Reshade, Competitive Integrity, and Visual Advantages in Dead by Daylight
Dead by Daylight already provides gamma settings and colorblind options in-game.
So why are third-party visual modification tools like Reshade still allowed?
This is not about skill. A strong player will still be strong. But altering the game’s visuals absolutely provides advantages in certain situations:
- Better visibility in dark areas.
- Clearer scratch marks, blood, auras, and environmental contrast.
- Easier tracking on low-light maps.
- Sharper visual clarity compared to default settings.
- Console players cannot access the same tools equally.
At what point does “visual customization” cross into competitive advantage?
And if modifying visuals is acceptable, where is the line drawn?
- Audio modifications?
- Louder survivor breathing or footsteps?
- Sharper aura visibility?
- Brighter map lighting?
- Increased contrast filters?
Whether people want to admit it or not, changing how information is presented on-screen can impact gameplay and decision-making.
Dead by Daylight is built heavily around visibility, atmosphere, hiding, tracking, and visual awareness. Altering those elements externally affects competitive integrity.
So ask yourself:
- Is it truly fair to all players?
- Is it healthy for the long-term integrity of the game?
- Is it something that should be allowed in a competitive multiplayer environment?
- If the game already has gamma and colorblind settings, why are external visual modifications necessary?
- If these tools provide no advantage, why are they used so heavily?
Curious to hear honest opinions from both sides of the discussion.
Comments
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I tried talking about this before and people were comparing reshaders to gamma options.
I gave up trying to explain it.
Reshaders is cheating as its not an option to use in game. IT unfairly changes the games pallet to something completely different.
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Be prepared for the same crowd that abused stretched res for years to explain to you how it "just looks better" to have red colors burning their retinas.
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Behavior has directly stated they are ok with reshaders and dont consider it cheating, so nothing can be done about it
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Even if BHVR currently allows it, that does not automatically mean it is healthy for competitive integrity.
My point is not “will I get banned for using it?” My point is whether external visual modification tools should be allowed in a multiplayer game where visibility, tracking, scratch marks, blood, auras, darkness, and map atmosphere directly affect gameplay.
If the game already provides gamma and colorblind settings, then external tools that go beyond those in-game options create an uneven playing field, especially for console players.
So the real question is not only “is it bannable?”
The real question is: should it be allowed going forward?4 -
@MrBuffalo I appreciate you trying to explain it before . A lot of people instantly compare it to gamma settings and stop the conversation there.
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@Rogue11 I appreciate your point too…the stretched res comparison is actually a good example of how people often defend things by saying “it just looks better” while ignoring the gameplay advantage side of it.
And honestly, I don’t think we should just give up discussing it because “BHVR allows it right now.”
Games change. Rules change. Community feedback matters.
DBD is built around darkness, stealth, tracking, visibility, shadows, scratch marks, blood, and atmosphere. So I think it is completely fair to question whether external visual tools that alter those things are healthy for the competitive integrity of the game long term.
At the very least, it is a discussion worth having.
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What you just said is something I wish more people would understand.
"Games change. Rules Change. Community feedback matters."
DbD has changed so much since it came out and it plays and feels like a completely different game. I do find the community can be stuck in its old ways. So I thank you very much for trying to start a discussion like this 😁
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i agree discussion is nice and im not a fan of reshade because i agree it feels unfair but if i remember right some of the dev team also uses that common reshade mod though i could be misremembering and if thats the case no discussion is gonna change it. behavior is fine with it and said so after a previous period of heavy disccusion a couple years ago i think.
So this is one of the topics i dont think any discussion will change
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Brother I don't care about competitive advantage. The game at it's core looks like garbage. I use reshade to simply give the game color because gamma on it's own does not do that. The game looks terrible, it's 2026 if they don't want to add more color and make the game simply look better that's fine, I'll do it myself.
I've been using reshade for like 6 years at this point and genuinely when I look at the game without it when it sometimes turns off or if I accidentally turn it off, it's trash. Straight up.
