Dead By Daylight - Review

Dead By Daylight - Review

Review for Dead By Daylight. Game for PC, PlayStation Network and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 14/06/2016 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 30/09/2019

Being villain always has its charm, there is no excuse that it holds: we challenge anyone to watch a horror of the 80s without rooting for Freddy, Michael or Jason, rather than for the unfortunate teenagers who from time to time they fall like flies into their bloodthirsty hands. If you really want to take the side of the good guys, are you sure that the group will be able to help and protect you? Don't you think that maybe it will be better for you to think about yourself first, throwing your companions to the enemy to save yourself? These are the premises of Dead by Daylight: whether you are victim or executioner, will you all arrive whole to see the light of dawn?



Which side to be on?

Dead By Daylight for Playstation 4 and Xbox One starts from an assumption as simple as it is captivating that we summarize for those who have not had the opportunity to try the game on its release on PC now a year ago: it is an entirely multiplayer title, where four players impersonate the poor victims and one player instead takes on the role of the killer. The latter will obviously have to hunt down the other four and kill them before they manage to escape; the four instead, will have to activate generators scattered on the game map and then escape, all being very careful not to be found by the player who chases them.


Since there is no single player component there is not even a real plot, even if thinking about it on a horror setting of this type is not who knows what a lack: just take a bunch of stereotypical characters - the employee, the sportsman , the nerd, the pretty girl, and so on - and have them chased by an unleashed madman armed with the most unlikely edged weapons to create a plot worthy of the interest of anyone like us who grew up with horror late night nights. 'summer.


Dead By Daylight - Review

As in any self-respecting horror movie, the figure of the killer is still the master. From the nurse to the Silent Hill, passing through the classic clone of the Leatherface of "Don't open that door", without forgetting the classic ghost, the energetic Jason Voorhees-like and none other than Michael Myers (this time the real one, added thanks to the acquisition rights on the character), the funniest part is playing the executioners, each with their own unique weapons and abilities. The (potential) survivors, on the other hand, should work together to ally against the killer. But will they really do it?

Dead By Daylight - Review

Selfishness 1, altruism 0

It is obvious that the player in the role of the killer has to think only of himself and use all the resources at his disposal to kill the other characters, but Dead By Daylight gives the best of itself is in bringing out the ugly person in the player who impersonates the victim. The meat for slaughter should aggregate with others to survive and to be able to escape from the maps but it is first necessary to activate generators, crouching next to them for a few seconds and successfully completing short quick time events in which the wrong key press will attract the killer player.


So it makes sense to think that unity is strength - one player might get to work on the generator from time to time while the others patrol the surrounding area to make sure the killer isn't around - but that's not the case. A few games are enough to understand how even in the role of the victims it is worth playing for oneself: it is possible to remain hidden for a good part of the game and escape when the others have done the bulk of the dirty work; in the same way, if discovered by the killer, it is possible to flee to another player, hoping that the pursuer decides to leave us alone, endangering the life of the partner. In our opinion, this is the most interesting dynamic of Dead By Daylight, which unfortunately as we are about to see does not shine in terms of the actual gameplay.


Dead By Daylight - Review

A clear PC port

It is evident that the developers have not struggled too much in transporting their creature on the living room consoles: the player is forced to navigate the menus by moving a pointer with the analog stick, an operation clearly comfortable with the mouse but annoying enough to perform with the pad. Apart from this, compared to last year's version there are no noteworthy improvements between the PC and console versions: the technical side is the responsibility of the Unreal Engine 4, which in this case, however, is too subdued and offers such captivating scenarios. from the point of view of level design in horror sauce, but also poor in detail and with some elements and objects that clearly repeat themselves to fill the few maps available. The victims play with a third-person view, the executioner instead in first person and, in both cases, the audio / video sector of the game helps with small suggestions: the beating of a heart, the sound of footsteps in the vegetation, of the birds that take flight, are all elements not to be overlooked to anticipate the opponent's moves. Too bad that these are small details within a much larger game world, in which the general setting of the action theater deserved attention, which was instead treated in a much more summary way.


Returning to the gameplay, we point out the presence of a skill tree for your character, which is unlocked as you level up by participating in online games. Together with the possibility of changing the appearance and clothing of the protagonists, this feature gives a minimum of depth to the strategic part of Dead by Daylight, which is still quite weak: after a few games the repetitiveness and the boredom that derives from it are behind the angle and the possibility of increasing the speed or stamina of your virtual alter ego do not justify the time spent in the game.


The last aspect that did not fully convince us, the localization: menus and tutorials show some texts in Spanish and others in English, demonstrating how even in this case some details have been briefly treated with a little more attention they would overturn the final vote given to Dead by Daylight. Fortunately, its direct competitor, Friday the 13th: The Game, has not proved so much superior, but the fact that Dead by Daylight will not have a single player component and (at least for the moment) will not benefit from other content besides those already present in the console version are elements that suggest a quick fall into oblivion by the very critical horror lovers.

Dead By Daylight - Review

Behavior Digital has created a product that is not excellent on PC and, when bringing it to consoles, did not take the opportunity to file the defects and make Dead by Daylight more attractive to the new user base. The Evolve-style team game system with handicap is interesting on paper, but in this particular declination it soon loses its momentum due to a technical sector that is not at the top and a character progression system that does not push to change a strategy repetitive winner, which prompts players to pit themselves against each other rather than collaborating as the game concept would like. The console version includes all the DLCs with the characters and the two additional maps released over time, at the competitive price of 29,99 Euros: if you are looking for a few hours of horror fun without too many pretensions you can consider the purchase, if you prefer a long-lived game, go ahead.

► Dead By Daylight is a Horror-Survival type game developed by Behavior Digital and published by Starbreeze Studios for PC, PlayStation Network and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 14/06/2016 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 30/09/2019

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