The Resident Evil Dead by Daylight Chapter is Fun but Rocky
I play a lot of Dead by Daylight. Generally, I only really play with my friend, but that’s still quite a bit. When Behavior showed up during Capcom’s Resident Evil stream announced that it would be getting a Resident Evil chapter, I was rather thrilled. It’s a franchise I’ve come to like a lot, and I wanted to see more of. Getting to play some of the characters in my current multiplayer game of choice? That’s a fantastic thing. So I grabbed the new chapter to try everything out.
The Resident Evil chapter contains one new killer, Nemesis, two survivors, Jill Valentine and Leon Kennedy, and a new map, the Raccoon City Police Department. That last one I can say I have zero experience with. An hour after the new update went live, the Raccoon City Police Department map had to be pulled from the rotation because it was causing massive slowdown issues. Behavior gave players 300,000 bloodpoints to make up for it, which is useful, but honestly, I think I’d rather have the new map.
I spent most of my time as the survivors, and from there playing as Leon. Like all survivors, Leon has three unique skills. He can see generators that are degrading, create flashbangs to stun the killer (they almost always miss, but it’s hilariously fun), and not make noises when healing people (this is useless. Never run this perk.) On the other hand, Jill can get half her health back when taken off the hook, cleanse totems faster, and plant traps on generators for the killers. All of Jill’s perks are insanely useful, and she’s probably one of the best survivor-sided characters to hit the game in quite a while. As an aside, Behavior added Chris and Claire as alternate costumes for the two, so even if Leon and Jill aren’t your jam you have options.
After several matches, me and my friend were already dropping flashbangs and planting bombs like a couple of idiots, laughing every time some absurd plan worked. Leon and Jill, and the abilities they bring to the table, are a fantastic addition to Dead by Daylight. I can already see how their perks will cause changes in how I regularly play, and I’m going to be working to get them attached to some of the other characters I use.
Of course, every chapter also comes with a killer, and we have Nemesis. Nemesis’ big gimmick is that while he’s the killer, AI-controlled zombies will roam the map. The zombies themselves are easy to avoid, but sometimes they can block doorways or hooked survivors, so you do have to think about what you’re doing. Nemesis can also destroy the zombies to power up his special ability, a tentacle that he can use as a whip. The more zombies he kills and survivors he hurts, the further he can use it, also allowing him to break pallets faster instead of having to stop to hit them.
The idea is solid, and Nemsis is a pretty neat killer. However, he also suffers from being slightly weaker than other killers. This is mainly due to a unique status effect also added in the update. The first time Nemesis hits someone with his tentacle, or a zombie hits them, instead of getting hurt they get a status effect called contamination. All contamination does is make it so the next time the tentacle or zombie his the character they do damage, and survivors can cure contamination by finding vaccines around the map. What this basically amounts to is that the Nemesis needs to hit survivors three times with his unique ability, while every other killer with a damaging ability only needs to hit the survivor twice. It’s not quite as bad as The Trickster was at launch, where we just called him a free win, but he probably needs a bit of a buff.
I want to point out that Dead by Daylight‘s way to show that you’re currently contaminated is to splatter your character in what looks like blue paint. It’s more comical than anything else. You look like you dove head first into a blueberry barrel. Also the first time I got hit by Nemesis’ tentacle I got covered in blue and promptly proclaimed “Nemesis just blue me!” That is now what I say every time. My friends think I’m hilarious.
The Resident Evil chapter for Dead by Daylight is really just more Dead by Daylight. It doesn’t change the game drastically, although it does add some fun perks and characters that I want to play with. I still can’t wait to see an actually working version of the Raccoon City Police Department, as the map looks like it’ll bring me all sorts of joy. Hopefully soon we’ll get to see more Resident Evil content coming the game’s way. Maybe a certain tall vampire lady?
Categorized:Editorials