Especially because it's not like the things you keep bringing up (auras, scratch marks, blood, shadows, etc etc) are somehow getting this massive boost that gamma doesn't already provide. The default option in the game already makes those easy to see, I promise the difference between what a person with reshade is seeing, to what a person with just turned up gamma is seeing is not that much of a gap to where the "competitive integrity" of the game (whatever the hell that means, this game isn't competitive anyway) is somehow just destroyed.
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It's always funny how people defend this for one seemingly harmless reason or another. Meanwhile you have winstreakers like momo pitching their reshade settings on their streams. Yeah, definitely no advantage. I wouldn't mind it so much if everyone had access to it, but it's yet another thing that console players lack.
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I can respect wanting the game to look better visually, and honestly I think that’s part of the problem being discussed.
If a large number of players feel the need to use external visual tools because the default game looks too dark, washed out, unclear, or harder to read, then maybe that is something BHVR itself should address directly in-game instead of relying on third-party tools.
The bigger concern is not whether people enjoy the visual style more. The concern is that Dead by Daylight is heavily built around visibility, tracking, darkness, stealth, reaction time, map knowledge, pathing, scratch marks, blood, auras, and environmental awareness.
So when external tools improve clarity, contrast, lighting, or visual readability beyond the default presentation, it naturally raises questions about competitive integrity and fairness, especially when console players cannot access the same options equally.
I think that’s a fair discussion to have, even if people disagree on where the line should be drawn.
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Gamma already does the job of making things easier to see. So something being made even slightly easier to see from reshade isn't that much of a gap that the game is somehow suffering from it.
The game suffers more from being ugly to look at, than it does from people using reshade to correct that ugliness.
I promise you, the killer did not win that chase against you because he has reshade.The killer did not see your aura or blood or scratch marks because he has reshade. Those things are not difficult to spot with just the gamma setting being turned up.
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I think it's a silly discussion mostly because the game has no competitive integrity in the first place. The game isn't competitive. There is no ranked mode. There is no visible MMR to track. It's at its core, a casual asym game. The killer isn't killing people because he has reshade on.
The difference between reshade and no reshade but with gamma turned up, is not that massive of a difference outside of the game looking prettier, when it comes to the visibility of those things you mention. Certainly not enough to warrant removing reshade before dbd devs themselves add options to adjust the look of the game.
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I understand what you mean, and honestly you may be right that BHVR’s stance probably will not change anytime soon.
But I still think discussions like this matter because a lot of things in gaming communities were considered “normal” for years until enough people started questioning whether they were actually healthy for competitive integrity long term.
Even if nothing changes immediately, I still think it is fair to question where the line should be between visual customization and gameplay advantage, especially in a game so heavily built around visibility and awareness.
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That is another major point honestly.
A lot of people argue “it’s harmless” or “it just makes the game look better,” but at the same time there are experienced players openly sharing reshade settings, map-specific presets, and visual filters specifically designed to improve visibility, clarity, contrast, and readability.
At that point it becomes difficult to pretend there is zero gameplay impact in a game built so heavily around visual information, reaction time, tracking, stealth, and awareness.
And I also agree the console vs PC gap is part of the discussion too. Even if people disagree on where the line should be drawn, it is still a fair topic to question.
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I understand your point, but I also do not think a game needs to be a full esports title with ranked ladders for fairness and competitive integrity to still matter.
Dead by Daylight is still a PvP game heavily built around visibility, awareness, tracking, stealth, reaction time, map knowledge, and decision-making.
So even if reshade does not automatically “win matches,” I still think it is reasonable for players to question external visual tools that can improve readability and visibility beyond the default presentation.
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Example comparison screenshots showing how external visual alterations can materially affect visibility, environmental readability, shadow depth, and overall visual clarity in gameplay.
Yes, crossplay is technically optional. But in reality, disabling it can seriously hurt matchmaking time and match quality, so many console players are effectively pressured into the shared pool.
That means they are often playing against PC users who may have access to external visual tools console players simply cannot replicate.
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Yeah, it always bothers me when I see people using external filters and reshades because:
- They give a competitive advantage whether the user wants to admit it or not
- C'mon, they just look plain ugly
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@QwQw I appreciate your perspective .
And honestly, I think your second point is part of the larger discussion too. If so many players feel the need to rely on external filters or reshades to improve clarity, contrast, lighting, or overall visuals, maybe that is something BHVR itself should address directly in-game rather than through third-party tools.
