Dead by Daylight Review (Vreynade)
I've played many games in my life, but none of them left me feeling so horrible. A large chunk of the playerbase plays just to torment others in ways transcending the game. They will do anything they can in a match with a sole purpose of making you miserable and then throw insults and mock you after the match. If you abide by their "rules" and play nice, you will likely loose and they will flame you anyway.
Both survivor and killer players are stuck in a gameplay loop that is inherently unfun for both sides in higher levels of play -it's the most "optimal", but also just boring and frustrating for everyone. Many perks are greatly unbalanced, dominating the game. As killer you will feel absolutely powerless and helpless while survivors dance in front of you and mock you. As survivor, you will get targetted by frustrated killers and tunneled out of the game early.
It's a vicious cycle of hatred, "us vs them" mentality and frustration. Many people call themselves toxic and wear it as a badge of honour, acting accordingly. The devs have a history of not acknowledging the state of the community and leaving features (and exploits) in the game that are there specifically to bully players and have nothing to do with actual gameplay. They even told people having issues to play another game in one of their past streams. Therefore, it's unlikely it will ever get better. This issue extends to accessibility issues, as there are macroes people use purely to annoy others, that cause rapidly flashing lights and a persisting drilling sound, that may cause severe headaches or even seizures in photosensitive people.
Poor understanding of the high levels of play by the devs results in highly questionable balance. That, combined with the aforementioned overwhelming toxicity has caused the game to hemorrhage players over the last years.
Another issue that the game has had for about 2 years now, is an overwhelming amount of hackers. Getting hacks is easy and many people use them. Many of those hacks are subtle enough that you won't know for sure if it's hacking or they are just lucky or good (especially since you don't always see what they are doing). If you caught them redhanded, they will gaslight you and tell you you are the problem instead. The hacks range from simple things like faster movement, repair speed and automated perfect dodge, to wild things like teleports, instant repair/totem cleanse, freezing the killer in an action they can't cancel or preventing the match to ever end for you even after a timer, forcing you to disconnect (which removes all your points, challenge progress and applies a timed matchmaking ban). They have also been shown capable of digging out your IP address through the game. Some streamers were even swatted due to that. These issues haven't been addressed at all by the devs and continue to exist untouched.
The core gameplay is addicting in its own way and will keep bringing you back. Then you will have a horrible experience and leave the game. And come back after forgetting how bad it was.
I've defended this game for years, even recommended it to friends cause it has fun things about it. The characters are incredibly well designed, the art department in general is phenomenal. There are also many horror icons that are cool to experience in a game. The core gameplay is fun until you reach high levels of play and there are many killers - each with their own unique gameplay style. The lore has been expanded over time and by now it's rich and well written - a real treat for those who care. However, the toxicity and gameplay has been getting worse and worse over the years and at this point, the state of it is so fundamentally rotten, that even the associated content creators of the game struggle to have fun playing it (especially killer mains).
To sum it up - the game can be really entertaining early on, but don't fall for that. You will end up having a horrible time and if you get too involved in the game, it will be hard to stop playing for good. You will always come back and have a bad time again. It's going downhill in terms of balance, community health and even security. Until these issues are properly addressed and proper steps are taken, I can't recommend this game to anyone. And sadly, with how long it's been going, I don't see them being addressed in neither near nor far future.