Please Consider Adding a South African Server – High Latency Is Making DBD Unplayable
I’m a long-time Dead by Daylight player from South Africa, and I’d like to raise awareness about the severe latency issues we face due to the lack of a nearby server.
Right now, we are routed to Europe, resulting in ping ranging from 180ms to 220ms — sometimes higher. This high latency makes precision-based gameplay extremely difficult, especially for survivors who rely on timing for vaults, skill checks, and avoiding hits. Even as killers, the delay in hit registration or survivor positions leads to constant frustration and unfair-feeling outcomes for both sides.
Why South Africa Needs a Server:
- Riot Games successfully launched South African servers for Valorant in 2023 in partnership with Carry1st.
- We have AWS Cape Town infrastructure already available and capable.
- South Africa has a strong and growing DBD community, many of whom would return or stay long-term if we had better latency.
- Other underserved African countries would also benefit from this — it's not just SA.
Even if a server isn’t feasible immediately, is there any plan to improve routing, or even host temporary test servers like Riot did before their full launch? We love this game, but right now it feels like we’re being left behind purely because of where we live.
Update 18 August 2025
This thread is shaping up into a powerful showcase of how widespread the latency issue truly is. Right now, we’re hearing from players in:
- South Africa & nearby islands (La Réunion, Mauritius, Namibia) struggling with 180–220 ms ping.
- Central Asia / CIS hoping for pathways through sites like Helsinki or Budapest.
- Middle East players waiting for access closer than EU servers.
- Central US players suddenly seeing rubberbanding or unplayable spikes — even if they previously had smooth gameplay pre-TWD update.
Let’s make a clear summary post to capture all of this and use it to press for:
- Actual new servers in Cape Town, Stockholm, UAE/Saudi, and central US fallback,
- Even temporary test servers or improved routing would be so better than where we’re at now.
If you’re reading this — drop your region + your average ping. Let’s build a united front so Behaviour can’t ignore how lucrative and underserved these regions are.
Comments
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200 ping is insane…I hope bhvr hears you
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Yes, I second this, please consider to add a server in South Africa, I live on a French Island called La Reunion which is near South Africa and Mauritius, and I also think that people will play more if we had decent latency. I AVOID playing killer to not give an unpleasant experience to others which is not really fair. I like playing both sides.
I love the game since the release in 2016!
I played yesterday and 3 times I use a pallet and because of the latency, I was not on the good side apparently and the killer got a free hit 😭 or I have to pre drop pallets too, I get hit even after passing windows etc…Right now, my partner plays Call of duty, and he had the chance (for once) to be connected to a South African server with only 40 ms which is life changing for us. Habitually we play all online games with 200 ms. For DBD, I’m connected now to Asian servers which allow me to play at 150~160 ms it is better but not good.
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Thank you so much! It really is brutal — you basically have to pre-drop every pallet and still get hit through them.
The worst part is that the South African community is so active, but the high ping pushes people away. If we had even just 50–80ms, it would change the experience completely.
Really hoping BHVR sees how much potential this region has!
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You’re 100% right: Dead by Daylight becomes frustrating with this kind of latency, especially when you're trying to enjoy both sides fairly. Pre-dropping pallets, getting hit after vaults, or even watching your teammate go down before you see the killer swing — it's just not the experience the devs intended.
Your point about Call of Duty randomly connecting to a South African server is huge! That shows it’s already technically possible and that Behaviour wouldn’t be starting from scratch if they looked into this. AWS Cape Town is there, Riot Games already uses it, and players from South Africa, La Réunion, Mauritius, Namibia, and more could all benefit.
We just need Behaviour to hear us. Every voice matters, so thank you for raising yours💖
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May the entity be mercifull and grant us SA players a reasonable ping….
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need one closer to central asia too, maybe in stockholm
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If only the Entity could grant that wish! 🙏
Seriously though, it’s wild that we’re still stuck at ~200ms when AWS Cape Town servers are just sitting there. Imagine having 40–60ms and being able to actually react instead of predict. That would be game-changing for all of us in SA — and even players in nearby regions like La Réunion, Mauritius, and Namibia.
The more we make noise now, the more chance Behaviour sees how many regions would benefit from this. 💪
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Absolutely — latency hurts no matter where you are.
