It’s no secret that playing with friends may improve your odds of survival. Communication can at times make the difference between life and death. Solo Survivors need to work extra hard to keep up, often sacrificing perk slots for crucial information that could be easily shared between players in a call.
Last year, we shared an early design for a system that would help bridge the gap between solo Survivors and premade groups. The response to this idea was positive, so we’ve been ironing out the details and working on it behind the scenes since. We’re happy to say that this system will be debuting in the 6.5.0 update.
Each Survivor will now display their current action next to their portrait. These actions include:
- Repairing a Generator
- Opening an Exit Gate
- Healing, Mending & Recovering
- Cleansing & Blessing a Totem
- Searching a Chest
- Killer specific actions (e.g. Snapping out of it, waking up a Survivor, etc.)
This not only gives you vital information to plan your next move, but also gives you some visibility on what your teammates are doing to build camaraderie between you and your fellow Survivors. These actions are only visible among Survivors: Killers won’t be told what you’re doing at all times.
Beyond actions, we have added a new indicator to signify that a Survivor is in a chase. Previously it was only possible to tell when the Obsession was being chased due to the twitching icon. Going forward, any Survivor that is being chased will have a small set of Entity claws surrounding their portrait. Meanwhile the Obsession will always have a larger set of Entity claws around their portrait, keeping the effect visually similar. Unlike your current activity, the Killer also sees who they are chasing, making it possible to distinguish two similarly dressed Survivors.
Finally, we’ve added a new health state to show when a Survivor is being carried by the Killer. Previously the carried Survivor would be shown in the dying state, but this could be confusing for newer players who were looking for the aura of a dying teammate.
Why these actions?
The goal with this feature is solely to bridge the gap between solo Survivors and premade groups. All this information can be easily conveyed between friends in a call, but not between solo Survivors (without the use of perks). Therefore, this information will not make a coordinated group any stronger than before.
We specifically want to avoid anything that could give already coordinated groups an advantage, such as showing a Survivor’s exact location. Due to the procedural nature of Dead by Daylight maps, callouts like these can be hazy at times, so pinpointing an exact location could give even premade groups an advantage