I revived myself from the Shadow Realm to watch the 7th Anniversary Live Stream

So you don't have to!

This is the stream from May 19th, 2023, to commemorate Dead By Daylight's 7th Anniversary. This stream was originally planned for May 23rd, however due to leaks it was pushed forwards.

Before we start, I'd like to make it clear that unfortunate work timing means I'm writing this well into the morning (it's literally quater to midnight as I start), and the earliest opportunity I have to properly proof read it is Sunday. But I've had a kebab, I've got 3 cups of coffee by my side, and I'm ready to crank this out in one go. Please excuse any grammatical or spelling issues, because I'll comb through it in a couple days time to sort them out.

Introduction | To Me, your Host, GBK (and a Disclaimer)

Welcome one, welcome all, my name is GoodBoyKaru (also known as GBK), and I shall be your host for the festivities today.

For those who don't know me, I've been on these forums I believe the longest out of any active member, and since her leaving this place I've taken over the role of summarising streams from community favourite @Fibijean.

Disclaimer: I do my best to paraphrase these posts, with anything in quotation marks ("Hello") direct words, and anything else being my interpretation of said words. Please don't look too far into the particular wording of certain sentences or otherwise without referring to the source material first.

This post will be in order of the stream.

Finally, I am not affiliated with BHVR Interactive or the Dead By Daylight team in any way, outside of simply being a fan of their game.

With that out of the way, let's go.

Codes | Bloodpoints, Charms, and Merch

Use code DBD7 for 400,000 Bloodpoints.

Use code Trapper1 for this cute little pixel Trapper charm.

Finally, use code DBD7th in the Merch store for 10% off all purchases until May 30th.

Introduction | Welcome to the 7th Anniversary

Welcome, one and all, to the annual DBD Anniversary Celebrations! The team would like to extend an invitiation to join the festivities and to share their plans for Dead By Daylight for the next year and beyond, with lots of exciting plans being unveiled today. Mathieu in particular has a surprise saved for later, so be sure to stick around.

Eric would like to say that the team have taken the past year to expand their reach further into the community, from being involved with official platforms on Xbox and Playstation, to being more active on the Steam Forums and even back the Reddit (expect more AMAs). They even want livestreams to be more regular.

Eric would also like to introduce the official DBD TikTok account.

And as revealed over on Twitter, following this account will unlock rewards for the community in-game.

Over the years, there's been over 1.8 billion Trials- yes, billion, with a B- and the team have no plans to slow down now. So, here's a rundown of the Show tonight:

Our Cast | Who's Who Tonight?

Featured on the stream are:

Mathieu Côté, Head of Partnerships (@mcote, @Mcote_BHVR)

Eric Pope, Community Director

Stéphan Beauchamp, Head of Production

Justin Brown, Product Director

Dave Richard, Senior Creative Director

Xavier Etchepare, Artistic Director

Samuel Couture, Concept Artist

Thomas Desrosiers-Dorval

Jeff Melo, Game Designer

Natalie, Lead Community Manager (@DeathByGiggles)

Pamela Soares, Lead UI Designer

Raphaël Seul, Producer

Stephen Mulrooney, Exective VP of Digital

Steve Goss, Studio Director at Supermassive Games

Traci Tufte, Executive Producer at Supermassive Games

Mary Olsen, Studio Head at Midwinter Entertainment

Audrey Mladina Producer at Midwinter Entertainment

Rose Li, Senior Product Manager

Ikumi Nakamura, Creative Director at UNSEEN

Sarah Robinson, Associate Art Director

Jean Escalante, Senior Game Designer

Roadmap

Talking us through the Roadmap segment is Stéphan and Justin. This segment will cover their pillars of focus over the next year, as well as their plans for Chapters, Archives, and Tome updates.

Firstly, Stéphan would like to celebrate the 2 most interesting Chapters released over the last year- Resident Evil: Project W and Forged in Fog.

Forged in Fog was the first time the team was able to explore a medieval theme, and how that all ties back to horror, whereas RE:PW was the first ever licensed sequel Chapter (second only to Cursed Legacy following Shattered Bloodline).

Around the release of RE:PW was the Prestige Rework and Bloodweb cost reduction, followed by Custom Game bots and 2 major QOL improvements to the Archives.

Finally, last year they mentioned how they wanted to really improve on Events, and the team feels like they achieved that with the Haunted By Daylight event. But that's enough about the past, let's look towards the future.

