This is Only The Beginning
Throughout the year, Dead by Daylight will be receiveing some exciting updates. This is only the beginning.
Since launch, Dead by Daylight has come a very long way. We’ve added tons of new content. We brought in 8 new survivors, 8 new killers, 11 new maps set in 8 new locations. We added a bunch of features you had been asking for like “survive with friends” modes, seasonal events, the shrine of secrets and a lot of new languages. We also constantly think of new ways to make the game better and keep you all entertained.
A lot has changed since the launch on Steam, almost two years ago. The Dev team has grown from about 30 at the time of the launch to almost 75 people today. Just like our community has been growing constantly. We want to thank you for joining us on this crazy ride. You have provided us with valuable feedback and helped us make Dead by Daylight the game it is today. Even in our craziest dreams, we couldn’t have imagined getting millions of players to have such a blast playing our game.
It hasn’t been easy every day as supporting an online multiplayer game comes with its fair share of challenges, but it is truly your dedication to the game and your intense enthusiasm that allowed us to push through these challenges. We haven’t stopped creating fresh content and we intend to continue to do so and to improve your experience!
Today, we want you to know that we are more committed than ever to continue supporting Dead by Daylight for years to come. June 2018 will mark our 2-year anniversary, and we believe that this is just the beginning. To start this third year right, we want to share with you our goals and ambitions and discuss a series of changes we want to bring to the game.
To show our commitment to the long-term vision of the game, we feel it is important for us to share our roadmap for the next coming year with you, our players.
Over the course of year 3 (starting in June), Dead by Daylight will be getting 4 new chapters. That means 4 new killers, 4 new survivors and 4 new maps. The goal is to always keep you entertained and to set aside time to keep the game balanced.
We also decided to make a major change about how players unlock survivors and killers. They determine the meta of the game and allow you to embrace the fantasy, to jump into the lore. We feel that it’s important to remove the barriers preventing our players from being able to access this content. That is why, starting from our new chapter, to be released in June, all non-licensed survivors and killers (past and future) will be unlockable through playtime. In other words, players will have the choice between playing their way into the new content or, as before, buying them outright through a DLC chapter.
We’ll revamp the entire economy and add a new “global player level” progression to support this mechanic. If you want to know all the details about how all of this is going to work, stay tuned! We will be sharing an FAQ in the coming weeks.
Regarding licensed characters (David Tapp, Quentin Smith, Laurie Strode, The Pig, The Nightmare, The Cannibal and The Shape), we’d like to offer the same services as for our original characters, but this is a major change and needs to be acceptable to the license owners. We want to be fully transparent with you: this process could be very fast or very long and the answer might be negative for some of them. As soon as we have updates on that one, we’ll let you know.
NEW COSMETICS FOR SURVIVORS AND KILLERS
At the same time as we will be allowing you to unlock characters for free, we’ll start selling cosmetics for them, something that a lot of you have been asking for a long time. This will help us sustain our ambitions for the future of Dead by Daylight in the years to come. Those skins will be purely aesthetic and 100% optional. We’re enthusiastic about the idea of having many more outfits available in-game. Our survivors and our killers deserve to look awesome when they’re running around the trials and we want you to be able to personalize them and show your true colors.
We also want to make sure that there is something for everyone, so most of the outfits will also be accessible with playtime, whether you play casually or crazily. In the same line of thought, there will be outfits for everyone’s budget so you can find the stuff you’re looking for at a price that’s right for you. Also, our team of artists is very proud to give you a sneak peek of some of their creations:
Finally, the ranking system is going to be revamped to offer a more interesting, longer and more inclusive progression. We want all players to be able to feel a constant, significant progress within the ladder. For seasoned players, we’ll introduce a leaderboard in which you’ll need to compete and fight everyday to keep your place until the end of the season. Most importantly, the new ladder will come with a new season format and rewards to unlock as you rise in ranks. Yes! Season rewards! The Emblems system, deployed last week on the PTB, was the first step towards this revamped ladder, making sure that your evolution in it reflect your skills. The next step, the ladders system, will be built on this foundation. We’ll share more about this in the coming months.
Running an online multiplayer game for millions of players on 3 platforms has truly been a thrill ride and it has proven to be quite challenging. Indeed, we feel like we’ve been doing great at adding new exciting content for our players to enjoy, but this experience was sometimes hindered by crashes, bugs or cheaters. That’s something we’re already actively working on we will keep improving all of that as we know it’s key to support our long-term goals.
Adding all these new characters and maps to the game is obviously changing the balance of the game. As far as our design philosophy goes, this is something we embrace, it’s what we want. Every change is important and keeping everything well balanced requires a lot of attention. We want to put a stronger emphasis on this moving forward.
We also want to do a better job at onboarding new players since as it stands today, players are directly thrown into ranked games without ensuring they have the right knowledge to fully enjoy their first hours in the trials. For all these reasons, here is a series of changes we will do moving forward:
We’re going to change the way we’re shipping content. We’re going to move from deploying all content at the same time on every platform to trying new features and content on the PC first, using our PTB (Public Test Build). It means we can push it to all platforms as soon as it’s ready, rather than as soon as we can. This is to ensure that everything that makes it into the game has gone through the many ways it can be played and has received support of the community.
Over the course of a 3-month chapter, we’ll be releasing a mid-chapter update, to look at some of the balancing elements and, when needed, to add quality of life improvements and polish. We want to make sure the game is always fun and exciting for both survivors and killers.
To help make Dead by Daylight a better place for all our players, we’re going to be reinforcing our anti-cheat system.
We’ll be adding a tutorial to help newcomers discover the game mechanics. This tutorial should also allow anyone to brush up their skills before going into ranked games. We expect to be deploying this around June.
Another priority we have is in-game toxicity. We want to make sure Dead by Daylight is a safe and positive place to be. We’ve been evaluating several options, and we will be sharing updates with you as soon as we feel we found a solution that fits our players’ needs.
In summary, over the next 12 months, Dead by Daylight will be expanded and improved with:
- 4 new survivors
- 4 new killers
- 4 new maps
- A new progression system allowing players to unlock non-licensed survivors and killers by playing actively
- New paid cosmetic items that won’t impact the gameplay with most of them unlockable by playing too, whether you play a lot or more casually.
- A new ranking system for a more meaningful, more inclusive and more rewarding progress.
- A new deployment process to trial new features and content on PC first, using PTB, meaning we can push it to all platforms as soon as it feels ready, rather than as soon as we can.
- An anti-cheat reinforcement to help make Dead by Daylight a better place for all players.
- A tutorial mode to improve new players’ onboarding and allow anyone to brush up their skills before going into ranked games.
- Better tools to handle toxicity
- Dedicated mid-chapter patches to make sure the content is as clean as possible, to look at some of the balancing element, but also to add quality of life improvements and polish when needed
We have a lot more in the works for Dead by Daylight. New seasonal events, new features and a constant flow of improvements. We cannot wait to share all these exciting new things coming to the game for year 3 and to give you more details about how all these changes. The entire Dead by Daylight Dev team thanks you for all the support you’ve given us so far.
See you in The Fog.
The Dead by Daylight team
