive

Genre: Survival Horror

Year: 2016

Country: Canada

Language: English

Play Time: There Is No ‘“Play.” There Is Only Survival.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/wrg3do0falQ