Developer Update | May 2025
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The 9.0.0 Update will be here before we know it, so it's time once again to take a look at the notable gameplay changes you can expect from tomorrow’s Public Test Build. As with last time, stay tuned for the PTB Patch Notes where we’ll share the precise values that are changing for each of the topics below!
Read on for all the details:
NEW FEATURES
- Added a system to identify whether a Survivor’s sacrifice is an intentional attempt at “going next”.
- If a player is identified as intentionally “going next”, they will receive a Disconnection Penalty Point.
- Removed the option to self-unhook on first hook stage unless they have one of the following equipped:
- Slippery Meat perk
- Up the Ante perk
- A Luck offering
- Added “unlocks the ability to attempt to unhook yourself” effect to Luck offerings.
- Survivors are no longer instantly killed after two struggle skill checks pass without any input.
Please note: The Disconnection Penalty system is not active on the PTB, so certain facets of the “going next” penalization will not be available to test.
DEV NOTE: We’ve made the above changes in order to tackle “going next” from two directions: penalizing repeat offenses and limiting exploitability of self-unhooks. By restricting early-match self-unhooks to specific perks and offerings, this still allows players to work it into their strategy while limiting cases where it’s used in bad faith.
- Updated AFK detection system.
- Reminder: If a player is considered AFK crows will gradually begin spawning above the Survivor, beginning with 1 and capping at 3.
- Once a Survivor has 3 crows following them, they lose collision with other players.
DEV NOTE: With this updated system, we’ve adjusted how the game identifies players who have stopped contributing to a match. While the crow system largely functions as before, an additional effect at 3 crows prevents Survivors from intentionally griefing teammates with body blocking, while also preventing the Killer from holding Survivors hostage.
- Added an Auto Bloodweb button which allows you to set how many levels you want to automatically progress through, Bloodpoints permitting.
DEV NOTE: It’s no secret this is one of the most common community requests, so we’re excited to put this in your hands! It’s what it says on the tin, so check out this GIF. Even better, we’ve removed some recurring pop-ups after you see them once to make your time in the Bloodweb even more snappy.
- Updated the Mori system so that it can now also be activated when 2 or more Survivors are dead, and the following occurs:
- The second-last Survivor is Hooked and on Struggle Phase
- The final Survivor is in one of the following states (Healthy, Injured or Dying)
DEV NOTE: With this change, Killers will be able to activate their Mori earlier – so long as victory is assured – removing the need to wait for any hooked Survivors to be Sacrificed. This will let players on both sides get back into the action sooner.
- Map offerings grant a flat percentage chance of being sent to the associated Realm. This chance is no longer a guarantee.
- Map offerings no longer stack their effects.
- Map and gameplay-affecting offerings are treated as secret during the loading screen reveal.
DEV NOTE: By making map and gameplay-affecting offerings secret on loading screens, our intention is to preserve the element of surprise, preventing the opposing role from starting the match with knowledge of your strategy.
- Adjusted the following spawn rules:
- Survivors spawn as close together as possible
- Survivors spawn on the same floor (where applicable)
- The Killer will not spawn at the center of small maps
- Changed the name of Shroud of Separation to Shroud of Vanishing and changed its effect to nullify offerings that change Survivor spawn locations.
- Changed the name of Shroud of Binding to Shroud of Separation and changed its effect to spawn Survivors apart from one another.
DEV NOTE: With these changes to spawn rules, players will find their spawn locations to be more consistent when not affected by offerings.
We also know certain Shroud offerings have historically worked counter to what each role might want, so we’ve adjusted them to better line up with these expectations.
- Added a Video category to the Graphics Settings menu.
- Added a Brightness setting to the Video category to adjust Gamma.
DEV NOTE: Dead by Daylight is a game that relies heavily on the play between light and dark, which can be difficult to strike a balance between when playing on console, given the more limited options available. To help alleviate this, we’ve added a setting for adjusting Gamma, which gives players more control over how light and dark elements are displayed.
Lowest Setting
Highest Setting
- Increased spectator slots in Custom Game to 5.
- Added hotkey inputs to Custom Game spectating to quickly switch the view to a specific character and cycle through character views one-by-one.
- Added controller support for the above improvements.