The competitive advantage side is obviously where most of the debate comes from, especially in a game built around visibility, tracking, stealth, reaction time, and environmental awareness.
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Honestly there's a lot of things like this Behavior needs to address. The settings page looks like something out of 2016. Oh, wait…
Like, how many years did it take them to add basic colorblind settings, an FOV slider, and aura options again? Too many is the answer.
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I still don't understand why the reshade "looks better". Only thing that it does is to make it easier to see the red stain and other stuff. If someone tries to claim that "looks better" than the original they are just trying to justify why they use it. Still we all know why they use it.
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Because that's a very specific setup of the reshade to make it look like that, that is not used to make the game look better. That's used to gain an advantage though the advantage is again, pretty much nothing because if you have working eyes you can see these things regardless of the reshade or not.
Not everyone is doing that with reshade.
Edit: atp I'm starting to think it's just console players being salty downvoting because they can't make the game look better because there's no way we are all playing the same casual game and trying to act like reshade is this immense game changer that MUST be taken away or the game's competitive integrity just deteriorates. Like… it's genuinely not that big of a deal.
Post edited by Rapid99 on-6 -
@Rapid99 I think this is exactly where the issue is though .
Even if not everyone uses reshade that way, the fact that certain setups can be used to gain an advantage is the concern. In a PvP game, advantage is not only about making something visible or invisible. It can also be about making information easier to read, faster to process, and more consistent during gameplay.
That matters in a game built around red stain, scratch marks, blood, auras, shadows, stealth, tracking, and reaction time.
So I do not think the discussion should be dismissed as “console players being salty.” Console players are part of the same crossplay pool, but they do not have equal access to the same external visual tools. That is a fair competitive-integrity concern, even if people disagree on how big the advantage is.
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@Wezqu That is part of why I think this discussion matters thank you for pointing it out
A lot of people frame reshade purely as “making the game look better,” but when certain presets specifically increase visibility, contrast, red stain clarity, shadow readability, and overall environmental awareness, it becomes difficult to separate visual customization from gameplay impact entirely.
Especially in a game built so heavily around visual information, stealth, tracking, and reaction time.
Even if people disagree on where the line should be drawn, I still think it is a fair topic for the community to discuss.
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atp I'm starting to think it's just console players being salty downvoting because they can't make the game look better
IMHO that's what 99% of arugments against filters are actually about, masked as concern for competitive integrity. It's obvious that there's an anti-PC sentiment to a lot of discussions about filters because no one ever considers console players who use monitors with built-in options that can achieve the same/similar results. Console users might not be able to do it at the software level, but hardware certainly can — and if the end result is a brighter, clearer game, then what's the actual difference?
Why does a PC user upping their brightness through their GPU's built-in software turn heads, but a console user turning up their TV's brightness not? It's the same thing, but only PC users ever get heat for it for some reason.
@ Topic
If we decide to hyperfixate about the specifics of the word "competitive advantage", instead of going by the rules the developers set, then the logical conclusion is that everyone who owns stronger hardware is a cheater. There's no question that playing at higher frame rates offers a competitive advantage through less input delay over someone limited by a last-gen console. Or someone with noise-cancelling headphone will be better able to pick up on Survivor sounds. Or someone who owns a modern monitor with built-in crosshairs will have an advantage when playing Huntress. Or someone whose mouse or keyboard has additional buttons for key binds, build-in macros, or whatever else. VOIP too provides a competitive advantage. Is Discord or a Playstation party call also a problem?
Somewhere you have to draw an arbitrary line in the sand and just say, "Yes there's a disparity, but it is what it is." because it gets to a point where the number of people you'd be condemning as cheaters is untenable, or enforcement of regulations is unrealistic. Changing brightness, contrast, or color squarely fall within that line for me. There's no way to police casual players tuning these values externally — so what good does it do to consider it cheating in the first place? Same goes for VOIP. You can't prevent Survivors from being on a call with each other, or even from playing in the same room — so to consider it cheating because it provides a "competitive advantage" is moot.