A Stockholm server could definitely help a lot of Central Asia and Eastern Europe players the same way a Cape Town server would help Southern Africa and nearby islands. The game feels so much better when your ping is under 100ms — you can actually react instead of pre-empt every action.
Hopefully Behaviour looks at all underserved regions and realises there’s a huge opportunity to make DBD more playable for everyone.
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We don't even have enough servers over here, I'm in the American Midwest and I get the same ping problems. It was actually okay before the TWD update but since then half my matches are almost unplayable with how laggy they've become. Rubberbanding everywhere, unresponsive killer powers, hitting survivors except they're not hit and they teleport five feet away, getting hit over vaults like the killer's weapon is teleporting to me, it's horrible and yet another reason for me to stop playing this game.
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Central us servers while you're at it please! Servers also needed in the middle east!
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More servers is better ping for all, I hope this happens.
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South Africa and people from CIS gets ignored and forced to play with 200+ ping despite having big funbase
More servers to Europe…
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Totally feel you — and that’s honestly the scary part. It’s not even just regions like South Africa or Central Asia anymore — even players in the US are now getting rubberbanding, delayed hit validation, and teleporting survivors/killers.
It definitely feels like whatever changes happened in/after the TWD update just overloaded the current server infrastructure and there aren’t enough regional servers to handle the extra traffic.
This is why Behaviour really needs to take a serious look at server distribution and capacity globally —
- underserved regions (like Southern Africa, Central Asia, etc.) need new dedicated servers, and
- regions that already have servers (like NA/EU) need more capacity or better routing so players don’t suddenly jump to 150–200+ms.
You shouldn’t be getting that kind of ping in the Midwest — that’s a clear sign something is wrong.
The more of us that speak up about it (from all regions), the harder it’ll be for them to ignore. 🙏
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Exactly! At this point it’s not just one isolated region
- Central US players are dealing with random spikes and bad routing,
- Middle East players still have to connect to EU with 150–200ms+,
- Southern Africa, La Réunion, Mauritius, Namibia are completely unserved and stuck at 180–220ms,
- Central Asia/Eastern Europe are begging for something closer like Stockholm…
This is a global issue and it feels like the current server distribution just doesn’t match the actual player base anymore.
Would be amazing if Behaviour could do a proper server infrastructure review and look at adding:
• Cape Town (for Southern Africa & nearby islands)
• Riyadh / UAE (for the Middle East)
• Stockholm / Budapest (for Central Asia/Eastern Europe)
• Extra Central US instances for load balancingEven one or two of these would improve the game so much for so many players.
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Completely agree — more servers doesn’t just help the underserved regions, it improves overall stability and load balancing for everyone.
Even players who already have <100 ms will benefit when traffic is spread across more locations instead of being funnelled into a few overloaded ones.
If enough of us keep pushing this, it’s something Behaviour can eventually act on.
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Exactly. South African players and CIS players have been supporting this game for years, yet we’re still forced to play on servers that give us 200+ ms like our regions don’t even exist.
Meanwhile EU gets new servers and load-balancing improvements — great for them, but it doesn’t help the rest of us who are already two regions away from the nearest server.
All we’re asking for is fair access and a chance to play the game the way it’s meant to be played — not “predict-the-killer-swing” simulator because of latency.
Really hope Behaviour starts listening and finally expands into:
• Cape Town (Southern Africa / Indian Ocean)
• Stockholm or Budapest (CIS / Central Asia / Eastern Europe)
• Middle East (UAE/Saudi)
That alone would make such a massive difference.2 -
this would be great! As someone in EU who has had South African players on my team I feel your pain, more servers please!
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I'd say Helsinki would be a better location than Stockholm, since Sweden is located further west as compared to Finland. Alternately, having a server based in Turkey would probably be better for a central Asia region. Turkey is also close enough for the Middle East region, and the northeastern part of Africa to be connected to a server there, with reasonable ping (ideally less than 80 ms).
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That’s a really good suggestion — Helsinki would definitely be more central than Stockholm for CIS/Central Asian players. And you’re absolutely right about Turkey potentially being the best compromise location overall — it’s geographically positioned to serve:
• Central Asia / CIS
• Middle East
• North-East Africa…all with potentially <80 ms if routed properly.
Honestly, if Behaviour isn’t ready to spin up multiple new server regions, even one strategically-placed server in Turkey could improve things massively for 3 major underserved regions.