Like previous years, we have a new roadmap to celebrate! Like the 6th Year (and unlike the 5th Year), it features actual content actually coming actually this year.

A staggering 6 Chapters will release this year, with 3 being the traditional 1 Survivor 1 Killer split, and 3 being single-character Chapters (Half-Chapters, as I'm calling them). Four new Killers will be released next year, alongside five new Survivors.

A large reveal is that the next 2 killers after End Transmission (the characters releasing in August and November respectively) will be licensed, with a very large L. They're very iconic additions to the game, and the team cannot wait to tell more about that in the future.

Next year we'll also be getting four new Tomes, as is standard.

Their four pillars of focus for the next 12 months are: Events Evolution, Trust and Security, Live Balance, and Quality of Life.

The first pillar, Events Evolution, can be seen on the Roadmap as there will be 5 new events, including the 4 main ones that have been done in the past (Anniversary, Halloween, Winter, Lunar New Year), all of which they plan to one-up. However, sprinkled throughout the year will be other, smaller events, such as the one planned for late summer.

That's right, the Scorching Summer Barbeque returns!

The second pillar is Trust and Security, which has become a much greater priority over the past year or so, and reflects the systems put in place to ensure the game is more secure, and also in an increased level of transparency with players.

First of all, they are about to launch as vulnerabilities disclosure program, which will allow the team to work with people inside of and outside of the community to report potential threats to the game, the servers, etc, and really help the overall security of the game. Stay tuned for more information about that initiative, it should be coming in the near future.

As mentioned earlier, the devs are looking towards revamping their streaming strategy to help provide more information and better update the players on a lot of the features and initiatives announced during this stream, and any announced before or in the future.

One of those topics also happens to be the third pillar, which is Live Balance. Nat and Jeff will be explaining this more in a segment dedicated to it later.

Finally, the fourth pillar is Quality of Life- improving how the game feels to play and navigate. Like Live Balance, rafael and Pamela will discuss this more in a later section.

However, as revealed in the roadmap, among said Balance and QOL updates are some heavily requested features, like map balancing, an anti-camping mechanic, perk search bars, disconnect bots, and an improved player report system.

Anniversary Chapter | End Transmission

To intorduce us to Dead By Daylight: End Transmission is Dave.

Your anniversary Chapter has arrived! Featuring a new killer, The Singularity, a new survivor, Gabriel Soma, and a new map, the Toba Landing. You can watch the trailer for this here:

End Transmission marks the beginning of an entirely new genre for DBD to explore- sci-fi horror. It features characters from one possible future, and takes place on a distant and unknown planet. Traditionally, we'd be exploring the Map of the chapter, however instead enjoy a behind the scenes reel of creating the chapter.

There are three main things that the team wanted to explore in End Transmission. Firstly, they had to really encapsulate that feeling of an alien world. This isn't somewhere familiar or comfortable, but somewhere distant, alien (excuse the pun), and that you are truly lost in space. Secondly, all the human technology had to feel weak and lo-fi, so that there's never a feeling of security within the settlements. Finally, they had to add traces of a long-lost civilisation.

The map for this chapter is a hostile and savage jungle, where almost everything is designed to be a death trap. This allowed for a super dense, super threatening design combining organic themes with unfamiliarity. Everything looks like it could be found normally in nature, and also like it could kill you.

The main building was designed to look like a safe hub, literally elevated away from the ground to distance it so clearly from the rest of the environment. However, once you enter the structure, it becomes clear that it's actually far more dangerous than the outside could ever be.

Here's a closer peek at The Singularity:

The Singularity is an AI that was designed to help the human crew settle onto this new planet. However, while scouting, it came into contact with some alien technology and gained sentience. One thing the team likes about The Singularity is that it's the inverse of a typical cyborg- usually, it's an organic creature using machinery to become more powerful, however here they're doing it in reverse.

The Singularity's power is the ability to spread Biopods around the map, and implant your consciousness into these Biopods. Any survivors caught inside of it's reticle will be infected, allowing The Singularity to teleport to them and attack. An infection can spread to other survivors, inflicting discord and a sense of distrust among the team, and allowing for powerful snowballing.

The human presence, though, is easy to find in the map. The landmarks tell the story of a company that tried to colonise and find it's place in this world, only to fail with rather fatal consequences. Gabriel Soma is the final survivor of this failed expansion. He is resourceful, capable, and adaptable, and the team wanted to make sure that he was a realistic and grounded character despite the setting.

