Dead By Daylight: The New Resident Evil Chapter and 5th Anniversary Update
Dead By Daylight is a popular asymmetrical horror game created by Behaviour Interactive that features notable Killers from multiple franchises, such as Michael Meyers from Halloween, Ghostface from Scream, the Demogorgon from Stranger Things, Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street — just to name a few.
Similar to how Marvel’s Avengers was referred to as the most ambitious crossover in history, Dead By Daylight is arguably the best gaming crossover for horror fans. You even have Pyramid Head from Silent Hill, and a recent announcement revealed the next chapter will feature at least one new Survivor and Killer from Capcom’s popular Resident Evil franchise.
The new Survivors and Killer for the Resident Evil chapter were officially announced on May 25th, 2021 — the anniversary of Dead by Daylight’s 5th anniversary and Resident Evil’s 25th anniversary. Since this date was a key milestone for both game franchises, many horror fans were ecstatic that a crossover between the two was announced.
During a trailer of the Dead By Daylight’s celebration stream on Twitch, Leon Kennedy and Jill Valentine were revealed to be the new Survivors. Behaviour has only had two Survivors at a time launched for one other series: Stranger Things. There was much debate about who the Survivors would be, as Behaviour often elects the most notable and recognizable characters who embody the series to be in Dead By Daylight. Going with two here made sense due to how popular Resident Evil is and the sheer amount of games in the series.
Leon and Jill come with three Perks, which is standard to the game. Leon’s Perks are Bite the Bullet, Flashbang, and Rookie Spirit. Bite the Bullet makes it so you don’t make any noise while healing and failed skill checks while healing yourself or others. You also only receive a 1% regression in progress, compared to the standard 10% penalty. Flashbang allows you to enter a locker after finishing a generator to 50% progress with no items to craft a flash grenade. This flash grenade can distract or blind the Killer. Rookie Spirit is activated after completing three good or great skill checks while specifically repairing generators. Once activated, you’ll be able to see the aura of any regressing generators for the remainder of the trial. This Perk could be very useful to know where the Killer is after they’ve kicked in a generator, or if the Killer has Hex: Ruin equipped.
Overall, it seems Flashbang is the most popular Leon Perk so far. Leon’s Perks are good for going in for a daring save to rescue a Survivor being carried by the Killer and to find generators that the Killer has been at. Bite the Bullet seems less useful, as there are other perks like Iron Will that have better use cases. However, Technician offers a similar ability for generators except there is an additional regression in return for not exploding the generator when equipped compared to the minimal penalty with Bite the Bullet.
Jill’s three Perks are Blast Mine, Counterforce, and Resurgence. Blast Mine is activated after completing a total of 66% of repair progress on generators. After repairing a generator for an additional 3 seconds, you can use the ability button to install a trap that remains active for 45 seconds and Survivors are able to see trapped generators with a yellow aura. If the Killer damages a trapped generator, the Killer and anyone nearby are stunned and blinded. Counterforce gives you a 20% increased speed while cleansing totems. After cleaning a totem successfully, the totem farthest from you will show its aura for four seconds and you’ll receive an additional 20% bonus speed to cleaning totems for the remainder of the trial. Finally, Resurgence instantly makes you 50% healed after unhooking yourself or after someone else unhooks you.
As for the Killer, many fans hoped for Lady Dimitrescu from the most recent Capcom game, Resident Evil Village, to be announced. Unfortunately for them, the Killer was revealed to be Nemesis. As the key antagonist in Resident Evil 3, Nemesis (officially known as Nemesis T-Type) was created by the Umbrella Corporation and is ruthless at tracking down S.T.A.R.S. and its member Jill Valentine to kill her. Since Jill is in Dead By Daylight, it makes sense that Nemesis was also chosen. Nemesis’ special ability is using his tentacle to whip Survivors to initially infect them, covering them in blue liquid. After they’re infected, he can use the same whip to injure the Survivors or put them into the dying state.
Nemesis’ three Perks are Lethal Pursuer, Hysteria, and Eruption. Lethal Pursuer allows you to see all of the auras at the start of the trial for seven seconds. Hysteria causes all injured survivors to suffer from the Oblivious status effect for 30 seconds when you put one healthy Survivor into the injured state with a basic attack. Oblivious makes it so you don’t hear the Killer’s terror radius, Last but not least, Eruption is activated after damaging a generator. The damaged generator’s aura will show to you and once you down a Survivor into the dying state with a basic attack, every affected generator by this Perk will explode and regress progress by 6%. Additionally, any Survivor who is currently working on one of these generators when it explodes will scream and have the Incapacitated status effect for 14 seconds. Incapacitated makes it so Survivors are unable to complete basic actions, such as repairing a generator, healing, unhooking others, etc.
Lethal Pursuer can be good at the start of the match to find a Survivor immediately to get the ball rolling, but other perks like Barbecue and Chili or Discordance would be more useful for the game in the long run. Hysteria and Eruption seem decent, but they require to be activated with the use of a basic attack or “M1” attack. This means you can’t use your special move with the tentacle to hurt people, or the Perks will not activate. Overall, Nemesis’ Perks seem a little weaker but it makes up for it with his special ability and zombies.
