Behaviour Interactive now have four clear focuses for adjusting and improving Dead by Daylight. These are accessibility, map design, reworking killers based on how they play in the game, and making older perks more useful to the modern game. This is all reflected in the new 4.7.0 mid-chapter patch released last week in the game.

First and most important, they’re working on accessibility options in the game. It took many years for them to get on board with making the game more accessible, but now they’ve been adding and adjusting features to do that.

I previously discussed the change to the struggle phase on the hook. This is now a skill check rather than a constant mashing of the spacebar to stay alive. Miss two skill checks and you die. This is a game-changer for me and people like me. I can now play survivor for hours at a time like I do killer because I’m not hurting myself to stay alive. I still prefer killer, but I like the option of playing survivor without upsetting my Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and chronic pain.

There are a few other tweaks for accessibility, as well. First, the settings option is now consistent with toggle buttons for any on/off feature. Consistency makes it easier to sort through options and shows you straight away what your choices are. Second, there are graphic changes to killer overlay effects in the new UI to make them visually distinct from each other and easier to adjust with colorblind options. Third, the Doctor’s effects are being adjusted and toned down as they find a way to minimize visual triggers for gamers with photosensitive disorders.

Second, this patch includes the updated Coldwind Farm maps. They’re spectacular. This is the first time that Dead by Daylight has released a map design that just works with my eyes. I have light sensitivity and depth perception issues, and most maps in this game are too dark for me to see what’s happening without using outside graphical control. Coldwind Farm maps have this haunted, sepia-like tone to them now that just feels dreary. I’ve compared it to the “black and white” scenes from The Wizard of Oz, specifically Dorothy noticing the tornado in the distance. They’ve also spread out the corn so everyone can see on the map, not just survivors.

Right now, Rancid Abattoir and Thompson House are disabled in the game. This is not a bad thing, as Behaviour responded to game breaking bugs and pulled the maps from rotation. No one wants to be body blocked in the basement by the killer who can just leave you there until you DC if they choose not to play the game.

Third, four killers got reworks. Huntress had a few of her add-ons changed to better match the gameplay meta in 2021. She can only have one insta-down hatchet at a time. Exhaustion and hindered effects have been significantly reduced or replaced with effects like making injured survivors louder or increasing the speed of the hatchets in air. These are relatively minor changes that just bring Huntress into 2021 rather than fundamentally change her gameplay.

The Twins received similar tweaks. You can now move the camera when you shift to Charlotte, even though you can’t move the character straight away. Victor’s cooldown for successfully downing a survivor has increased from three seconds to five seconds, but he can move straight away after a successful pounce. The top level undetectable and exposed add-ons last longer. This changes how Victor and Charlotte can be played and will hopefully reduce the amount of players who just leave Victor camped at the hook and continue with Charlotte (or vice versa).

The Nightmare has had his powers tweaked to be a little weaker again. Freddy only has five dream snares instead of eight or seven dream pallets instead of 10. He also slows down when dropping snares or pallets now to discourage spamming them in chase. Forever Freddy is gone as the slowdown in the Dream World add-ons now make survivors louder instead. They also motivated survivors to wake up as using the alarm clock prevents you from going into the dream state for 30 seconds even if you get hit by Freddy. These are all healthy changes for the character. Freddy is still powerful, but now you have to use a little more strategy to succeed with him.

Demogorgon has the biggest rework in this patch. I’ll be honest: I’m not the happiest with this. The changes overall are great and I’ll get used to them, but it does change my strategy in the game. If you’ve ever watched me play on Twitch or YouTube, you know I circle the map, dropping portals at key areas. I always ran an add-on specifically to give me one extra portal, so I definitely had enough to set up for the whole game in the first minute or so. Now, with the update, no add-on provides an extra portal. The strategy that worked so well for me needs to change, but I know that my strategy was not the meta. I would get heckled in chat until the new viewer saw me 4k with my build and realized how it worked. I’ll adjust, but this wasn’t exactly a massive problem that needed fixing. Most likely, that add-on wasn’t really being used so Behavior gave it a new function.

The changes overall are good. Demogorgon traverses the Upside Down faster and recovers quicker. He’s undetectable for three seconds instead of two when emerging and moves a bit faster while preparing a shred attack. All the other add-ons got changed to more powerful effects or buffed to be even better. Tracking add-ons have an increased range. Speed and recovery add-ons are faster. Literally the only thing taken away was one add-on that added an extra portal and I’m only salty because it was a foundation of my Demogorgon build. The character is much stronger now without being less fun to play as or against.

Finally, we have the updated perks in this patch. The VIP is the new Small Game. Small Game now runs on a token system. You will always be able to find totems with Small Game, but each cleansed totem makes your detection ability much more accurate. Most mercifully of all, the game will no longer create the audible ping on a totem you’re already cleansing. The trade off is Small Game doesn’t indicate Trapper’s traps anymore, which is a pretty fair. Just watch where you’re going and get your Inner Strength powered up.

A close second is the Borrowed Time change. The perk is now based on distance, not terror radius. That means it works against Freddy and any killer that can reduce or eliminate its terror radius. That’s closer to how it originally was, and it was a necessary change.

The sad change for me is my beloved Lucky Break. This got nerfed into the ground. Lucky Break used to last for 120/150/180 seconds; now it lasts for 30/45/60 seconds. RIP my Lucky Break/For the People aggressive altruism build. It was nice while it lasted. This wouldn’t be a bad change if they got rid of it being a perk that can no longer be used after the 30/45/60 seconds have passed, but they didn’t. What was great about it was the cumulative effect. I could get use out of Tier III Lucky Break for an entire match; now, I might get one chase out of it.

Overall, this is a much better mid-chapter patch than 4.5.0. Behaviour Interactive greatly improved accessibility, turned a very survivor-sided realm into a fun experience for all players, balanced some killers to better fit the current game, and switched up some perks to be more or less useful to the meta. This is the kind of thoughtful adjustment that can keep Dead by Daylight going strong for years to come.

Dead by Daylight is available on PC, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch.