Dead By Daylight is a wild horror game that was released in 2016, and since then it has grown to be a legend in the horror genre. The game has had all sorts of DLC content adding killers such as Michael Myers, Amanda Young, Bubba Sawyer, and Ghostface. The game is huge, and quite intimidating for first time players just now getting into it. With a massive fanbase and a plethora of playstyles new users can find themselves getting stumped easily.
For this introduction, I’m going to focus on some key survivor mechanics to help beginners get into the game. I’ve dumped hundreds of hours into this game and remember when I was starting I felt like I was just losing constantly. It’s completely normal, however, I wish that I had a little bit of, ‘what’s the best playstyle for beginner survivors’ manual so I didn’t end up on the hook every five seconds.
I will also note that I am in no way sponsored by this game or the company that develops the game. These opinions are all mine and mine alone. So I can be pretty genuine with the advice and some of the downfalls that the game actually has.
Into The Realm of The Entity
In my personal experience, introducing and playing with my friends, this is the best ‘one size fits all’ strategy for new players to really get the full amount of joy in the game. Dead By Daylight is an insanely fun game, and as someone who wouldn’t really call themselves a gamer, I have to say it’s impressive that this game has kept my attention for this long. Every few months I’ll see another DLC come out with a killer that I’m familiar with in the horror world and get wrapped right back into it.
The first thing, before you even start the game, is find a few friends who want to play survivor with and get on a voice chat with them. The out of game voice chat is going to allow you and your friends to strategize way better than just going in solo. If you don’t have friends that are into that game than fear not, Dead By Daylight has an official discord that has open survival with friends lobbies where you can meet other players to play with. Honestly, the Dead By Daylight discord is the only discord that I still use from time to time just because of this feature. Having people to play with at just about any time of day makes this a really good experience. If you are playing survivor then you pretty much need to be on a voice chat with the other survivors if you want to absolutely decimate whatever killer comes your way.
When it comes to characters and perks, I recommend you read through all the characters and determine which is best for you. For beginner players I recommend Nea or Claudette. Claudette has a perk called Self-Care which allows the players to heal themselves. I know a lot of beginners who have a pretty great success rate playing this character. Nea was my choice as a first character just because of the perk Urban Evasion, which over time will allow you to go full speed in the crouch mode.
If you bought a DLC with the game and are just dead set on playing a different starting character that is totally okay. It may be a bit harder, but at the end of the day if you can’t enjoy the character that you are playing then it’ll be that much harder to have fun. The character’s themselves only really matter at lower levels, because once you play the game a while you can make any character have any build you want by unlocking learned perks. This is a ton of game jargon so don’t worry if you don’t completely understand what I am talking about yet.
When it comes to perks you are going to be pretty limited by just starting the game. The three base character perks are pretty much all you are going to have to choose from until you actually get a few matches under your belt. Work with them, learn them, and understand losing is a part of the game.
Once you do get a few matches under your belt, and some blood points to spend, try to acquire the Spine Chill perk. As a new player using stealth to my advantage I found this perk to be insanely useful. It is a perk that at different tiers, will light up as the kill is facing your direction. This, especially as you get better versions of this perk, allows you to know when the killer is coming at you before you hear that cursed heart beat.
If you combine spine chill and Nea’s perk of Urban Evasion then you can quickly make a stealthy getaway before the killer finds you. These two combinations I always run if I’m playing a stealth run just because of how effective they are together.
You may have wondered, ‘what if I want to have a more aggressive playstyle?’ The playstyle of a character who loops the killer or is actively encountering the killer is going to be a much harder playstyle to start off on. Looping the killer is a very adrenaline filled experience and can add a different dynamic to the game, however as I mentioned it is extremely hard to do this. For this article being for the most beginner players out there I won’t cover looping, yet. In the future I will have recommended builds for these playstyles, however a beginner whose goal is to escape is going to increase that difficulty of succeeding exponentially if they go right into looping.
