http://dbd.game/killswitch
Developer Update | August 2025
The 9.2.0 Update arrives next week, so let’s check out the notable gameplay changes you can expect from this Public Test Build. Plus, stay tuned for next week's 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
- If a Survivor is left in the Dying State for a total of 90 seconds during a match, they gain the ability to pick themselves up after fully recovering.
- Added the option to enable or disable this mechanic in Custom Games.
- Note: Perks that enable you to recover from the Dying State - like Boon: Exponential - will continue to function as before, without needing to meet this requirement.
- Gradually increases crawling speed for Survivors who are left in the Dying State.
- Added the ability for Survivors to recover while crawling. Recovery now occurs passively with no need to hold a button.
- Updated several Survivor and Killer perks to account for these changes.
Passive recovery while crawling
Pick yourself up if you’ve been in the Dying State for 90 seconds
DEV NOTE: When it comes to slugging, we know it can be frustrating if you're on the receiving end of it too often or for too long, but we also know that sometimes it's the smart move. This updated system acknowledges this, allowing the Killer to slug occasionally when they feel like it's the right call, but will eventually kick in and swing in the Survivor's favour if slugging is used excessively.
A big part of this is also about making the experience of being slugged more pleasant (as much as being slugged can be, at least). The recovery changes and crawling speed will give you a bit more agency when downed so you aren't just holding a button and waiting for someone to come save you.
- When a Survivor is hooked, their hook status is hidden from the Killer. When they’re unhooked, there is no notification and their hook status isn’t revealed immediately.
- This is disabled once all generators are completed.
- Unhooked Survivors gain the following effects for a limited time:
- Haste, Endurance, and Elusive (see below) status effects.
- No collision with other players (both Killer and Survivor).
- Immunity to Killer Instinct and sees the Killer’s aura nearby.
- These effects are lost when the affected Survivor perform a Conspicuous Action.
- All these effects (except Haste and Endurance) are disabled once all generators are completed.
- Added a unique effect to the Killer hook state UI that indicates the last Survivor they hooked.
- After completing a “unique hook” (the same Survivor is not hooked consecutively), Killers get the following benefits:
- Bonus damage for the next generator kick.
- Temporary Haste status effect.
- Temporarily reveals Survivors (think basekit BBQ & Chili) that have less or equal hook states to the hooked Survivor.
- These effects are slightly lessened for The Blight, The Dark Lord, The Ghoul, The Hillbilly, and The Nurse.
- These effects are disabled once all generators are completed.
- Added new effects that disincentivize tunneling:
- If a Survivor dies before 6 total hook states, all remaining Survivors gain a repair speed bonus for the rest of the Trial.
- If the Survivor that was last hooked is Sacrificed or Killed, generators cannot be regressed or blocked.
- Added the option to enable or disable these new mechanics in Custom Games.
- Updated several Survivor and Killer perks to account for these changes.
DEV NOTE: It’s no secret that tunneling can be seen as an efficient way to play for Killers. While this can be true, it’s also true that the results of this can be frustrating for Survivors, leading to Trials ending too quickly for some, while leaving others to fend for themselves in a match that is now much more difficult.
The intention here is for both roles to feel the benefits and incentives that come from spreading hook states. On the one end, Survivors have better opportunities to evade and reset after unhooks, while also limiting those tough situations where losing a Survivor too quickly causes things to go south quickly and snowball. On the other end, Killers are able to apply more map pressure to push back against efficient teams, covering ground post-hook and strengthening gen regression.
- Added a new status effect that silences grunts of pain and suppresses Survivor aura, pools of blood, and scratch marks.
DEV NOTE: To start, we’ll be using this new status effect as part of the tunnelling reduction update, but plan to integrate this into relevant existing perks down the road to make their descriptions more streamlined. Arguably the easiest way to look at this is a Survivor version of Undetectable, in that when it’s active, you know you’re in stealth mode.
- Updated “The Tomes” menu to feature new Tomes and accompanying lore alongside each Chapter release.
- New lore is unlocked each week within the active Tome.
DEV NOTE: Ever since we reworked the Tome, we’ve seen how much you’ve yearned for more lore. We’re happy to share that beginning with 9.2.0, lore is back! While previously, lore was tied to challenges, we want all players to have a chance to immerse themselves in these stories, so we’ve shifted to a weekly unlock, not linked to any quest completion.
KILLER UPDATES
- Replaced “Evil Within” with two modes that can be toggled with a button press:
- Stalker Mode: 4.2m/s movement speed, Undetectable, and can stalk Survivors.
- Pursuer Mode: 4.6m/s movement speed, 24m Terror Radius, increased vault speed, bonuses to lunge range, break speed, and stun recovery, and cannot stalk Survivors.