DEV NOTE: Not only is Custom Match a way to easily play with friends, it’s also a valuable tool for coordinating tournament play. To help streamline its use in these environments, we’ve added hotkey support to various methods of view-switching to make casting on-the-fly even easier. Plus, with increased spectator slots, tournament organizers have the option to give viewers visibility of all players in a match at once.
Even better, we have more improvements coming to Custom Match in a future update. Stay tuned for more on this!
KILLER UPDATES
- Adjusted several Add-Ons.
DEV NOTE: Overall, The Artist is in a solid place balance-wise and boasts useful add-ons that meaningfully change how her kit works. To encourage even more pick variety among these, we’ve adjusted her top and bottom-performing add-ons to bring their usefulness more in line with her other options.
Stay tuned for the patch notes for specific details on these changes.
- All of The Lich’s Spells are available at the start of a Trial.
- Reduced cooldowns of all Spells.
- Dispelling Sphere's projectile moves quickly when first cast and slows down over time.
- Increased the Killer Instinct duration once Survivors exit Dispelling Sphere.
- Increased the attack cooldown period after Fly ends.
- Increased the duration and movement speed of Fly.
- Adjusted Mage Hand hold time to make it consistent for both Killers and Survivors, resolving a known bug.
- Increased the effects of Magic Items when casting the associated Spells.
- Adjusted several Add-Ons.
DEV NOTE: For The Lich, much of his power focuses on providing utility over reliably injuring Survivors. We’ve adjusted his four Spells to increase the frequency with which they can be used to ensure there’s more spell-slinging, while quality-of-life adjustments help make these Spells feel smoother to use.
On the Survivor side of things, we also wanted to ensure Magic Items feel like more viable options for countering each Spell, so we’ve buffed them slightly.
PERK UPDATES
- Updated Call of Brine
- Updated Dark Devotion
- Updated Hex: Retribution
- Updated Machine Learning
- Updated Superior Anatomy
- Updated Terminus
- Updated Thrilling Tremors
- Updated THWACK!
DEV NOTE: We’ve adjusted values on the above perks which boasted lower pick and kill rates to introduce small buffs to increase their viability. Stay tuned for the patch notes for specific details on these value changes.
- Updated Botany Knowledge
- Updated Champion of Light
- Updated Counterforce
- Updated Desperate Measures
- Updated Empathic Connection
- Updated Exultation
- Updated Light-Footed
DEV NOTE: Similar to the above, we updated values on some perks with lower performance, introducing small buffs. We’ll share the exact values in the coming patch notes.
Until next time...
The Dead by Daylight Team
Comments
Sorry, but the 4% is a stupid idea from the start. It made sense when the game was more immersive but now its just a RNG chance to screw a match. Imagine a 4% chance of reducing a gen progress by 40% for every kick?
If you really want to jump out of the hook yourself, run Deliverance.
I hope they just chance the "luck offering parts" - maybe rework luck completly - since probably people on SoloQ will run luck offerings to kill themselves on hook if they feel like it.
Is the Blue colour on perks, items, etc being reverted? Many people do not like it and there were many complaints about this..
That's already a part of the game. Has been for a long time lol.
Amazing update, its what so many players have been dreaming of for many months 😄
Of course they have to be in the dying state still. All it says is it activates when there's 2 people and one of them can't do anything anymore.
"Go next prevention" is a massive buff for killers, again….
What exactly is go next? I'm slightly confused.
Thanks!
It was so easy to implement the true go next prevention
Leave the hook timer separated from the "kobe" timer. Each survivor has 3 chances to self unhook without changing anything on the hook timer
During 2nd phase, just remove skill checks. If the survivor is on hook and the gates are opened or there are 2 survivors left, they can press a button to instantly die
overall this seams good but two things i find really wierd/bothersome
For example, if at the very start of the match your teammate Dwight is found by the killer, chased, downed and hooked, and they immediately start trying to unhook themselves with the intention of getting out of the game. And in struggle phase they deliberately miss skillchecks to speed up the sacrifice. That's the core of 'going next' that's being addressed here.
Oh ok! Thanks for clarifying that. I'm a newer player so wasn't sure.
I look forward to trying it all out!
How exactly does having map and (presumably) shack offerings benefit the game in any way? I don't see how this change is good in the slightest.
