Dead by Daylight — a community roadmap for the next era

RynAdar

Dead by Daylight — a community roadmap for the next era

A structured discussion covering every major issue the community has raised over 9 years, the changes that would fix them, and how those changes translate into growth. This is not a complaint thread — it is a blueprint. Please add your voice.

WHERE WE STAND: THE NUMBERS

• 70M+ total registered players across all platforms
• Steam all-time peak: 124,645 concurrent (June 2025)
• ~8–10 million monthly active users
• 892,000+ Steam reviews — "Mostly Positive"
• 43+ DLC packs released since 2016

"Killers aren't happy. Survivors aren't happy. It's been that way for 7 years." — BHVR forums, 2023

That quote is the core problem. DBD has an enormous, loyal community that genuinely loves this game — and that same community is perpetually frustrated. The six topics below are an attempt to explain why, and to propose concrete directions. Agree, disagree, add to any of them.

TOPIC 1 — THE BEHAVIOR PROBLEM: TUNNELING, CAMPING, SLUGGING

The problem:
For 9 years, the most consistent complaint across every forum, every Reddit thread, and every Steam review is the same: tunneling one Survivor out of the match, camping hooks, and leaving four players bleeding out. These strategies exist because the game rewards kills, not hooks. The fastest path to 4 kills is often tunneling the weakest player immediately — and nothing in the base game discourages it.

Solo queue in particular becomes "legitimately unplayable" during bad matchmaking sessions. A single weak player becomes a guaranteed tunnel target and the match is decided in the first 90 seconds.

What would fix it:

• Replace binary kill/escape scoring with a hook-stage system as the primary metric. Each hook stage = points for the Killer. Spreading hooks becomes more rewarding than tunneling.
• Make the anti-slug mechanic more visible. Most players don't know it exists. It needs to be communicated clearly in the UI.

Discussion: Is hook-stage scoring enough to change behavior, or does the game need more direct mechanical penalties for tunneling?

TOPIC 2 — THE SOLO QUEUE GAP: THE BIGGEST DISPARITY IN THE GAME

The problem:
A solo player has no way to communicate, coordinate rescues, or know what teammates are doing in real time. A 4-person SWF on voice comms is playing a fundamentally different game. The HUD update in 2023 helped, but the gap remains enormous. At high MMR, solo queue outcome is determined more by random teammate quality than by your own skill.

What would fix it:

• A ping wheel (like Apex Legends or Valorant) — one button for "I'm being chased," "come rescue," "work on this gen." No voice chat needed. This single feature would close a significant portion of the SWF gap.
• Visible loadouts in pre-game lobby. SWF players already have this information via voice. Making it visible to solo players is a free information parity fix.
• Consider a separate matchmaking queue for 3-4 person SWF groups vs. solo/duo. Not a penalty — a fairer pool for solo players.

Discussion: What other information would genuinely help you in solo queue?

TOPIC 3 — RANKED MODE: THE FEATURE DBD STILL DOESN'T HAVE

The problem:
DBD has hidden MMR. It gives no visual feedback and offers no progression incentive. The grade system (Ash → Iridescent) resets monthly and measures playtime, not skill. Nothing tells a player "you are improving." High-skill players have no goal to work toward.

What would fix it:

• A visible ranked queue — same rules as casual, same perks, same maps. No extra restrictions. Just a visible rank (e.g. Iron → Crimson) and Rank Points per match based on performance.
• RP tied to the hook-stage scoring from Topic 1. Killers earn RP for spreading hooks. Survivors earn RP for gens, unhooks, heals, escapes.
• Seasonal resets every 3 months with cosmetic rewards per tier: rank borders, charms, profile items. Low cost to produce, strong incentive to play.

This is how Valorant handles ranked vs. unrated — exact same gameplay, different stakes. The format creates competitive integrity without requiring perk bans or map restrictions.

Revenue note: Ranked creates the emotional investment that drives cosmetic spending. Players buy skins for the characters they main in ranked. This is proven across virtually every competitive live-service game.

Discussion: Would you play a ranked queue if it existed? What would make you take it seriously?

TOPIC 4 — THE BUSINESS MODEL: PAID GAME + PAID CHARACTERS = A CEILING

The problem:
DBD costs $20 to buy. Then there are 43+ DLC packs. Unlocking every non-licensed character through in-game currency requires over 1,500 hours of playtime — calculated at 4 hours/day, that is 378 days. Licensed characters cannot be unlocked with shards at all.

This creates a pay-to-access-the-meta situation. A new player who cannot afford The Blight or The Nurse is locked out of learning the meta Killers. That player leaves before they ever spend money on cosmetics.