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Really appreciate that — honestly it means a lot when even EU players recognize the struggle and back the request. 🙏
Most of us aren’t asking for special treatment — we just want the same kind of gameplay experience you already get by default.
More regional servers = better ping for everyone (less load on the big hubs, less forced rerouting, fewer rubberbanding lobbies).Thanks again for the support — the more voices (even outside the region) the stronger the case becomes!
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This sounds so frustrating. I'm lucky enough to get decent ping (NA West, although I have been noticing some occasional ping issues recently where my connection spikes for no reason) but I think that BHVR absolutely needs to get more servers in these regions. What better "quality of life" is there than letting people play the game as intended? If they're really dedicated to the community, as they claim, then they can't just ignore everyone outside regions with dedicated servers. (Didn't South America get servers recently? I feel like that was a while ago, but.. more of that please!)
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It would also benefit the Balkans and south-eastern Europe to have a server based in Turkey. That would also lessen the load on the current EU server, which is located in the Netherlands if I am not wrong. It is close enough to serve western, central and Northern Europe with reasonable ping.
From my own experience, I get around 40-50 ping when playing on that server. When considering that my location in Northern Norway is pretty far away from the server, it is not that bad.
Even a Turkey-based server could work as a backup solution for the EU region, if anything were to go haywire with the normal EU servers, as I am in the 80-ping range towards Turkey.
Hell, I also consider <120 ping to be acceptable for DBD, when playing with @HeroLives on the US East servers. Granted, some killer abilities are harder to dodge than others at higher ping, but it is manageable.3 -
There is no AWS server in Turkey. The most Eastern European server there is is Stockholm (which should have been the one added to DBD, instead of London). And no, 120 ping is never acceptable. When you're used to proper pings even 50 killer ping feels unfair to go against.
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I completely support this motion.
Everyone should be able to play DbD with normal ping.
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Exactly — and that’s what makes Turkey such a smart option. It’s not just about serving Central Asia or the Middle East — it would also:
• Relieve pressure on the current EU (Netherlands) server
• Still provide reasonable ping to parts of Western / Northern Europe
• Cover regions like the Balkans & South-Eastern Europe that are currently stuck in "between-zones"
• Act as a fallback / backup if the primary EU server ever goes down or gets overloadedThe fact that you’re sitting in Northern Norway and would still get ~80ms to Turkey says a lot — that’s still perfectly playable, and meanwhile regions like CIS / Middle East could finally drop into the 50–80 ms range instead of 150+.
Honestly, the more we keep discussing this, the more it feels like Cape Town + Turkey would instantly solve 70% of the current global latency issues.
Thanks again for continuously adding smart points
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You’re totally right that AWS doesn’t currently have a region in Turkey — at the moment the closest AWS regions are Stockholm and Bahrain.
The suggestion for Turkey is more from a geographic / routing feasibility perspective (i.e. if Behaviour wanted to stand up a server there through another hosting provider or as a custom deployment).That said, Stockholm would still be a massive improvement over London/Netherlands for CIS + Central Asia players — completely agree that it probably should’ve been the location from the start.
And yeah 120 ms still isn’t great — totally fair point. Once you’ve played on <50ms, even 80ms already feels off for some killer abilities.The whole goal here is to try and get everyone as close to that sub-60ms experience as possible (whether that’s Stockholm, Cape Town, Bahrain, etc.).
Thanks for the extra detail — we’re basically all saying the same thing: more correctly placed servers = better gameplay for everyone.
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Thank you — 100% agreed
No matter where you live, everyone deserves to enjoy DbD with normal, playable ping — it’s a competitive game, not a guessing game.Really appreciate the support — every voice counts!
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please african servers bhvr! an average of 170 to 200 is horrible!
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Hope you'll get this soon!
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I play almost daily, yet I get frustrated very quickly, making the times I play not very long. I really, really hope to receive closer servers. I play on 200+ Ping from South Africa :(
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My ping keeps getting me killed, it's getting old it's getting annoying, IDK why they can't just do something about it. I don't believe for one minute that they can't afford it, or like they told me a few years ago "there's not enough interest"… Girl, c'mon! Just scroll through who's streaming DBD and you'll find about 10-20 south africans. Let's not play dumb BHVR.
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