Is Dead By Daylight scary?

It can scare you from time to time but not with atmosphere.

Most of the time you can be jumpscared by beartrap, hag's trap or some killer without terror radius.

In very specific instances it can cause you to jump, but laughing follows rather than being scared.

Occasionally.

I wish they did something to the Lighting to make actually scary or Survivor P.O.V

The game is horror and it's a ludicrously foolish idea drummed up by certain members in the community that Dead By Daylight somehow isn't a horror game.

There is nothing NOT horror about being chased by a serial killer. There is nothing not horror about being placed in a powerless position where you must run for your life, or die. There is nothing not horror about the inclusion of prominent villains from well established films and franchises within the horror genre like Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, and more. There is nothing not horror about having a hook thrust through your shoulder as you are left to hang to be sacrificed to an ancient Godlike being that is the source of evil. There is nothing not horror about the lovecraftian entity: a primordial interdimensional being which preys on the hopes, fears, and powerful emotions of entire worlds plunging them into madness, chaos, and anarchy.

It is undeniable that Dead By Daylight is a horror game. There is zero reason to see it as anything else, and the arguments for why it might not be horror are entirely frail and anecdotal at best.

Now is Dead By Daylight a scary horror game? Did you ever even stop to consider that not everything that is horror is scary? That the horror genre is not always exclusively synonymous with the word "scary"?

To be fair what is and what is not scary is entirely subjective in the first place. I myself am absolutely terrified of snakes- I cannot stand them, regardless of shape, size, color, all snakes are scary to me- and even if I see the tiniest of garden snakes slithering through the grass I will bolt in the opposite direction. In the few instances where I've approached snakes: I tense up, my hands shake, my heart races, my breathing quickens, and I am entirely on edge and most definitely uncomfortable. Even watching snakes in nature documentaries or on youtube makes me uneasy.

That being said, I recognize that some people like and even adore snakes- they keep them as pets and close companions. I even have friends that own snakes, although I've never set foot in the house of anybody that owns a snake, friend or otherwise.

Dead By Daylight is no less the same way, and I understand people who aren't scared of Dead by Daylight- I myself am not particularly afraid either. Although I remember fondly of a time of when I was scared of the game. I remember scariest match I ever played was the very first match I played against Michael Myers- who was the first killer with a reduced terror radius and could just run up to you and slash at you with a kitchen knife without a word or warning.

But it's important to remember that after hundreds much less thousands of hours of anything- obviously you're not going to be scared anymore. Veterans of the game are more interested in the strategy and the mechanics of the game than we are in being scared all the time. That's fine well and good, but equally that doesn't make it any less outrageous to say that those horror elements flat out don't exist. You tell me the next time you've got somebody two feet taller than you chasing you in the isolated night with a machete or an axe that you aren't scared.

For a little bit, maybe 100-300 hours of playing it. Then it starts to become less and less scary.

I generally just type wordwalls. That's not specific to you, so I apologize if I appeared to come at you aggressive out of the blue (although what may explain this is that I'm tired of this idea roaming around the playerbase- I don't take stock in it myself).

The idea you propose is not a novel one, and I assert that this is a distinction without a difference. A game which employs the aesthetics and atmosphere of the horror genre is as much a horror game as a game which intentionally attempts to scare its audience. Though I don't necessarily need to prove this idea however, since I would argue that Dead by Daylight does make sincere attempts to intentionally scare its audience which is what defines it as a horror game. Using the example you provided, Alien: Isolation shares many of its foundational principles that make up its core gameplay, mechanics, and general concept, with Dead by Daylight.

See if this sounds familiar:

• You play as a young, clever, and plucky survivor stuck in an isolated and unfamiliar place with a single, deadly killer. To escape, you must use your knowledge of engineering to repair various mechanical instruments to fix your abandoned and neglected surroundings, as you slowly uncover the story behind the circumstances of your entrapment, all the while evading the relentless pursuit of an overpowering monster that uses superior speed, strength, and its own malicious cunning to hunt you down. With few options to defend yourself, your primary methods to accomplish your goals and survive are to run and hide using lockers and other scattered objects to conceal your presence. With the help of some strangers and a few friends, you're able to fend off the violent assault long enough to survive, only to discover that danger still lurks around the next corner.

