As a surprise this February, Dead by Daylight released the game’s first-ever limited-time game mode: Lights Out. Sure, we’ve had holiday events such as the Christmas event adding interactable snowmen, and the Lunar New Year event tasking players with delivering red envelopes. But Lights Out marked the game’s first-ever separate game mode that changed the fundamentals of the game.
So, what is the Lights Out modifier? Well, as the name suggests, the modifier drastically lowers the visibility on the map. For veterans of DBD, it’s quite reminiscent of the old Moonlight offerings. Survivors also can’t see any progress or activity bars, the number of remaining generators, or hear the killer’s heartbeat. On the other side, killers can’t rely upon scratch marks during chase anymore. Not only that but Lights Out strips the survivors and killers of their trusty perks.
Lights Out essentially takes Dead by Daylight back to the basics – survivors running away from killers without any perks or gimmicks. And I really enjoyed it. At its heart, Dead by Daylight is a horror game, but one that has become drastically less scary over the years. Maybe it’s the hundreds of hours talking, but I’ve been wanting Dead by Daylight to return to its horror roots. I mean, the developers constantly talk about the game being a love letter to horror, so surely its gameplay should reflect that as well.
And I’d argue that Lights Out did just that. As a survivor, knowing that any second the killer could step out of the impenetrable black fog creates a sense of anxiety that is typically only reserved for matches against Myers, Ghostface and the Dredge. Even the comically not-scary killers such as The Trickster finally lived up to their horror potential.
Was the game mode perfect? Absolutely not. Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed playing survivor, playing as the killer just felt more tedious than fun. For survivors, the reduced visibility creates a sense of dread, but for the killer, the limited vision adds nothing to the gameplay. Hitting a survivor and losing them in the mists of darkness was far from fun.
And I’m not saying that playing as the killer was weak – in fact, it felt overly powerful. I won most of my games as killer, probably a combination of being able to see the auras of the generators and the ability to easily sneak up on unsuspecting survivors.
There were also some quirks to the gameplay, which definitely impacted my enjoyment of the LTM. For example, playing as Ghostface, I managed to stalk survivors that I legitimately couldn’t see on the screen, which just felt a little lousy. My friends said they played two matches against the Dredge, and his Nightfall ability just made the screen inaccessibly dark.
But because the game modifier only lasted for a week, I think it barely even matters if there are a bunch of wrinkles to iron out. Even if Lights Out was the most unfun and unbalanced thing to ever release, I’d still enjoy it for the fact that it’s something new, and a positive sign of experimentation and engagement from the developers. And the fact that we wouldn’t have to suffer through it for months on end.
After Lights Out, I hope that Behavior continues to experiment, knowing that these fun gameplay changes are confined to a limited-time mode, and don’t affect the main queues. Imagine, for years the community has been yearning for a 2 killers versus 8 survivors game mode – why not add this as a modifier for a week or two? It doesn’t matter if a combination of two killers is vastly overpowered or if 8 survivors pummel the killers every match because it’s just a short-term, for-fun experiment. Fingers crossed that Lights Out is the first of many limited-time game modes.