For fans of Dead by Daylight, or even just of highly thematic asymmetrical board games, Dead by Daylight: The Board Game has a lot to offer, serving as a faithful adaptation of the video game. While some elements had to be abstracted as part of the conversion, it remains a fun and tense experience in which players can experience most of the same features they enjoy in the original Dead by Daylight.
About the Dead by Daylight Board Game
True to the original format, Dead by Daylight: The Board Game has one player controlling the killer, trying to put four other players, the survivors, onto hooks. Meanwhile, the four survivors must outwit and evade the killer while repairing a number of generators, until they can finally open the door and escape their trial. Unlike the video game, however, there are no pyrrhic victories for the survivors: once the door opens, all survivors immediately escape and win the game. However, failing to do so before the killer collects eight sacrifice tokens results in a loss, and the survivors are sacrificed to the Entity.
At the beginning of each round, players secretly set their movement cards, which determine which paths they may move along. As they move, players uncover randomized prop tokens, which allow them to do all the things they’re used to from the video game: drop pallets, hide in lockers, search for items, and more. The killer always moves last, but they also move twice, while they can’t benefit from most of the props the players can interact with, they each have a unique ability to aid them in their mission.
Additionally, all characters come equipped with their three unique perks, which have been suitably adapted for tabletop. There are also corresponding cards for each perk so that players can choose to customize their characters to create specialized builds.
What’s Different
As you might expect, all players always know where all other players are at all times, which is not true of the video game. While true hidden movement games exist, this is not one. However, players don’t know what each other are planning on doing each round, meaning it’s still very possible to juke the killer, or land a hard read on a survivor.
Fans of Dead by Daylight will also notice some characters missing. It’s unsurprising but the developer of Dead by Daylight: The Board Game, Level 99 Games, wasn’t able to secure rights to any of the licensed killers or survivors. The base edition of the game includes:
Survivors: Dwight, Meg, Claudette, Jake, Nea, Ace, and Feng Min
Killers: The Trapper, The Wraith, The Hillbilly, The Nurse, The Hag, and The Doctor
Maps: MacMillan Estate, Autohaven Wreckers
If you were lucky enough to get in on the Kickstarter and pick up the Collector’s Edition, it included more than twice as much content, filling out the roster with every killer and survivor that had been in Dead by Daylight at the beginning of the development of the board game and adding the Ormond and Crotus Prenn Asylum maps, as well as plastic generators and hooks (which the survivor minis could hang from!). This, unfortunately, is not available in retail, and might never be reprinted.
What’s Coming
Dead by Daylight: The Board Game is getting a large expansion, set to release late this summer. The Malicious Expansion, with an MSRP of $39.99, is available now for pre-order on the official Level 99 Games store. It will include four new survivors including Jonah, Haddie, Mikaela, and Vittorio, three new killers including The Dredge, The Artist, and The Knight, and two new maps: Forsaken Boneyard and Withered Isle. This will bring the Dead By Daylight board game more in line with the content of the video game.
Unfortunately, because of the amount of space that the maps require in the box, it’s probably an impossibility that we will ever have anywhere near all of them, and due to how long the development and manufacture takes, the board game will always be lagging slightly behind with characters, assuming the game continues to be supported.
Final Thoughts
Dead by Daylight: The board Game currently sits at an aggregate score of 7.2 on BoardGameGeek, which is pretty positive (for reference, one of the top games on the site, Spirit Island, is rated an 8.3), and as a fairly light game, it should be pretty simple to get it to the table. It’s relatively simple to teach so it’s very possible to get a normal family to try it, provided the theme doesn’t turn them off. There’s a surprising amount of variety in the core box, and the upcoming Malicious Expansion will only increase that. Hopefully, the game proves itself to have legs and will continue to be expanded upon for years to come.
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