Call of Brine is getting adjusted?
Best update.
It also surprises me that Artist's addons get a change before rather more problematic/stronger ones that have zero counterplay like three blink Nurse or speed Blight.
My hope is they rework Matthias Babyshoes and leave Severed Hands alone. Also buffing/rework the less better ones. But it could be the complete opposite of just nerfing Severed Hands and buffing useless addons that rather need a rework.
Going next is annoying but the "remedy" brings many side-effects that are worse than the problem itself.
There might be more situations, where it is completely valid to "Kobe". I really hope BHVR take a BIG second look at these changes.
Why have an offering to allow survivors to spawn separate from each other when you've already recognized the large advantage it provides?
Agreed I used to use that perk all the time when it first released, then everyone else jumped on board used it with overcharge and got it nerfed into oblivion.
Will we still have the option to spend bloodpoints as we do now?
I like to select things I want, then use the auto spend for the rest of the web.
Is bulk spending replacing this, or is it an additional option?
These changes look fantastic, but sadly I will keep bringing luck offerings, I’m sorry but I’m not playing against Blight as a soloQ player until you reign him in, it’s laughable that The Ghoul gets a power reset on pallet breaks and Blight doesn’t, it’s laughable Blight gets 5 rush attempts with an 8 second cooldown yet Chucky gets one dash attempt every 12 seconds. Every update I hope to see Blight the jack all trades master of many get toned down.
I‘m pleased with most of it, but I have to share my two cents.
Let me start by saying I‘m glad you didn‘t remove self unhooks entirely, but why am I getting punished and robbed of my 3 self unhooks attempts when I didn‘t do it or only to give the other survivor hatch? It also doesn’t solve the problem. People will suddenly start using luck offerings to be able to kill themselves. My fix would be to remove struggle skill checks. Not only are they annoying, but they allow these players to go next faster. Then I would do a few changes to the unhook mechanic that only targets these types of players instead of removing the ability for everyone. I will suggest something in the ptb.
I hope map offerings aren‘t useless now. 20% chance sounds very insignificant to me.
All of this looks pretty interesting, though I'm concerned the mori changes were made a little too early. Especially with anti-slug adjustments coming up soon, would it be better to hold on bringing those changes to live until everyone sees what those adjustments look like?
Survivors can send Killers to maps just to bully them and make themselves unhookable.
For example, If a SWF bring a Badham map along with an offering to spawn the basement in Killer Shack, they can run down to the lower level of the preschool for safety. If the have Boil Over, the Killer won't be able to hook them.
The game is become least casual friendly and catered towards High MMR.
😁 long overdue. I hope they increase the regression and make it possible to apply to more than one gen. Another thing could be to make it a mini ruin, that starts regressing a generator on which it is active when survivors leave them alone.
Removed the option to self-unhook on first hook stage unless they have one of the following equipped
What about 2v1 scenarios when survivor gets hooked for the first time? For example I might want to give my teammate hatch, but I won't be able to do that if that's my first hook stage?
Also what about the endgame? Survivor gets hooked for the first time during EGC, killer naturally camps them. Survivor could try get 4% and run towards exit and thus try to escape, but now they won't be able to do that anymore???
LIGHTFOOTED BUFFS I'VE BEEN HOPING FOR THIS TO HAPPEN FOREVER!!
Praying they allow it to work while injured!
Killer sided like always. I will rejoice the day when everybody who plays survivor leaves this trash game.
Also the new Spawn rules is a massive buff to The Shape. It is bad enough I have to hear Tier II 10 seconds into a match currently. Survivors are going to be Tombstoned in record timing.
Now that survivors can't die on hook on purpose
They will never touch a gen, they will run the entire map looking for chests to unlock and totems to cleanse, they will hide in lockers in front of the killer to die faster 😍 And the other players will be wasting their time in a match thats almost impossible to win but they don't know it
In all seriousness, that issue needed to be addressed, but this "go next" mechanic was not it
I hope so too. Maybe they make it an exhaustion perk or remove all downsides from it.
I just want to be able to combo it with Iron Will and Light Weight for an easy to lose the killer type build while injured, I wanted that since the perks release haha, praying that happens!
