I LOVE THIS GAME BUT OH MY GOD

Look. I enjoy the hell out of Dead by Daylight. It scratches an itch. It gives my brain the happy chemicals when I do the big murder or escape by the skin of my teeth. It's a blast with friends, and there's always more content to look forward to.

But man, let me tell you: This game is a disaster. An absolute train wreck. And it will ruin your life. I mean, goodness gracious. Where to start?

THE MONETIZATION

Dead by Daylight--the base game--is $20 as of writing this review, which is the same price it launched with back in 2016 (Okay, technically there was a $17 release sale, whatever). This includes 5 of the as of writing 37 Killers that Behaviour Interactive has thus far released, and 7 of the 44 Survivors that have been released.

There is also a Gold Edition for $70, which "includes the base game and 12 Chapters for a total of 16 Killers and 19 Survivors."

37 paid DLCs have been released for Dead by Daylight (not counting The Last Breath, Left Behind, and A Lullaby for the Dark, which are currently free on PC). The prices for individual Chapters range from $5 to $12, and generally each contain one Killer and one Survivor, though mileage may vary. However, some of the DLC Chapters are no longer available for individual purchase, and must be bought in Packs, which can run anywhere from $10 to $30. Some of these Packs, though, are rather deceptively named, as some of them actually only contain a single Chapter; e.g. the Nicholas Cage Chapter Pack, which is a "Pack" that contains...the Nicholas Cage Chapter.

Now: It may be true that one could theoretically unlock every single unlicensed Survivor and Killer without spending a penny, if one had 3500 or so hours to spend on grinding. But there's a key word in that defense, if you can even call it one--unlicensed. 19 of the paid DLCs that have been released thus far are licensed. That is more than half.

The fact that Behaviour has gotten away with keeping Dead by Daylight's base price the same, despite having a far more egregious monetization model than most free-to-play games is depressing.

BALANCE, THE GRIND, & THE PAY-TO-WIN PROBLEM

Veterans of this game will tell you: The balance of Dead by Daylight has always been a Nightmare (Get it? Freddy mains sound off in the comments, all six of you).

There have been far too many broken metas to list, and many of them have come directly from paid DLCs that released in an incredibly broken state.

Dead by Daylight's balance has come a long way since the days when Brand New Parts instantly repaired Generators and Flashlights instantly blinded Killers, but one thing that has remained a problem since the first paid DLC dropped is that, yes, Dead by Daylight is unequivocally pay-to-win.

Every Killer has an ability and playstyle that is wholly unique to them. Some Killers are simply better than others. The Nurse, a free Killer from the game's first DLC, The Last Breath, has been considered the best Killer in the game since her release. She is also widely considered to be the most difficult--and the least pleasant, if you get motion sickness--Killer to play. So that's pretty cool, right? The best Killer in the game comes with the base game. But she's still one Killer out of 37. And not everyone can master her or even wants to. People have different strengths. The same Killer can be mediocre in one player's hands and top-tier in another's. And sure, you can grind for Iridescent Shards if you want to unlock another unlicensed Killer to try out. But if you don't have hours to grind, or if that new Killer you've been eyeing is a licensed one and you don't want to pay up, well...you're just SOL, bucko.

Along with every new Killer and Survivor that is released comes not only the characters themselves, but also a brand new set of Perks that can only be unlocked by purchasing or unlocking the character. There's also the Shrine of Secrets, but it's honestly hardly worth mentioning. There are hundreds of Perks in the game at this point, and many of them have never even appeared a single time in the Shrine of Secrets.

New Perks grant you new ways to play the game--new strategies and synergies. In the past, often a Perk would get added by a paid DLC that would result in an entire meta centered around it, and before that Perk was finally hit with a nerf (which could sometimes take months), you'd be hard-pressed to find a lobby where every player wasn't running it. So to keep up with the meta, you would often feel like you had to either buy the DLC or grind for hours to unlock the character who had that Perk. Yeah, that's right. You thought you could grind to unlock individual Perks? No, no, no. Think again. This is Dead by Daylight. You first have to grind to get enough Iridescent Shards to unlock the character, and then you have to grind enough Bloodpoints to level them all the way up and prestige them. Only then can you use that character's Perks on other characters. And although the grind is not nearly as bad as it used to be, there are also a whole heck of a lot more characters than there used to be--and thus, a lot more Perks. And of course, again, the Perks associated with licensed characters can only be unlocked by either purchasing the associated DLC or by winning the lottery with the Shrine of Secrets. So if you don't want to pay up and the current meta Perk is part of a licensed DLC...that's right: you're SOL.

ALL OF THIS BEING SAID

There is a reason people keep coming back to this game, and that is that there is simply nothing out there right now that compares to it. Many other games have tried to compete in the asymmetrical horror scene, and all of them have failed. As numerous and deep as the issues are with the game, Dead by Daylight is just plain fun, especially with friends. Simple as.

And yeah, of course I bought the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DLC that lets you turn into a cute doggo, I'm not stupid.