Dead by Daylight has a UI problem. Developer Behaviour Interactive has made sweeping changes to the UI’s layout in DBD patch 8.1.0, and player outcry has become so deafening that the team says it will make “some adjustments” based on feedback, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough. The game’s UI has, in many respects, just got worse, and players are calling on Behaviour to fully reverse it, and only time will tell if it does.
When Dead by Daylight’s UI changes were in the public test realm, many said it felt cramped. On top of that, it now takes over three clicks to switch between killer and survivor, move between character categories, and view character lore.
Before patch 8.1.0, all the characters you owned were at the top of the menu. They’re now interspersed with ones you don’t own, making it infinitely more cumbersome to navigate them. A lot of text is less readable now, too, with small letters and numbers not given enough visual depth. This makes the words in the multiplayer game infinitely harder to read.
Behaviour is aware of these complaints, and a statement from just after patch 8.1.0 dropped indicates that the team is listening.
“Thank you for sharing your thoughts!” Behaviour writes. “We’ll be looking at player feedback to make some adjustments to the new UI in the future. We’ll be able to share more when the changes are confirmed.”
Behaviour Interactive already doubled down on the DBD UI update, so I’d guess the majority of these changes aren’t going anywhere. That said, the team at least admits that it’s listening to the playerbase, so any particularly egregious examples that the community is vocal about could be changed in the near future.
Even then, players have not been reacting kindly to the new Dead by Daylight patch, with the UI just one of many problems. A massive generator bug is reducing the number of them that need to be completed for the survivors to finish the match, and the endurance mechanic keeps breaking when it’s needed most. So DBD’s UI problem is just one of many right now.
To Behaviour’s credit, the cosmetic and character selection screens have gone back to four columns after being at three, following loud fan feedback. This was one of many UI issues, but Behaviour’s willingness to change it back, making it much more usable, could bode well for future UI improvements.
Other than the UI problem, there’s a lot going on in DBD at the moment. The new Dead by Daylight 2v8 mode is exactly what the asymmetrical horror game needs, and DBD cross-progression is a great addition, even if some DLC is going up in price on PC as a result.
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