Tips and Tricks – Dead by Daylight

Dead by Daylight is a relatively simple game to pick up and play, but you could also play for 500 hours and still not know everything there is to know. In this guide, I’ve tried to share some of things that I wish someone had told me when I started playing! Here are our best DBD tips, in descending order of usefulness:

• If you want to get better, play both sides – Even if you don’t enjoy Killer, or don’t enjoy Survivor, just playing 2 or 3 games of it will vastly improve your play. Understanding how scratch marks look to the Killer, or seeing how Survivors can look over obstacles, can be invaluable knowledge.
• When you fail any skill check, the Killer gets a notification – It’s obvious that when the Generator explodes, you’ve drawn attention, but did you know that failing a skill check while Healing yourself or another Survivor also gives the Killer a Loud Noise notification, showing them where you are?
• You can hide from Barbeque & Chili by crouching behind a Generator – The usual move is to hide in a locker, but that wastes time. The aura of the generator will hide you from the Killer if they have BBQ: Pay attention to where your teammate is downed, and position yourself so you can crouch behind the Generator with the Gen in between you and the hook.

• You make almost no sound while in a locker – If you’re injured and need to hide from the Killer, a locker will significantly muffle the injured sounds your Survivor makes.
• You have no collision after taking damage as a Survivor – Usually, the Killer and other Survivors can block your movement. Just after being hit, however, you have a few seconds where you can move through the Killer or your fellow Survivors. This can be especially important if the Killer (or a teammate) is blocking your only escape route.
• Windows can spawn open or closed – This took be forever to figure out, and I used to be so confused why a window I jumped through one game was gone the next. It’s important to look where the doors and windows are in the area you’re patrolling/working on Gens, since they’ll be different each game.

• Waving your arms on the hook is a form of communication – While now this isn’t used consistently, way back when the game first released everyone know that you move your arms on the hook when the killer is near, and stay still if it’s safe to rescue you. To move your arms, start an escape attempt from the hook, but don’t complete it.
• A Survivor’s wiggle meter doesn’t reset if the Killer drops them – This is more useful info for Killers, but can be nice to know as a Survivor as well. What this means is, if you’ve taken a Survivor partway to a hook while they wiggle, and then have to put them down, when you pick them up they’ll have progressed some amount towards escaping your grasp.
• Chests have a medkit 37% of the time, and always spawn in the Basement – If you desperately need to heal, try to find the basement Chest (which should be either in the main building, or in the Killer’s shack). You’ll get a medkit approximately 1/3 of the time.

• Survivors tend to spawn opposite the Killer – You should have a pretty good idea of which direction your opponent spawned in. Note that if you spawn in one corner of some of the larger maps, it’s possible that the Killer/Survivors are not in the opposite corner, but in one of the corners to your left or right.
• Broken Keys and regular Keys look the same in-game – This is important to know because Killer’s will often tunnel a person with a key. If you find one of those green Broken Keys in a Chest, you’re probably better off leaving it there, since it’s useless without Add-ons anyway.
• Don’t ignore the crows – Not only do crows fly away when a player disturbs them, but they also respawn after a brief time and fly back down to where they were perched. If you see a crow fly up into the air, you know the Killer or a Survivor was just at that location. If you see a crow respawn and fly back down, you know someone was there a few moments ago.

• “Tap” Gens to check for Ruin – It’s good to know if the Killer is running Hex: Ruin, and you can check at the start of the game simply by tapping a Gen (start repairing it and then immediately stop). If the Killer has Ruin, the Gen will start regressing and smoke a bit. You’ll also see the icon on your UI indicating that you’re Hexed , which is useful because you’ll know if a fellow Survivor destroys the Hex totem (the Hexed Status Effect will disappear from your UI).

We hope these tips and tricks are helpful! If you have any you’d like us to add, just let us know in the comments below.