Dead By Daylight dev apologizes to angry fans and promises Kill Switch overhaul

It's been a particularly tricky few days for Dead By Daylight - a game that is, admittedly, no stranger to bumps in the road. A couple of buggy patches and problematic perks, and criticism of Behaviour Interactive's Kill Switch system, has seen community sentiment sour despite the recent release of its The Walking Dead crossover. Now, Behaviour has issued a statement apologizing to DBD fans for the recent issues and promising a review and overhaul of the Kill Switch.

"We have followed your conversations very closely about the state of the game of late, and we agree it's not in the place we all would like it to be," the studio admits right at the top of this new statement. "Recent releases, including our most recent, have introduced frustrating new issues which have distracted from your enjoyment of Dead by Daylight. We wanted to acknowledge this and let you in on the steps we'll be taking to resolve these issues in the short and long term."

Wow - a powerful message of accountability there. While it would take a true catastrophe to see Dead By Daylight booted from our best horror games list, there is no denying that recent updates have had their issues, and Behaviour holding its hands up is admirable. But what's it actually doing to change things?

Well, a lot of the outrage of recent days has stemmed from its Kill Switch system. The Kill Switch can essentially turn off broken, buggy, or exploited gameplay mechanics to ensure the overall health of the game isn't impacted while Behaviour works on fixes. Recently, the community has been calling for the Streetwise perk to be outlawed due to an exploit. While Behaviour acknowledged players' reports, a few days later it revealed that Streetwise "didn't meet the criteria" to be disabled by the Kill Switch because it wasn't breaking the game. This led to confusion and criticism; what actually is the criteria, and how can an exploited perk not qualify?

Alongside today's statement, Behaviour has now finally caved and flicked the Kill Switch on Streetwise (plus fellow perks Last Stand and Blood Rush) and revealed some hotfixes for other niggling issues are on the way. It's also pledging to overhaul its Kill Switch system and be more transparent about its criteria in the future.

"As a result of your feedback and internal discussions on the same topic, we will immediately be rebuilding our internal Kill Switch process to be more nimble and better account for community sentiment," Behaviour says. "We understand you have an expectation of this tool that doesn't match how we have been using it and wish to improve this.

"Once we've settled on a new process, we will clearly communicate the criteria to trigger a Kill Switch to make sure your expectations are better in line with our actions.

"Finally, we wanted to address the comments made by the team about the Kill Switch and Streetwise. We apologize for how these comments dismissed your feelings about the importance of quickly addressing Streetwise and further fanned the flames of an already tense topic."

While washy apologies and 'we're listening!' posts are commonplace in gaming, Behaviour's dodged the tropes here with a candid and honest message to DBD fans. How long it'll take for the Kill Switch system to be reviewed and for the new criteria to be revealed remains to be seen, but it's bound to be high-priority given how much of a headache it's causing at the moment.

Until we hear more, check out some of the best DBD codes to bag yourself some freebies. Alternatively, if you're thinking about upgrading your PC soon, take a look at our best graphics cards guide.

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