- Once the stalk meter is full, Evil Incarnate mode can be triggered at will, granting the following effects for a limited time (note: Survivors no longer become Exposed):
- 4.6m/s movement speed, 40m Terror Radius and an increased vault speed.
- Unlocks Slaughtering Strike ability:
- Hold the power button to charge this ability, reducing movement speed.
- Press the attack button while charging to quickly lunge forward, adjusting your angle as you move. The length of the lunge depends on charge time.
- If a Survivor enters the Killer’s attack range while lunging, they are knocked into the Dying State.
- This ability can also be used to destroy pallets.
- Unlocks the ability to grab and kill or perform a regular Mori on Survivors who would die the next time they are hooked.
- Adjusted some of the mechanics of stalking:
- Removed the limited pool of stalk points per Survivor.
- Reduced stalk range to 32m and removed distance modifier.
- Moving while stalking has increased movement speed but incurs a reduced stalk rate.
- Reworked his add-ons.
Slaughtering Strike in action
DEV NOTE: By moving away from linear “Evil Within” tiers, we wanted to give players more tools they can use to adapt to each Trial’s unique situations, while keeping the core of what makes him “The Shape”.
Slaughtering Strike makes for a high-threat offensive attack, offering up an insta-down opportunity with an extended lunge that's particularly effective in loops and for ripping through pallets quickly.
Understanding his kit has changed quite a lot, we’ve done a pass on nearly all his add-ons, reworking many of them to offer more unique effects. In particular for those who prefer his old playstyle, Fragrant Tuft of Hair will change Evil Incarnate to function like old Myers, offering an Exposed effect and no Slaughtering Strike. Stay tuned for patch notes for the full details on these changes!
- Increased activation time of the Afterpiece Antidote.
- Increased how long the Afterpiece Tonic’s Hindered effect lingers after leaving smoke.
DEV NOTE: We’ve heard your feedback that The Clown’s easier-to-activate Haste can make instigating and maintaining chases less interactive for Survivors. That, coupled with nerfs to his purple bottles has pushed players towards this frustrating tactic. To make both bottles feel like viable options without being too oppressive, we’ve adjusted the values of their most impactful qualities to strike a balance between pre-9.1.0 values and Live values.
- Increased the additional time added to Weakened when injured by a UVX projectile.
- Increased movement speed recovery after teleporting.
- Increased camera vertical range.
- Adjusted several add-ons.
Increased vertical camera range in action
DEV NOTE: The Unknown is largely considered to be fun to play as and against, and we want to preserve that while adapting to the current state of gameplay. We’ve buffed the UVX slightly, while also taking what we learned from The Animatronic to allow for orbitals, improving UVX aiming and making for even more fun gameplay.
It’s also likely no surprise that Blurry Photo is the most used add-on for the Unknown, given the importance of speed recovery. To help create an opportunity for more add-on experimentation, we’ve converted a portion of this add-on into a basekit buff, while also doing a pass on other add-ons that are due for some adjustments.
- Vampire Form:
- Slightly reduced Hellfire cooldown.
- Increased total Hellfire pillars by 1.
- Reduced Hellfire charge movement speed.
- Slightly increased slowdown time after casting Hellfire.
- Wolf Form:
- Increased Pounce Attack charge time.
- Increased Scent Orb spawn time.
- Bat Form:
- Increased movement friction to make flying easier to control.
- Adjusted his add-ons.
DEV NOTE: Vampire Form is slightly less oppressive in short loops where movement slowdown had less of an impact, and toning down Wolf Form’s mobility, which has been outclassing some dash Killers. On the flip side, you’ll find Bat Form easier to control in tighter spaces and can use Hellfire slightly more frequently and reach further with it.
- When grabbing a Survivor on the other side of a vault with Kagune Leap, the Survivor is released at the start of The Ghoul’s vault instead of at the end.
DEV NOTE: It’s no secret that it’s been a common pain point for Survivors to be locked in place when hit with a Kagune Leap Grab-Attack across a vault. Survivors shouldn’t have to wait for The Ghoul to finish their vault before being able to move again, so we’ve removed this tech.
- Hooking a Survivor now spawns more blood orbs.
DEV NOTE: We understand that with the changes we’re making to address slugging, this will impact The Oni slightly, so we want to mitigate this. By turning hooked Survivors into a greater source of power gauge build-up, The Oni is rewarded with more quickly snowballing power by hooking.
- Updated various perks.
DEV NOTE: In addition to the general perk balance updates you can expect each release, we've also made a number of adjustments to account for the new systems coming to DbD this update, specifically relating to slugging and tunneling.
Stay tuned on Wednesday, September 3 for the PTB Live Balance preview on Discord, where we'll dig into the details of these perk changes, and then follow that up with patch notes, where you can find the nitty-gritty numbers.
Until next time...
The Dead by Daylight Team
Comments
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My god, they did it. They turned him into a dash killer.