The only time strictly defining cheating through competitive advantage makes sense is within the context of an actual competition where there are stakes and a proper means of enforcement, i.e. when money is on the line at an e-sports event. For a casual, at-home hobby, the rules aren't so strict, and some of what might be deemed unfair at competition is allowed to slide for the sake of convenience or impossibility of regulation. Filters don't show you anything that isn't technically already on the screen, they just highlight what already exists. That advantage is real — I concede — and would mostly likely be considered unfair at tournament-level. But the average DbD match just isn't serious enough for me to bother caring about that kind of thing. Playing Chess at a tournament — for example — there are strict rules about the boards and pieces you play with. But playing casually on Chess.com, you're able to customise the board and pieces however you want. You could argue that's detrimental to "competitive integrity", and it probably is, but scope needs to be considered too when setting the rules.
Not to mention that the vast majority of users of filters/reshade do so for innocuous purposes, and the advantage provided is small. I have two filter presets I use for DbD. One ups the gamma by 20 so I can play during the day without screen glare, and the other lowers the gamma specifically so I can play on Forsaken Boneyard without getting a migraine. Using filters allows me to change over at the push of a button, instead of having to mess with the slider in-game every time. If people think that's cheating — then fine — they can have that opinion. But the alternative is I spend the first minute of every Eyrie of Crows match messing with my settings, and then they'd just complain that I'm AFK or throwing. Regardless of which option I pick, someone will have something to say about it.
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Console players are part of the same crossplay pool
No one is forcing them to be. If PC players using filters provides enough of an advantage that console players consider it unfair, they can disable crossplay and play only with fellow users of their console.
The fact that no one actually does this, makes me think the unfairness is often highly overstated.
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@OnryosTapeRentals I understand the point you are making , but I think this is where the comparison gets stretched too far.
Yes, different hardware, monitors, headphones, frame rates, and setups can create some level of disparity. I do not think anyone is claiming every single difference between players can be eliminated.
But that does not mean every external tool should automatically be treated the same.
Monitor or TV brightness settings are not the same thing as ReShade. A display setting usually affects the entire image in a broad way. ReShade and external filters can be much more targeted, layered, preset-based, and tuned specifically around visibility, contrast, clarity, shadows, red stain, scratch marks, blood, auras, and environmental readability. Those are not the same category of adjustment.
There is a difference between normal hardware variation and using third-party visual filters or ReShade presets that can directly alter clarity, contrast, lighting, shadow depth, and overall gameplay readability in a PvP game built heavily around visual information.
You even conceded that the advantage is real, even if you believe it is small or not worth regulating in normal matches. That is the point of the discussion.
The argument is not “every advantage means cheating.” The argument is that when an external tool can make gameplay information easier to read, faster to process, and more consistent, it is fair to question whether that belongs outside the game’s official settings.
As for crossplay, yes, console players can technically disable it. But in reality, disabling crossplay can hurt matchmaking time, match quality, and player pool size. So saying “just turn it off” does not really address the fairness concern. Console players are part of the same matchmaking ecosystem, but they do not have equal access to the same external visual tools.
I am not saying this is easy to enforce consistently. I am saying it is a fair competitive-integrity discussion, especially when the game already has official gamma, colorblind, FOV, and aura settings. If visual clarity needs more options, then ideally BHVR should address that directly in-game so everyone has equal access.
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To me the solution shouldn’t be players relying on third-party filters like ReShade. If DBD needs better visuals, BHVR should add those options directly in-game so everyone has equal access… including console players. DBD has been on console since 2017, and we only recently got gamma settings lol. So if in-game gamma is supposedly the same thing as ReShade, why do people still use ReShade?
That alone tells me there is a difference. ReShade is not just gamma. It can affect clarity, contrast, sharpness, colors, shadows, and overall readability in ways the in-game settings do not.3 -
Unfortunately the way DBD's CrossPlay works is it not only isolates you from every other platform the game is on, but also any of your own platform that still has it toggled on too. So queue times then go from over an hour to never, because you're drawing from the tiniest pool possible.
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As a console player myself I can safely say I really do not care if PC players are using reshade.
I would really like it if we could get more than 60fps though.
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Reshade can also quite literally set it up so you can see the red stain through walls that normally you would not be able to. It is straight up cheating.
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