What would fix it:

• Make DBD free-to-play. Remove the $20 base price.
• All non-licensed characters become unlockable through gameplay at a reasonable rate (40–60 hours max per character).
• All revenue moves to cosmetics: outfits, kill animations, lobby music, charms, seasonal battle pass. The Rift system is already relatively fair — build on it, don't replace it.
• Licensed characters remain paid (license agreements require this) but are clearly separated from non-licensed content.

The numbers: Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Valorant are all F2P and generate more revenue than DBD by orders of magnitude. The pattern is consistent — removing the purchase barrier multiplies the player base, and a larger base generates more total cosmetic spending even at a lower conversion rate.

Discussion: Would you support a F2P transition if it meant all new characters were earnable through gameplay?

TOPIC 5 — LORE AND NARRATIVE: THE UNTAPPED ENGINE

The problem:
DBD has a compelling universe — The Entity, The Fog, 40+ characters with real backstories. Almost none of it surfaces in the actual game. It exists in the Archives tab that most players never open. The lore has zero presence during play.

Valorant releases a 60-second cinematic with every new agent. It becomes a community event. Characters have voice lines that reflect current story arcs. The story happens in front of players.

What this could look like in DBD:

• A short animated cinematic (30–90 seconds) with each new chapter — showing the character entering The Fog. External media, not an in-game cutscene. This is what Riot does and it drives enormous viewership and discussion every single release.
• Reactive voice lines between characters with lore connections: Yun-Jin vs The Trickster, Leon vs Nemesis, Nea vs The Trapper. One recording session per pair. Creates clips that spread on social media organically.
• Seasonal Entity events: for 2 weeks per season, The Fog shifts — different lighting, ambient sounds, visual changes. No gameplay impact. Gives players a reason to log in even if they've taken a break.

Revenue note: Emotional investment in characters drives cosmetic purchases. A player who watched a cinematic about The Trickster before they bought the game is the player who buys The Trickster's outfit six months later. Lore is a marketing engine. DBD has 40+ characters worth of unused emotional capital.

Discussion: Which character relationships or story arcs would you most want to see explored?

TOPIC 6 — TECHNICAL HEALTH: THE FOUNDATION EVERYTHING RESTS ON

The problem:
The UE5 migration introduced persistent graphical bugs (hair rendering artifacts, texture glitches) that remain unresolved in early 2026. An audio memory leak has been present for months. The Switch version has been in a degraded state for years. Server-side matchmaking leads to high-ping softlocks. These aren't minor inconveniences — they are the foundation on which every other improvement either stands or collapses.

What the community is asking for:

• A dedicated "Operation Health" season — one full update cycle with zero new content, focused entirely on UE5 bugs, server stability, and platform performance. CS2's Operation Health in 2017 cost Valve a quarter with no new content, and it rebuilt community trust that had been eroding for years.
• A public bug tracker — a visible board showing confirmed issues, work-in-progress fixes, and resolved items. Transparency significantly reduces frustration even when fixes are slow.
• Proper server region selection — players should be able to choose their region. VPN abuse for ping advantage is a documented problem that could be substantially reduced by giving legitimate players regional control.

Discussion: Is a content-free "health season" something you'd be willing to wait through, or does the game need content to keep players engaged while fixes happen?

THE ROADMAP: SUGGESTED PRIORITY ORDER

Immediate (0–3 months):
Base-kit anti-tunnel window. Visible teammate loadouts in lobby. Public bug tracker. Ping wheel for solo queue.

Short-term (3–6 months):
Operation Health season. Hook-stage scoring as primary metric. Server region selection.

Mid-term (6–12 months):
F2P transition. Visible ranked queue with seasonal cosmetic rewards. Chapter cinematics for new releases. Reactive character voice lines.

Long-term (12–24 months):
Seasonal Entity world events. Competitive infrastructure. Expanded SWF/solo matchmaking split. Full cosmetics-only economy.

None of these changes require dismantling what makes DBD unique. The asymmetric format, the horror atmosphere, the licensed characters, the variety of playstyles — all of that stays. What changes is the scaffolding: how the game rewards players, how it communicates with its community, and how it positions itself for the next decade.

DBD at its best is unlike anything else in gaming. This is a discussion about making sure it gets there.

What do you think? Which of these topics matters most to you? What would you add or change?

ubub

Transitioning the game to a free-to-play model while strengthening monetization in other areas seems like an absolutely brilliant choice! There are actually many people around me who have been hesitant to get into the game simply because it requires an initial purchase.