For the first time ever, artificial intelligence (AI) is introduced to the trials. Nemesis is supported by zombies who are controlled by AI and will wander around the map. They slowly chase after infected Survivors and can even hurt or down them on their own if an infected Survivor passes by. This, of course, makes for hilarious content where you can trap Survivors or corner them into a zombie. You can also let the Survivor wiggle out or let them use Decisive Strike near a zombie and the Survivor will still go down. Both of these actions normally stun the Killer for a few seconds to allow Survivors to gain some distance to continue the chase.
As for the new map, Raccoon City Police Station was chosen and is based on the 2019 remake of Resident Evil 2. It will look most familiar to fans of the game, besides a few small tweaks that the Entity has created; after all, the Entity is the master of the Fog and is known to add its own differences to the replication based on in-game lore. Overall, it’s a humongous map and seems to be the largest one by far compared to the existing maps in Dead By Daylight’s repertoire. The level designers have dedicated a tremendous amount of detail to it, and it’s certainly a gorgeous map but easily becomes a maze.
The Resident Evil chapter will officially launch on June 15th, 2021 to purchase. In the meantime, you can update your Dead By Daylight game if you’re a PC player on Steam to participate in the Public Test Build (PTB for short).
To do this, launch Steam and right-click on Dead By Daylight in your Library. Choose the option for Properties, then use the drop-down menu to select the beta. When you select Save, the game will automatically begin to download the necessary files to participate. For me, this was around 3.5 GB of data and took about 15 to 20 minutes to complete. You might want to let it run in the background while doing something else!
Since this is the beta, expect there to be bugs. The developers offer a place to provide feedback and report issues and bugs so they can hopefully fix them for the official release. Some bugs might include the hitboxes for Nemesis’s special attack featuring his tentacle whip, and one I’ve personally run into is that a three-person generator only allows two people to work on it. The third side is blocked which is definitely annoying for Survivors who want to gen rush the Killer. For those not familiar with Dead By Daylight, gen rushing refers to completing as many as the five generators necessary to power on the exit gate to leave as quickly as possible — ideally before the Killer has the opportunity to hook any Survivors.
With that being said, the new Resident Evil chapter has certainly brought a great deal of anticipation for Dead By Daylight fans. Alongside the Resident Evil chapter, other exciting things that were announced are continuous updates to the graphics of Survivors, Killers, and maps. Coldwind Farm was the first map to get a beautiful and stunning new look to it, making it much brighter visually compared to its dreary past. Dead By Daylight will also be reworking how Memento Moris are used and will eventually become part of the natural gameplay, rather than being an offering that people have to use. Keys will also be revamped alongside it, as right now they serve as an instant escape for any Survivors with a key who can find the hatch before fixing all of the generators and powering on the exit gate to leave.
There is now also a Pride charm available for LGBTQIA+ fans of Dead By Daylight that can be redeemed anytime by using the code “PRIDE” in the Dead By Daylight’s in-game store under the promo code option. These charms can be worn on the belts of Survivors or hung on hooks for Killers. The charm will remain permanently available going forward.
Coming up from July 1st to July 15th, there will be an in-game anniversary event to celebrate five years with Dead By Daylight. There will be lots of opportunities to get in-game items and more Bloodpoints, as well as the Shrine of Secrets changing every single day instead of once a week. The Shrine of Secrets uses the in-game currency of Iridescent Shards. This allows players to unlock teachable perks from other Killers and Survivors that are locked behind DLC paid walls for people who don’t want to pay for more characters. Crowns will also be returning as an exclusive cosmetic that you can unlock per character after finding a crown on a pedestal during a trial and escaping as a Survivor or finishing a game as a Killer.
Plus, Behaviour is giving all players enough Iridescent Shards to unlock one original DLC character that you would normally have to pay for. This means you could choose Feng Min, Ace Visconti, Kate Denson, Adam Francis, Jeffrey “Jeff” Johansson, Jane Romero, Yui Kimura, Zarina Kassir, Felix Richter, Élodie Rakoto, or Yun-Jin Lee for Survivors. For Killers, you could choose from the Hag (Lisa Sherwood), the Doctor (Herman Carter), the Clown (Jeffrey Hawk), the Spirit (Rin Yamaoka), the Legion (Frank, Julie, Susie, and Joey), the Plague (Adiris), the Oni (Kazan Yamaoka), the Deathslinger (Caleb Quinn), the Blight (Talbot Grimes), the Twins (Victor & Charlotte Deshayes), or finally the Trickster (Ji-Woon Hak). If you have all of them unlocked already, you still get Iridescent Shards to use towards cosmetics or trade them for more Blood Points.
All of these Survivors and Killers are original characters created by the Behaviour team and not from existing horror franchises. Keep in mind that the DLC comes with a Survivor and Killer so by choosing one, you would have to pay for the other in the future if you wanted the set. This is still an exciting gift for the 5th anniversary of Dead By Daylight that Behaviour is giving everyone, and last time a new chapter was released (All-Kill), both the game and the DLCs except for the latest Survivor and Killer were on sale on Steam. Keep your eyes peeled for another potential sale during the anniversary event!
The last bit of exciting news that came from the Dead By Daylight 5th anniversary stream is that there are four new Killers, five new Survivors, and two more maps coming out over the next year. I’m looking forward to seeing what they are! For more information and details about what’s coming up, take a look at Behaviour’s post here.
If you haven’t purchased Dead By Daylight yet and you want to check it out, you can buy it on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, the Windows Store, and Google Stadia. See you in the Fog!
