Dead by Daylight | Beginner Guide

Dead by Daylight pits one player-controlled Killer against four player-controlled Survivors in a tense game of cat and mouse. Survivors must repair generators scattered across the map to power the exit gates, then escape before the Killer catches and sacrifices them. The Killer's job is to find, down, hook, and ultimately sacrifice all Survivors to a malevolent entity. Both sides earn progression currency after each match, which is used to unlock new perks and abilities for their roster of characters.

© Behaviour Interactive. Images from official press kit.

Every session follows the same structure. Understanding this before you start makes everything click.

Repairing generators is the core task for Survivors and requires holding an interact button while occasionally hitting skill checks, circular prompts that appear randomly on screen. Missing a skill check causes a loud noise burst that alerts the Killer and regresses the generator slightly. Hitting the smaller 'great' zone on a skill check speeds up repair progress, so staying focused while on a gen is important.

When the Killer spots you, a chase begins and you need to survive long enough to waste their time while teammates work on generators. Survivors use map structures called 'loops', fences, pallets, and walls, to create distance. Knowing which loops are strong and how to use them efficiently is one of the most important survivor skills to develop.

When a Survivor is hooked, they go through two hook stages before being sacrificed permanently. Teammates can rush in to unhook them, but the hooked Survivor must wait and not struggle too early. Being unhooked resets your stage counter only under certain perk conditions, so being hooked repeatedly across a match is increasingly dangerous.

Both Killers and Survivors can equip up to 4 perks per match, which provide passive bonuses or powerful situational abilities. Perks are unlocked on specific characters but can be transferred to any character of the same role via the Bloodweb progression system. As a beginner, focus on learning a few strong universal perks rather than trying to min-max a complex build.

The Killer emits a heartbeat-like audio cue called a Terror Radius that Survivors can hear when the Killer is nearby. The radius size varies by Killer, some have enormous ones, some can suppress it entirely. Survivors can use this audio cue to anticipate when to drop generators, prepare for chases, or sneak toward hooks for rescues while the Killer is occupied elsewhere.

Ready to go deeper? Start with the first section of this guide.