And though I don't particularly find this to be the end all be all of discussion, it is worth noting in order supplement my point that Dead by Daylight by all accounts is categorized as a Horror Title. Horror is first the top user defined tag on Steam followed by Survival Horror as a close second, according to wikipedia it is a Horror game, according to a basic google search- it is a horror game. IGN, Gamespot, Polygon, and so on, all refer to Dead by Daylight as a Horror Game. According to PC Gamer: "Dead By Daylight remains a horror game and there is still a paranoid thrill to skulking around the marshlands and repairing generators, but the more you learn its systems, the less scary it gets."

I am not new to this conversation, and I find most of the arguments that Dead By Daylight isn't a horror game entirely laughable. Although I do like the points you bring up and the analogy you make, I find the overall case itself none the more compelling.

First off, I think you can be broad and still retain meaning. I hardly think you yourself would consider games like Stardew Valley, Cuphead, or Civ. 6 as horror games would you?

Secondly, I'd very much like to hear what it is that Dead by Daylight is mechanically "lacking" that doesn't make it a horror game. Since we've already covered that Dead By Daylight does indeed fulfill your aesthetic requirement. As you yourself put it, it is: "a game that utilises the horror genre's aesthetics and atmosphere" so we've already established that Dead by Daylight generates a mood indicative of the horror genre. It surrounds itself in a thick air of familiar horror tropes and features of horror storytelling. The design of characters and environments is undoubtedly grim and grotesque, blood is splattered across the walls and floors of many maps, bodies can be found, and the mutilated corpses of pigs and cattle can be seen on horrid display.

In fact I would argue that the dark and foreboding tone of horror that is so intrinsic to dead by daylight is an essential and critical aspect of nearly all horror media, from film and TV to video games. Can you provide me examples of anything in the horror genre that doesn't have these qualities? Though to what level and degree they can be found might be left for debate and speculation, they don't all have to be so intense, I don't doubt that they do exist in almost all forms of horror- a commonality that pervades and unites the entire genre.

So what perhaps, pray tell, could be so fundamentally lacking on Dead by Daylight's part- as to overlook the entirety of Dead by Daylight's utter climate, and the spirit of the game itself?

I would argue Dead by Daylight's core Cat and Mouse gameplay loop is indeed a staple of the horror genre. In games like Alien: Isolation, Outlast, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, all feature overpowering antagonists who cannot be stopped, and an average but otherwise resourceful protagonist whose survival is dependent almost entirely on their wits.

This is certainly true of the famous slasher films that Dead by Daylight largely takes inspiration from. Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, all of these feature characters who are forced into supernatural situations where their only choice for most of the film is to run and hide while accomplishing small tasks such as the retrieval of an item or the discovery of some information that is key to their escape. It isn't until the climax of those films that the characters discover a way to fight back, such as pulling Freddy from his all powerful state in the dream world and into the real world where he can be injured and killed (for a time).

And though Jump Scares are often seen as cheap nowadays, it's important to note their history and relevance within the horror genre. It's intended to scare an audience by surprising them with an abrupt change in events, usually occurring with a loud, startling, and frightening sound. And has even been described as "one of the most basic building blocks of horror" which is fitting given that it's usage has been seen since the 60s with the release of Hitchock's Psycho which holds in it the infamous shower kill seen.

It is by no means accidental that the jumpscare is included in Dead by Daylight: whether that's the sudden arrival of a Michael Myers just around the corner or a Ghostface stabbing you in the back, the unexpected appearance of a Hag erupting from the muddy ground beneath you, or the unanticipated emergence of a Hatchet flying through the air from between stalks of corn which lands squarely between your shoulders. The Jump Scare is very much intentionally used for a very obvious and purposeful aim in mind.

As well, regardless of your opinion on the articles themselves it serves to prove a point: the opinion is a widespread belief amongst the greater gaming community and beyond (a population much greater than the Dead by Daylight playerbase alone). And though you might dislike the articles, I assume you've got no problem with the user defined tags on steam, or the other basic results one can easily find on wikipedia or google, seeing meet them with any criticism or indeed mention them at all.

If I used any platforms other than steam, such as the Windows Store, Google Stadia, hell even mobile on IOS/Android- I would have no doubt that I would be able to find the same information as well.

It seems to me that you've got an uphill battle to prove your point. Within each of my three posts thus far I believe I've contributed different and valuable insights for why Dead by Daylight would be considered a horror game. The content in your posts so far have been very sparse and vague.

I'd say it's a little scary when I'm playing against stealth killers.