I love slasher movies and video games, so a horror video game where you play as a slasher sounds like a great fit for me. It was when it came to the amazing Friday The 13th The Game, but when it comes to Dead by Daylight, the story is a bit different. Its not that I prefer one due to being a fan of the franchise, as many franchises are represented in Dead by Daylight. Rather it is that the game and especially the Switch port, do not run well.
I wanted to like Dead by Daylight, but from the start there were issues. Not all the DLC is here, and that is a bit annoying, and there are a lot of microtransactions. It seems that if you want anything new in the game, then you need to buy it. I like earning new content in a game and this just felt like a way to nickel and dime me for even more. I am not complaining that the dlc is not bundled with the game, but the pricing does feel a bit egregious to me considering what the base game costs on Switch versus other platforms. You can earn some of the content by playing, which is nice, but the amount of cosmetics pushed on you is annoying.I get that the dlc is priced that way because of the licensing involved, don’t get me wrong. Its just that without all the DLC here, and the amount of cosmetic dlc that is pushed, I feel the game goes too far in the wrong direction.
But the deeper issue is that the game has some design flaws. The game may let you choose to play as a slasher or a survivor, but there are serious framrerate issues depending on which you choose and this can throw off many a game. Sometimes the killer’s framerate is better than the survivors and sometimes the survivor is faster but in either case the lag causes the game to be thrown into chaos. This is not the only online issue though, as there is difficulty even finding a game online. I hate to keep comparing this to Friday the 13th The Game, but there I had no issues with finding any match to play. I would wait here for long periods until I timed out. This was frustrating and the matches I did have were a mess, with poor hit detection and glitches.
The game has very low quality visuals, as well. I attribute this to the already shaky visuals of the other versions not translating well to Switch. Sometimes the visuals go to N64 levels of textures and I just shake my head in disappointment. Fortunately it is not all bad as the character growth trees are a nice innovation.. The basic idea works well, and while it can be confusing when put in practice, it just requires some patience to learn. Each character has their own individual strengths and weaknesses and this gave some fun elements to the game. Sadly it was just not enough to save it for me from the overall design problems.
In conclusion, Dead by Daylight on Switch is a mess and I would recommend avoiding it unless on sale. I suggest looking elsewhere for your horror needs.
Disclaimer: a review key was provided