A closer look at the map:

Finally, the chapter art:

This Chapter was a challenge for the whole team, however they're really excited for players to get their hands on the content. The Public Test Build featuring End Tranmission content will go live Tuesday 23rd May at 11am EDT.

End Tranmission officially releases June 13th.

Gameplay Improvements | QOL and Balance

Live Balance

This section of the stream is lead by Jeff and Natalie.

There are three main points to address in this segment: continued game balance, map balancing, and a mechanic to address facecamping.

Last year involved the biggest ever Meta Shakeup in DBD, changing roughly 50 perks in a single update. However, the team want to make that a much more consistent occurance on a smaller scale, and they've revisted their Live Design process to accomodate this. Instead of one or two massive changes, they're instead planning on having much more targeted changes in every update. Moreover, they plan on acting on feedback much quicker than they used to, to ensure they have the flexibility to make changes much quicker to ensure a healthier game experience overall.

Moving on, the team want to reassure us that maps are also being included in these regular gameplay updates. What map is played on can have a substantial difference in the outcome of the game, and most maps are very polarising as either killer sided or survivor sided, with very few if any commonly seen as balanced towards both sides equally, and the team would like to change that. This process was started with the RPD rework, and followed it with Eyerie of Crows, as well as Blood Lodge and Gas Heaven. And, most importantly, the next two maps to be targeted are Fractured Cowshed and Rancid Abattoir.

Yes, Fractured Cowshed may finally be getting some nerfs. These changes are scheduled to go live sometime before the end of summer.

Natalie would also like to emphasise that it's incredibly important that you ensure your feedback is made known through the official channels, as that's how the team will know to make these changes, and if their proposed revamps are good ideas or not.

One final feature to discuss revolved around face-camping. Face-camping is a term used to describe when a killer stands in front of a hooked survivor and refuses to move, or do anything really, usually for a large portion if not the entirety of the match. It's possibly one of the most anti-fun strategies around for all 5 players involved, so the devs are trialing a new system to help with these situations.

Essentially, a hooked survivor now has a meter that fills up on their screen, based on the Killer's distance to said survivor; the closer the killer is, the faster it fills, and vice-versa. Once full, the hooked survivor is able to unhook themselves, even in the Struggle Phase (where this is normally impossible). They gain the full benefits of being unhooked here, including the 10 seconds of Haste and Endurance. Of course, to help prevent abuse of this mechanic, if there are other survivors around the hooked survivor, this meter will fill up substantially slower than it otherwise would. Moreover, once the Exit Gates are powered, this feature is turned off completely.

A killer being within 5 meters of a hooked survivor will cause this meter to increase substantially. Between 5 and 10 meters causes a gradual increase. A killer being further than 16 meters from a hooked survivor will cause the meter to stop filling up completely.

This is meant to target only the most egregious instances of face-camping, and not act as a hard counter to all instances.

This feature is planned to enter a PTB later this year, and as mentioned earlier, the team will be very open to feedback.

To read more about this, the team have uploaded a short blog post detailing these changes too.

Quality of Life

This segment is run by Raphaël and Pamela, and their goal is to give a rough idea of when we can expect these upcoming features.

DBD has been going for 7 years now, and during that time players' inventories have become very cluttered with Perks, Items, Add-ons, Offerings, and Charms. Last year, they introduced Preset Loadouts, to help with this clutter, however the team are happy to announce that they are building on this feature some more.

We are getting a loadout search bar.

To find anything, all you need to type is either the name of the item, or a word within the description. For example, searching "generator"

Will reveal all the Perks related to generators.

This feature will be available on all platforms, and is going live on May 23rd/June 13th in the End Transmission (PTB).

Survivor Disconnect Bots are also coming! This was announced around 2-3 years ago, and will replace any disconnected Survivors with AI bots (as well as providing a helpful UI indiactor and sound queue that the player is actually a bot).

The team hopes this feature will help alleviate frustration in playing out games. This feature is planned to release in summer.

The next feature the team are excited to announce is Player Cards. Alongside your name, you'll be able to assign an icon, a banner, a background, the whole shebang, and you'll be able to earn these Cosmetics initially in autumn, however they'll become mainstay rewards in every tome going forward too.

Finally, the team would like to reveal a large step forwards in player trust and safety: an improved report system.

Currently, there isn't much visibility during the report process: you report a player, send a ticket to Support, and that's it. The upcoming Player Report Feedback feature will hopefully greatly improve transparency and allow players to understand when their reports have been processed and actioned.

This feature is planned to release over the summer.

For more information about these QOL changes, the devs have uploaded a short blog post.

Additional Media | What Lies Beyond

Prequel Comics

The Dead By Daylight: Prequel Comic Series is releasing soon, with Issue 1 available this June, Issue 2 available in July, and Issues 3 and 4 coming Soon:tm:. Written by Nadia Shammas and illustrated by Dillon Snook, the comic tells the origin story of The Legion as a group. Moreover, any purchase of a physical copy of the comic will come with an exclusive Charm.

Dead By Daylight Mobile | The Next Era of Horror

Coming soon to DBD Mobile:

• The Twins and Élodie Rakoto as playable characters.
• New exclusive outfits for Jake Park, Claudette Morel, The Plague, and The Doctor

• A new season, "Dark Trials"

Video Games

This section of the Stream is hosted by Stephen Mulrooney, featuring appearances from Steve Goss and Traci Tufte (Supermassive Games), and Mary Olsen and Audrey Mladina (Midwinter Entertainment)

That's right, we're not just getting updates to the core game, but entirely new spin-offs. BHVR are partnering with Supermassive Games (The Quarry, Until Dawn, The Dark Pictures Anthology) and their recently aquired Midwinter Entertainment (Scavengers) for two brand new games set in the DBD universe.

Supermassive Games

Supermassive Games, as are their specialty, are working on a single-player, branching-narrative experience of a new cast of characters discovering the secrets and mysteries of The Entity. As usually happens in Supermassive Games'... games, choices matter, and can shape the entire storyline.

Midwinter Entertainment

Midwinter, meanwhile, are working on a multiplayer PvE experience set inside the Realm of the Entity. Instead of facing each other, up to 4 players can team up to face off against the multitude of horrors that awaits them. The game contains key themes of greed and a lust for power, which can be found both in the gameplay and the story of the characters who were tempted to explore a strange, entirely new section of the Entity's Realm.

There's still a lot of work to do before any more information can be shared about these games, but stay up to date and check out the official website (also found in this hyperlink) to learn more about What Lies Beyond the realm of the Entity (see what I did there?).

A Look at the Store | Community and Collaborations

This section of the stream is hosted by Xavier and Rose, with a special guest later, and they plan on sharing more about the most exciting upcoming Cosmetic Collections arriving to DBD.

Music Collaborations | Slipknot and Iron Maiden

BHVR are also partnering up with famous metal groups Slipknot and Iron Maiden for two collaborations, named after each group respectfully, although there's no real release date just yet.

The Iron Maiden Collection is built all around Eddie, with all the cosmetics showcasing his appearances on various album covers, while the Slipknot Collection is one to showcase many of their trademark masks.

You know, these things.

There will be 9 masks in total (all for killers, of course), paying tribute to some of the most well known members over the years.

Artists from the Fog Collection

A few of you may remember this tweet from last year:

Well, the cosmetics from these contracts are finally coming to pass. Here's the concept art, created by these four artists, featuring outfits for Felix Richter, Yun-Jin Lee, The Huntress, and The Twins.

Felix Richter- "Inspiration Seeker". This outfit was designed by Hunnybear (@hunnybear, @hunnybe4r on Twitter)

The Huntress- "Doll Collector". This outfit was designed by JayArtist.

Yun-Jin Lee- "Surprise Performance". This outfit was created by Manuelojea (@artis_lc on Twitter)

The Twins - "Flesh and Bones". This outfit was created by RainyRivulet (@Rainyrivulet on Twitter)

Finally, there's a fifth member, personally invited by the team to be a part of this collection- the absolute icon and embodiment of talent Ikumi Nakamura.

And yes, they somehow got her on the stream.

Ikumi Nakamura

Best known for her work on games such as Evil Within, Okami, Bayonetta, and Ghostwire: Tokyo, Ikumi Nakamura has collaborated with BHVR on a series of Cosmetics! The collection also features skins for The Oni and The Legion (Julie). These characters were chosen for how much they resonate with the Japanese fans of DBD.

All Cosmetics from the Artists of the Fog collection, including those made by Ikumi Nakamura, will be available this summer. It is worth noting, all of Ikumi Nakamura's cosmetics will be linked sets.

