This was once a fun, creative, wonder of a game. The concept was amazing and the gameplay was addicting, but over the years it never got consistently better. This idea of "balance" on a purely casual game is one of the reasons why, I believe there should be no such thing as a meta and the game should 100% be played how the player wants to play. A meta implies there's a right/strong way to play, which should have NEVER existed in a game like this. The large variety of perks and abilities each side has encourages creativity and experimentation which can never be put into practice because of the simple fact that one thing is significantly better then the other, so you have no reason to ever use your other options because you risk having a game that could be ended very abruptly along with an unfun experience. The developer team behind this game is laughably incompetent and their idea of "balance" isn't even at least good. The game is objectively one sided if both sides were pushed to their absolute limits, anyone with over 100 hours will tell you that; survivor queue times take around 10 minutes for a match that could end as quickly as it started. The developer team rarely listens to the community and when they do they choose to listen to the more toxic side of the community. Which, by the way, were created by the team themselves because in any "competitive" game, people want to naturally win, some more then others per say, which breeds the toxicity. The team themselves are greedy and care more about the short term health of the game over the long term health. For example the "Darkness Among Us" chapter was poorly designed, lazy, had absolutely no inspiration, and suspiciously seemed more like they wanted a killer whom they could make a bunch of simple cosmetics for, that people would want to buy. Even after that catastrophe they seemed to not have learned their lesson.

I myself admit I was once in love with this game, and part of the toxicity it breeds. But over the years as I got older I realized these truths about the game and never want to touch it again. As an older, on and off player of this game I would not recommend this game, or at the very least if you buy it don't give this team any more of your money unless they truly deserve it, which they do not. Go buy left 4 dead 2 or something, it may be old but its sure as hell not a bad game.

If you have taken the time to read this review and are willing to have a reasonable discussion in the comments on why you disagree, you're more then welcome to. But the information I have stated is all true, until changes are made it will remain 100% true.

UPDATE: this review deserves an update and there have been edits in here in there in each paragraph. I'm happy to say the developers HAVE made some wonderful changes since the creation of this review. The grind on the bloodweb has been significantly lessened and the earning of bloodpoints has been multiplied so that the earnings scale to a larger amount over time. Some very problematic perks/offerings have been tuned down or changed entirely so that they cannot be as easily abused as before. During my years playing the game it felt like the developers did not care about the player base or the health of the game, but how much money they could milk before this cash cow was dry. That opinion has changed as it feels like new life has been breathed into it because the community itself responded positively to these changes, therefore everyone naturally has a better experience.

However the statement that the game is ultimately one sided still remains true but that doesn't matter as much as it once did. One rarely sees super sweat squads that go out of their way to make the killer player have a bad time, and even if you did find a group like that its still manageable because the killer role feels more powerful than before. 2-3 kills or 6-8 hooks is better then nothing and one should be theoretically satisfied with that as they put up a good fight. Although I will say "competitive" dbd is an absolute joke to me and if anyone who genuinely plays this game as if it was an e-sport is going out of their way to earn a trophy that doesn't exist. Therefore, competitive dbd teams are a joke, but at least this isn't the only game they play.

One glaring issue that is present 7 years later the map Lampkin Lane, which is unironically the most poorly designed map the game has ever seen and still is even to this day. Unlike literally every other map in the game which follows SOME sort of theme (with the exception of the RPD map), Lampkin throws all of that away and structures its strongest tiles to be literally unplayable for killers unless you're a nurse, or in some cases a hag who can trap it. In this game survivors have pallets and windows to evade the killer and waste their time, windows usually are LESS effective due to them always being available while pallets are stronger but a one time use each. However this map throws all of that away and makes all windows 100% safe with little counter play. Not to mention these windows are littered in EVERY accessible house, each equipped with enough space from each vault to track the killers location to determine which direction they went, and little space in between each window/pallet so that running to a new loop is never a problem. There was a rework for this map that solved players from abusing it through (old) balanced landing about the maps core problems and arguably made it BETTER for survivors because of the numerous fore mentioned windows. A map with a ton of pallets/windows is fair game, its something that all killers will have to deal with eventually (except nurse), but unless the whole killer player population drops what they're doing and plays nurse forever then this map will continue to be an automatic lose for killers. Its wide and open with long sightlines until you enter the house with tight corners and things killers could randomly get stuck on, so not even huntress/deathslinger players will have a good time. Its just to simple for anyone to abuse these overpowered windows and outrun any killer, even casual players can abuse this without a shred of effort or planning. Killers have to go out of their way to do everything they possibly can to do well and generally wont.
In conclusion, either remove the map entirely or do an extreme overhaul/rework of it. I cannot stress enough how much of a problem this is, even RPD can work against killers and its been done before. Anyone asking "how do I play Haddonfield as killer?" would be greeted with "you don't", thats the definition of problematic.