67 -
Stop disabling anti tunnel/anti camp features in endgame, jesus christ
Plenty of downvotes but hardly any counterargument because I'm right :)
Post edited by lettuchia on-86 -
Myers is dashslop now
45 -
Bruh…
15 -
The survivor handholding is strong with this one
41 -
oh boy, a lot of changes. looking forward to this next ptb!
-3 -
Dead By Daylight is side survi yhea ….
Buff Chase Killers Perks please?
-5 -
Yikes
8 -
I know a lot of killer mains are gonna hate this because it's been how the gameplay has been for 9 years now, but this is a healthy direction for the game.
Removing unenjoyable uninteractive and frustrating gameplay and encouraging healthier playstyles for both sides is ABSOLUTELY the direction they should be taking DBD. If this results in killers needing basekit buffs to their kits, or more buffs to encourage the anti-tunnel/anti-slug playstyles then so be it, do it. The game shouldn't remain with frustrating elements just because they've always existed.
And no, just use (x) perk is not the answer. Fixing gameplay issues with perk design has always been a negative of DBD imo (and yes, I also have that opinion for the killer side).
10 -
Tbf, in the strictest sense he already was, with a longer-than-usual lunge. They just gigabuffed that part of his kit.
I imagine it's not good for actual mobility.
6 -
Would love to hear folks' feedback on once they get a chance to test these features in the PTB!
11 -
Where is the reversion of maps, keys , Streetwise, Franklin's Demise and removal of Fog Vials??
-15 -
Myers rework looks cool!
-5 -
Damn, those are some big swings for anti-tunnel, I'm impressed.
Mostly it looks very good, losing collision after unhook alone is a fantastic change. I'm a little concerned at that list of blanket buffs for killers fresh-hooking, that all seems like a bit much when done all at the same time, but I'm open to testing and seeing where it lands.
The anti-slug looks good too, it's similar to something I proposed a while back but with a longer timer, which is fair. I don't see any universe where a 90 second timer is too short for legitimate slugging pressure, but of course it'll be the job of players to try and break it on the PTB.
Myers is… interesting. I think it retains enough of his thematic cohesion, but it is a bit of a shame to lose his tier-up mechanic because of just how perfectly it evoked the movie. Still, probably for the best, and leaning in to him being the giga-M1 with the increased lunge is appropriate too. I don't think this counts as making Myers a dash killer at all lmfao, if it does then he already was one.
Mostly I'm curious about the Mirror addons. They're the most fun part of Myers, I'm curious if we get to keep them in any form…4 -
Glad to see the kidnap tech removed but the issue with ghoul is that his auto aim/aim assist is still broken. I’m still getting his bite attack through and around walls when he has no line of sight on me.
27 -
Yeah I know, I just find it amusing given the community talk about dash killers. It looks neat.
I worry that they cooked too much and overcomplicated some things not only with him but the tunnel update (new player experience -50 pts of readability), but we'll see.
-6 -
Listen I'll test them to whatever extent I can, but this has already been an issue with anti tunnel perks and anti camp. Stop giving killers free kills as an excuse to not balance the early-mid game
-29 -
Myers sounds like Chucky now
5 -
Quick question for the anti-slug, does it unlock the ability to self pickup forever once you've been down for 90s? Or is it a one time thing?
12 -
very bad. I was hoping they gave killers basekit pain res at least.
-11 -
Omg omg I NEED TO BE in this PTB, this is soo cool.
-7 -
With no more gens to defend, what else is a killer supposed to do?
35 -
Yeah, in practice, it feels more like an extended lunge than a dash. I'm excited for folks to get their hands on it! And hey, if that's not to your taste, you can opt for the existing Myers T3 experience with the Fragrant Tuft of Hair add-on.
16 -
What would you do with no more gens to defend if you couldn't camp/tunnel? There's your answer
-28 -
Added the option to enable or disable this mechanic in Custom Games.
You truly understand that you're adding something unbalanced when you realize that comp scene needs to get rid of it, lol
-2 -
dracula 👍️
-1 -
Those anti-tunnel changes would put the game in its worst state ever since it came out
-9 -
I hope community will keep this spirit, when this healthy direction will result at every killer will have 20 seconds chase no matter what.
-13 -
Does the "No collision with other players (both Killer and Survivor)." mean they cant be hit or is this to prevent bodyblocking?
6 -
Good question! If you've been left in the Dying State for 90 seconds and self pick-up, the 90 second timer doesn't reset. That means that if you're left in the Dying State again, you'll be able to self pick-up again if you fully recover.
5 -
You are literally rewarding survivors for being bad now…
35 -
wesker v2
-3 -
I think that the thing that will decide if this update is the best this game has ever received or the worst is the Pop Goes the Weasel effect after each fresh hook. If it is like 10% of current gen progression, then killer will be unplayable, but if it is like old Pop with 25% of total charges then I would overall label it as an excellent patch.