Naughty Bear

A long-requested skin addition, Naughty Bear (another of BHVR's games) finally arrives in Dead By Daylight in his full glory for the Trapper. Here's the concept art for the skin:

Coming sometime in 2023. Oh, and this skin will have a completely unique mori, by the way.

In-Game Events | Pre-Anniversary, Anniversary, and More!

This segment of the Stream is hosted by Sarah and Jean.

Pre-Anniversary | Before the Masquerade

Alongside our large Anniversary Event this year, we're going big. Kicking off the celebrations will be a month long campaign leading up the Anniversary Event, celebrating the 7 years of Dead By Daylight. Each year will focus on a different two year period of DBD's history, including characters, maps, and mechanics introduced during those years.

Week One will feature Bloodhunts (May 23rd-30th)

Week Two will feature Double Rift Fragments (May 30th-June 6th)

And Week Three will feature a Community Choice event to take place during the release of Chapter 28: End Transmission (June 6th-June 13th)

Twisted Masquerade | The Re-Up

Your anniversary Event is here, too! Returning from last year, the Twisted Masquerade is back for more, bigger and better than ever. It will begin June 21st.

However this year, the Host has stepped further out of the shadows and lent their certain... special kind of decorating skills to the in-game event. Father Campbell's Chapel has been completely redecorated for the occasion.

Here's all the information on the event.

This confirms the return of the Anniversary Offerings once more, this time in the form of the new Terrormisu dessert. We can take a guess this'll be a stackable bonus of 107% BP to all players involved.

Furthermore, found around the map are some weird, ghostly spirits that players can interact with in trial.

This year also introduces another twelve masks for new characters:

However, the obtainment method has been altered slightly. Now, all Masquerade Invitations will hold Charges, and players are able to use these Charges to mess with their opponents while in chase. A Survivor is able to block a window for a killer, or spawn an emergency single-use pallet. A killer, however, will be able to reduce the impact of a stun, break pallets and breakable walls from a distance, or inflict Exposed once they reach a tier of Bloodlust.

Making it to a point in the match where an exit has appeared, be it the Exit Gates being powered or the Hatch having opened, while posessing at least one charge of the Invitation, will unlock a mask.

Beyond the masks, there are some more Masquerade-related cosmetics releasing, including two brand new outfits for the Tome. These are for The Hillbilly and Nea Karlsson.

All of last year's Cosmetics (both Masks and Outfits) will be available for purchase in the Store.

Plus, there's some Anniversary-themed charms like last year, including this birb.

As some of you may have noticed, the Event pop-up is now multi-tabbed.

You'll be able to find a Collection tab and a Store tab. The Collection tab will show anything that can be earned through event Gameplay or the Event Tome.

Meanwhile the Store tab will show any related Store-based cosmetics.

And yes, those are some new Masquerade themed outfits for Feng Min and Ghost Face.

Moreover, once the Anniversary Event is live, the team will be doing giveways for previous Anniversary Cosmetics, including certain Outfits:

(I'd like to make it clear they did not specify which Anniversary Cosmetics would be available for giveaway, these are simply here as an example of potential cosmetics).

And the Year 5 Crowns:

The team are excited to debut a brand new kind of challenge: Random Perks. And yes, that's exactly what it sounds like- your loadout is equiped with randomly chosen perks. These are likely to be seen on more simple challenges, such as heal x amount of survivors or repair x amount of generators.

Also, Community Challenges finally make their return!

Don't forget, the Road To Anniversary content starts May 23rd!

Nicolas Cage | Half-Chapter

As teased earlier this month on May 17th, and as Mathieu has been trying to say literally all Stream, Nicolas Cage is coming to Dead By daylight in a solo chapter (alongside the release of Tome 16)! Check out the teaser below, with more news to come July 5th.

Ending

A big thank you from the entire Dead By Daylight team to you, the playerbase.

And a big thank you from me to the entire Dead By Daylight team.

It is 2:33am. I am beyond exhausted. My coffee ran out less than 25 minutes into the stream. Have a good night everyone. I hope you enjoyed this brief summary of events, thank you for putting up with my bs here for another year, and feel free to point out any typos or grammatical errors (reminder that I follow British English spelling, if that helps) so that I can correct them in a couple days.

Wow, omg, it's a picture of a cow.

(this is how I think Mandy feels when she sees I've made yet another of these).