This was once a fun, creative, wonder of a game. The concept was amazing and the gameplay was addicting, but over the years it never got consistently better. This idea of "balance" on a purely casual game is one of the reasons why, I believe there should be no such thing as a meta and the game should 100% be played how the player wants to play. A meta implies there's a right/strong way to play, which should have NEVER existed in a game like this. The large variety of perks and abilities each side has encourages creativity and experimentation which can never be put into practice because of the simple fact that one thing is significantly better then the other, so you have no reason to ever use your other options because you risk having a game that could be ended very abruptly along with an unfun experience. The developer team behind this game is laughably incompetent and their idea of "balance" isn't even at least good. The game is objectively one sided if both sides were pushed to their absolute limits, anyone with over 100 hours will tell you that; survivor queue times take around 10 minutes for a match that could end as quickly as it started. The developer team rarely listens to the community and when they do they choose to listen to the more toxic side of the community. Which, by the way, were created by the team themselves because in any "competitive" game, people want to naturally win, some more then others per say, which breeds the toxicity. The team themselves are greedy and care more about the short term health of the game over the long term health. For example the "Darkness Among Us" chapter was poorly designed, lazy, had absolutely no inspiration, and suspiciously seemed more like they wanted a killer whom they could make a bunch of simple cosmetics for, that people would want to buy. Even after that catastrophe they seemed to not have learned their lesson. I myself admit I was once in love with this game, and part of the toxicity it breeds. But over the years as I got older I realized these truths about the game and never want to touch it again. As an older, on and off player of this game I would not recommend this game, or at the very least if you buy it don't give this team any more of your money unless they truly deserve it, which they do not. Go buy left 4 dead 2 or something, it may be old but its sure as hell not a bad game. If you have taken the time to read this review and are willing to have a reasonable discussion in the comments on why you disagree, you're more then welcome to. But the information I have stated is all true, until changes are made it will remain 100% true. UPDATE: this review deserves an update and there have been edits in here in there in each paragraph. I'm happy to say the developers HAVE made some wonderful changes since the creation of this review. The grind on the bloodweb has been significantly lessened and the earning of bloodpoints has been multiplied so that the earnings scale to a larger amount over time. Some very problematic perks/offerings have been tuned down or changed entirely so that they cannot be as easily abused as before. During my years playing the game it felt like the developers did not care about the player base or the health of the game, but how much money they could milk before this cash cow was dry. That opinion has changed as it feels like new life has been breathed into it because the community itself responded positively to these changes, therefore everyone naturally has a better experience. However the statement that the game is ultimately one sided still remains true but that doesn't matter as much as it once did. One rarely sees super sweat squads that go out of their way to make the killer player have a bad time, and even if you did find a group like that its still manageable because the killer role feels more powerful than before. 2-3 kills or 6-8 hooks is better then nothing and one should be theoretically satisfied with that as they put up a good fight. Although I will say "competitive" dbd is an absolute joke to me and if anyone who genuinely plays this game as if it was an e-sport is going out of their way to earn a trophy that doesn't exist. Therefore, competitive dbd teams are a joke, but at least this isn't the only game they play. One glaring issue that is present 7 years later the map Lampkin Lane, which is unironically the most poorly designed map the game has ever seen and still is even to this day. Unlike literally every other map in the game which follows SOME sort of theme (with the exception of the RPD map), Lampkin throws all of that away and structures its strongest tiles to be literally unplayable for killers unless you're a nurse, or in some cases a hag who can trap it. In this game survivors have pallets and windows to evade the killer and waste their time, windows usually are LESS effective due to them always being available while pallets are stronger but a one time use each. However this map throws all of that away and makes all windows 100% safe with little counter play. Not to mention these windows are littered in EVERY accessible house, each equipped with enough space from each vault to track the killers location to determine which direction they went, and little space in between each window/pallet so that running to a new loop is never a problem. There was a rework for this map that solved players from abusing it through (old) balanced landing about the maps core problems and arguably made it BETTER for survivors because of the numerous fore mentioned windows. A map with a ton of pallets/windows is fair game, its something that all killers will have to deal with eventually (except nurse), but unless the whole killer player population drops what they're doing and plays nurse forever then this map will continue to be an automatic lose for killers. Its wide and open with long sightlines until you enter the house with tight corners and things killers could randomly get stuck on, so not even huntress/deathslinger players will have a good time. Its just to simple for anyone to abuse these overpowered windows and outrun any killer, even casual players can abuse this without a shred of effort or planning. Killers have to go out of their way to do everything they possibly can to do well and generally wont. In conclusion, either remove the map entirely or do an extreme overhaul/rework of it. I cannot stress enough how much of a problem this is, even RPD can work against killers and its been done before. Anyone asking "how do I play Haddonfield as killer?" would be greeted with "you don't", thats the definition of problematic.