The bloodpoints spending just need two more things for being perfect and I hope they release it in the future:
Why make changes purportedly for the good of the game then let people negate these changes with either one perk or one offering? It literally makes no sense.
Sometimes it feels like the devs know what the best course of action is but are too scared of upsetting the playerbase to actually follow through.
Can someone explain to me the take that the 'Go Next' prevention is being viewed as Killer sided? I've played many games in recent weeks where the first person to go down kills themselves right away....you know what's killer sided, when there is only 3 survivors left at 5 gens.
If the person get unhooked and goes afk, so be it. It's a distraction for the killer while everyone else works on gens.
Edit: I take it back what I previously said here, someone raised a point I had not considered and now I am not sure if these changes are actually good.
Genuine players are currently unfairly punished when teammates Go Next, and there will be less genuine players unfairly punished after Go Next is in the game, because the main reason why Go Next is so popular is being removed from the game.
Those "great 4 percent moments" are the reason why I'm stuck slugging in a lot of games. I'm stuck bleeding people out, because if I place them on a hook, then they might 4%, but if I bleed them out on the ground, then I'm 100% guaranteed to win.
Those "4 percent moments" are mostly just punishing killers that are trying to be nice to survivors, by hooking them instead of securing their win by slugging.
Great change! The only thing that is misleading is the "Extreme Hiding" category.
When I read the category, I though of the following:
-Survivors hiding in corner of the map though out the game without interreacting with the killer, gens, or going for saves.
-2 survivors keeping the game hostage in a 2v1 scenario, forcing the killer to abandon game after 10 mins have passed.
-drop/pick up item tech to prevent crows from spawning.
Blocking a survivors in a specific area on the map by other survivors or the killer seems like it should be called Anti-body Blocking than Extreme Hiding. Otherwise, I welcome this change as well!
"Updated AFK detection system."
Is this update going to address situations in which players get downed and hooked by a cheater during the camera pan before the match even starts and get banned for "being afk"?
Are y'all no longer developing unique lobby music for survivors? Orela Rose uses the default survivor theme.
Came in just to write exactly the same thing.
we’ve adjusted her top and bottom-performing add-ons to bring their usefulness more in line with her other options.Pretty sure they will nerf Severed Hands and it's the only addon which helps her to be somewhere near low A tier.
It's another Billy situation, where they were about to nerf his Engravings just because "oh it has high pick rate and performs better than other". Yeah, maybe because in both situations it's the only addon makes killer viable? Maybe because other 4-5 addons somewhat okish and other 15 are just garbage? Sadly there are like 5 Artist players in this game and this situation won't get enough attention.
Personally I see it as a buff for survivors... maybe I'll not lose 20% of my games due to some rash throwing for content or giving up immediately cause they got outplayed by a Myers.
The go next prevention seems harsh for good players, and the players that have been going next, will just be even more mad that they are being held hostage in your game and either shut off the game, and stop playing it all together or be afk and not contribut to the game.
And since this effects all players not being able to 4% chance off hook, how many players are going to say enough is enough and stop playing this game.
If you keep taking instead of a non take solutions people will get tired of it and just go next to another video game.
So true I already hate this chapter update, literally super killer sided
Who will not be turining brightness and gamma settings to max?
Shape can only stalk one surv at a time.
True "Go Next" thing solves nothing, survivors that hate certain killers will find a way to end that match faster
I'm thinking about making my game darker.
If they aren't adding the New Moon Bouquet back, I'll do it myself.
Only affects you which could be a challenge. New Moon at lease affected everyone but would be impossible to bring back now with these settings.
I agree, these new chapters updates don't solve the problems with the root, but simply complicate everything and create a semblance of a prison regime for players, what if the match is already over on 3 generators and the survivor wants to quickly go next through the hook? If he gets a penalty, he will go play marvel rivals…
There was a legion game that I had, at end game I saved my team mate and got hooked. I wanted her to leave and not risk dying so I took my chances and unhooked myself. We both got out. Now, i can no longer do that.? Plus, the fun out of 4% is taken out, because my friends and I (as long as one of us are near the hook) will take a chance just for fun, not if we're close to going 2nd though, it's just fun to unhook in the others face sometimes. But now we can't even have fun with it.