Dead By Daylight Update Makes Major Changes To Perks, Healing, and More

Dead by Daylight's March 2023 Developer Update contains tons of changes to the game, from tweaking killers' powers to improving the Bloodweb, to implementing a Visual Terror Radius that helps increase the game's accessibility. Players will also see modifications to the way flashlights and healing work, some of the most substantial edits to the game's mechanics in years.

In this article, we'll take a deeper look at the update, including the changes to Dead Hard and Boon: Circle of Healing, and how they will affect the game going forward.

Quality Of Life Updates

Bloodweb Improvements

The Developer Update included several quality of life updates, including changes to the Bloodweb that will make it significantly faster for both survivors and killers to purchase add-ons, items, and perks. Players will now have access to two new buttons: one that buys all of the items in a straight line in the Bloodweb, and another called Automatic Purchase that will purchase items for you until the level is entirely purchased.

Visual Terror Radius

Also included in the change is a new visual terror radius, which can be toggled off or on in the game's settings. The visual terror radius originated in Dead by Daylight Mobile, but will be added to the other platforms' versions of the game in order to improve accessibility.

Players will be able to see their heartbeat visually when in the killer's terror radius, with the rate increasing when the killer is closer. Survivors will also be able to see killers' lullabies, like that of The Huntress, via a haze on their chest.

Healing Changes

Dead By Daylight's healing mechanic is seeing its most substantial changes in years with this update. Healing will now take 24 seconds by default (as opposed to 16 seconds). Med-kits have also been entirely reworked, with all Med-Kits now holding 24 charges by default. Increasingly rare items only increase the player's altruistic healing speed.

Perk Updates

Here's a look at all of the perks that will see changes following the March 2023 Developer Update.

• Boon: Circle of Healing (Mikaela Reid) - Will no longer allow Survivors to heal without a Med-Kit. Going forward, it will provide a 40/45/50% healing speed bonus to healing others. This bonus will not apply to healing done with a Med-Kit. The auras of injured Survivors with the Boon’s range will be revealed to all other Survivors. 

• Overcharge (The Doctor) - Maximum regression speed reduced to 130% from 200%. Starting regression speed increased from 75% to 85%. The penalty for missing the Overcharge skill check is now 2/3/4% (was 3/4/5%).  

• Call Of Brine (The Onryo) -  Reduced additional regression speed to 115/120/125% (was 150/175/200%).  
• Dead Hard (David King) - This perk has been reworked. Now, Dead Hard will activate only after safely unhooking a Survivor. When activated, press the active ability button while injured and running to gain the Endurance Status Effect for 0.5 seconds, then become Exhausted. Dead Hard will deactivate when it successfully protects the user from damage. 
• Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance (The Artist) -  This perk has been reworked. The perk starts with 4 tokens, the first time each Survivor is hooked on a Scourge Hook, the generator with the most progress will explode and lose progress. Reduced the difference between different Tiers of the perk (now 11/13/15%).  
• Overzealous (Haddie Kaur) -  Now, Overzealous will also activate when Blessing a Totem in addition to Cleansing. Increased the bonus to 8/9/10% (from 6/7/8%). 
• Gearhead (The Deathslinger) - This perk has received a rework. When a Survivor loses a Health State, Gearhead activates for 30 seconds. While active, any Survivor who hits a good skill check will have their aura revealed to the Killer for 6/7/8 seconds. 

Bright Light Interactions

The last major change in this update are tweaks to the way bright light interactions with flashlights work. In the past, survivors could use flashlights to stun the Wraith out of his Cloak, burn away the Hag's Traps, destroy The Artist's birds, and more. Following the update, flashlights can no longer be used for killer interactions, and can only be used to stun or blind the killer.

While The Hag's traps can no longer be burned by survivors - previously one of the best counters for The Hag in Dead by Daylight - there will now be a new interaction called the Wipe. Players can stand over a Hag trap while crouching to Wipe it, which takes more time than burning them with a flashlight previously did, but will allow all survivors - even those without items - to counter The Hag.

Those are all of the major changes in Dead By Daylight's March 2023 Developer Update. From perk updates to changes to healing and bright light interactions, it's certain that these tweaks will change the game in the long run.