Running Through The Plains of Hell
So you have your character picked out and you are ready to play, what should you do now? The first thing you are going to want to do when you spawn in is to look for the closest generator. Now, the killer is probably going to check all the generators at the start of the game so when you do find a generator hide somewhere near it and wait about ten or so seconds just to be safe. Once the coast is clear, jump right on that thing and try to pop it.
A pro tip with generators, once you get a feel for the maps try to do generators across from the map that your team is working on them. There is this horrible thing that you can do called ‘Three Genning’ where a team will complete generators close to each other and so late game they have to pop a generator that is one of three, and those three generators will be super close to each other meaning the killer can guard them super easily. In a game where you three gen yourselves it ramps the difficulty up for you to actually escape. By spreading yourselves out early on you greatly increase your chances of escaping.
Another pro tip, is when you are getting a little more comfortable with the game, to do the center generator first. By completing the generator in the center of the map first, especially early in the game, you greatly increase your chances of surviving. Of course, I do recommend you get a little bit more comfortable with game mechanics before you try this, however it is a good thing to keep in mind.
If you spawn near a few players and they are working on a generator, try and sneak to another one somewhere else on the map. Although progress on that one generator would go faster if you are working with them, the goal is to get five of them popped so banging out one really quickly isn’t as effective as splitting up in the beginning. When your group has a few generators banged out then you should group up and pop those last few generators together.
If a teammate goes down you have a few options, and each one has its own risk. You can go save the person, however this opens you up to a few vulnerabilities. The first is that this is going to bring you closer to the killer, and as a new player that could be a deadly encounter. The safest way to go for a hook save is to scope it out before you actually bum-rush that hook. If you are on a voice chat with your friends then whoever is hooked should tell you if the killer is camping the hook. A lot of times the killer won’t sit at the hook, they will do what is known as a proxy camp and sort of loop around the general area, but be close enough to swoop in if you try and unhook a survivor. A huge piece of advice here, only go for the save if you know that you can actually get the hooked player out of there. The absolute worst player will unhook the player only to get that same player downed immediately by a killer and placed on their next tier of the hook phase.
I will say that there is a perk that a lot of killers run called Barbeque and Chilli. This allows the killer to see the location of players outside of the killer’s radius as soon as they hook a player. So if your friend goes down, it doesn’t hurt to hide in a locker and count to ten or so after the player is hooked, just to remain a little bit stealthier. However, use this tactic with caution as killers could also be running Iron Maiden, which means they will be alerted and given your location as soon as you hop out of that locker. Sometimes at the beginning of the match I test if they are running this perk by hopping in and out of a locker. If you don’t suffer an exposed status when you exit the locker then you are all good, however if you do then just stay out of a locker for the game.
As a beginner you should focus on those generators. If you are across the map from the hooked individual then be happy because there is probably a teammate who is much closer to the hooked person than you are. A few pointers here, if you are over the halfway mark on a generator then stay on it and pop it.
The last game mechanic I’m going to talk about in this article is end game. So you’ve popped all five generators you need to escape, and those old doors have been opened. There are now a few concerns. A lot of killers will run a perk called No One Escapes Death, or commonly called ‘No-ed’, and this means that they just have to hit you once to go down, instead of hitting you twice. This perk stirs up the endgame, and can make it trickier to actually escape the match.
In the endgame it is your job to make sure that all of the surviving players make it out. Being the first guy to run out as soon as the doors open is the quickest way to make your team dislike you. Always wait, just in case someone does happen to get hooked. The more people you have trying to go save the downed individual means the greater chance of a successful escape. In this endgame phase the killer is almost guaranteed to be camping the hook, so having some better players as distractions while the weaker players go for the save is usually the best strategy.
Once you escape, congratulations! You have survived your first game of Dead By Daylight. You probably died a whole lot of times to get to this point. This game is massive as in the amounts of different playstyles, player builds, and even how your tactics will change based on what killer/map you play. This is simply just a beginner guide. Once you get this down feel free to experiment with the different characters and perks, Once you get your fill then you can head over to the arena of the killer, which is a totally different game in itself. We hope you enjoyed this beginners guide, and best of luck with the entity.