Also, the worst killer in game just got an entire rework. I do think that the dash is uninspired, but the other abilities seem top notch.
I am in shock, but... This actually seem like a good patch.
-12 -
there's no way those changes are going to be on the live version
0 -
Anti Tunneling sounded too good to be true, and it was because the ending, about punishments for "tunneling" these can't go through at all and if they do will make the killer experience miserable. Stopping gen regression for hooking the same survivor twice in a row is such an absurdly comically bad idea I genuinely don't know how it got past the drawing board. There's a lot of issues for this, first off, say the survivor gets off hook and decides to be aggressive with that, they can body block to take protection hits for their unhooker, forcing you in a lose lose scenario with no counterplay, as you can't cleanly get to the unhooker, but you also can't tunnel the bodyblocker (as this would be valid time to do so), as doing so removes your ability to regress gens all match. Even worse, there's no listed set amount of time this triggers for, so going off this we can assume this will happen even if you haven't hooked for over a minute at all and aren't tunneling, but just get your first hook since the last on the same survivor by chance.
The repair speed boost is also likely far too strong a punishment, especially when the criteria is a whole 6 total hook states to be in the clear. This is made even worse by the fact the killer no longer sees the hook progress, so a survivor could be on hook longer than the killer realizes, he goes to hook them again, and boom, survivors get a gen speed boost.I'd also argue that tunneling past a certain amount of gens is not an issue and that the system realistically should disable besides the standard elements you get at Endgame at either 2 gens or 1 gen left, but that's more debatable.
The other things brought in to address tunneling seem like enough on their own, there's no need to add extra punishments to it, especially when your rewarding not tunneling. These punishments for "tunneling" target far more than those who hard tunnel, and will only make the killer experience completely miserable.-4 -
I like these changes and look forward to the PTB. The player experience is rightfully prioritized over competitive streaks. Content creators will be affected more than the general playerbase here.
-4 -
"If the Survivor that was last hooked is Sacrificed or Killed, generators cannot be regressed or blocked."
I may sound stupid but I don't get it, what does this mean?
4 -
As you guessed, this is largely to prevent bodyblocking. The affected Survivor will still be susceptible to attacks and Killer powers (albeit with Endurance, as noted).
15 -
what about plot twist in this situation? do you have infinite self heals or does it use the perk to pick yourself up?
0 -
It means that if you for example hook the same survivor twice in a row and they are sacrificed you can no longer regress or block any generator progress (Like kicking/ruin etc)
7 -
so what you’re saying is that killer is dead. I mean, if you really want to counter a hard slugging, why not have the feature activate two or more survivors or the dying state? That way, the killer won’t be punished for making sure it’s safe to pick up. I’m very interested about the Myers, but to me that just looks like he turned them into dashslop. And speaking of Myers, please give the guy a model update because I can count the polygons on that man’s sleeves.
-9 -
I get the direction and I welcome stuff that prevents killers from powertripping survivors into unfun situations which are unavoidable for them if the killer wishes so.
But as a survivor main, I think the anti slugging and anti tunneling might be in need of a bit of tweaking as I consider it a bit too harsh for (some) killers. Sometimes a killer needs to slug for a bit longer, especially if they try their adepts and want to avoid hatch. I am never blaming adepts for playing like this, there just is no other option very often.
Now adepts get much more difficult as killers get stressed into finding the last survivor within 90 seconds. Sounds horrendous to me (I only got Cenobite and Animatronic adept by now and guess what happened those games to avoid hatch escapes…). Maybe think about changing conditions for the adept achievements then?
And by now I have no clue what to say about Myers. I am a bit sad tbh.
-8 -
for the whole game?
-2 -
Oh gosh, you absolutely don't. It's a good question. What we mean by this is that when a Survivor is hooked multiple times in a row, which directly results in them dying, this effect would come into play.
10 -
That's what I am wondering about. If yes... That's a problem
1 -
Can't wait till you add anti-hit, anti-walk and anti-vision(all of this for killer sure) because I'm think this game still killer side
-9 -
Got it know, thank you Ryan!
3 -
Ah yes. Lets give survivors 5 new basekit perks and even hold information from them about hooks. Killers get uhh…yeah good luck!
And myers is now for some reason a dash killer. A chucky that can 1 shot at a loop. How to ruin an identity of an iconic killer.
AWFUL update.
2 -
Would that be a case even when only 1 gen is left? That might be pretty harsh.
4 -
The anti tunnels changes looking mighty scary. I think its too much and way to easy for survivors to abuse it, specially with anti tunnel and slug perks since they can just harass the killer. I say this as someone who plays mostly survivor as of late. This will bring back imo one of the worst survivor metas, the unbreakable ds meta where unhooked survivor is always in the killers face.
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