The Walking Dead now in Dead By Daylight

AMC’s The Walking Dead (TWD) is the next big franchise to collaborate with multiplayer action survival game Dead By Daylight (DBD). The collaboration brings 2 of TWDs main characters as playable survivors in DBD: Rick Grimes and Michonne Grimes.

The collaboration was announced on the 7th of July via DBDs official socials. The Instagram teaser for the collaboration posted on Monday sits at 142k likes, with the official reveal which showcases of the new survivors reaching 186k likes at the time of writing. Making it their 2nd biggest collaboration in the last year, behind the Five Nights at Freddy’s DLC.

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If you’ve played DBD you will know that all characters, survivor or killer, have 3 unique perks.
If you haven’t played DBD, each round (known as Trials in-game) players can bring a loadout of up to 4 perks along with an offering to manipulate the Trial slightly more in your favor. Survivors get to choose an item to bring along with them into the Trial that will further increase the chance of making it out alive, whereas Killers get to bring add-ons to their enhance their already terrifying power.

The introduction of Rick and Michonne Grimes brings with them 6 new perks to unlock, and oh boy are they are game changing.

Rick Grimes

Rick’s perks emphasis his role as a resourceful, compassionate leader.
Focusing on bold, team-work centered gameplay; Rick can assist his team through acting as a distraction and rebuilding used pallets. Additionally, he gains increased stealth for a brief time through his Teamwork perk.

Apocalyptic Ingenuity

Rick’s experience as a seasoned survivor in a world of desolation allows him to engineer defences out of the scraps laying around.

After Rummaging through 2 Chests in a trial, gain the Ability to construct a Fragile Pallet in the place of a Broken Pallet.

It is important to note 2 things:
Firstly, as of current, the perk does not grant you the ability to Rummage through chests.
Secondly, the Fragile Pallet cannot be pre-dropped, as it breaks immediately after dropping it.
Despite this, being able to bring dead-zones (tiles with no pallets nearby) back online is an incredibly powerful tool for survivors. Well coordinated teams will see the best value out of this perk, but if you’re a solo player, I recommend using ‘Windows of Opportunity’ so you know when a teammate has built a Fragile Pallet on a previously empty tile.

Come and Get Me!

Rick Grimes is a selfless and courageous character.
This perk allows you to hide nearby teammates and reveal yourself to the killer, drawing attention away from injured allies nearly completely.

After Unhooking a Survivor, gain the Ability to Scream & Reveal your aura to the Killer while crouched and not moving. Doing this turns any nearby injured or downed survivors completely silent, all while removing their Pools of Blood for a duration.

This can be a valuable tool to prevent Killers from tunneling (focusing someone solely until they die) your friends or to mitigate a Killer slugging (downing all survivors without hooking any).
Just be ready for a chase!…and for those of you thinking of coupling it with anti-scream perks, Come and Get Me! will no longer activate.

Teamwork: Toughen Up

Fellow Survivors that perform valiantly by fighting back inspire Rick to strengthen his resolve.

While Injured, if another Survivor stuns or blinds the Killer nearby, all your Grunts of Pain, Scratch Marks and Pools of Blood will be removed for a brief period of time.

This perk allows for either a stealthy retreat or to position boldly in anticipation of saving another Survivor. Scenarios where Killers down Survivors through a Pallet Stun are quite common (simply due to Ping differentials) and this perk will trigger in such cases- allowing you to position favourably without fear of detection, ready to get a blind save.
The developers have designed the perk to synergize well with one of Michonne’s perks- find out below.

Michonne Grimes

As a hardened fighter, Michonne’s Perks reflect her initiative and strength as someone who fights back against the odds. Her Perks aim on directly combating the Killer, buffing allies when doing so and being capable of turning the game around when all seems lost.

Last Stand

Using the aforementioned strength, Michonne can secure an escape through brute-force.

After hiding within the Killer’s Terror Radius for a reasonably long duration, this perk activates.
The next Fast Vault will stun a Killer in 2.5 metres of you- after which the perk is disabled for the remainder of the Trial.

This perk is incredibly powerful, hence its one-time use allowance. Much to the dismay of Killer mains, this is another tool survivors can use to stun the Killer outside of traditional Pallet stuns. Currently there exists 2 other perks which can stun the Killer without a Pallet; Head On and Decisive Strike. This will make the third.

It is important to note the 2.5 metre range is calculated from where you land coming out of the vault, not from the window. This means this can be used to stun Killers by essentially jumping on their heads. Going down on Pallets or in front of Lockers won’t be the only threat Killers must be aware of.

Now stuns can come from above.

Coordinated teams are already making incredible saves with the perk. Dropping from Vaults high above, right onto an unsuspecting Killer, to save another Survivor being picked up. This has become the prime value this Perk delivers. For solo players this setup will be far harder to achieve with random teammates, but the Perk still provides incredible safety in tight chases.

Conviction

This Perk showcases Michonne’s unwavering resilience in the face of total annihilation.

After Healing a Survivor for 1 health state, gain a life-saving Ability. While downed and at at least 25% Recovery progress, activating the Ability instantly picks you back up.
For 20s, you will suffer from the Broken effect, after which you will go down again.

This Perk really is a game changer.
It is a major anti-slugging tool, which has the potential to see you revive yourself in moments where your allies may think it is all over. 20s may not seem a long time, but on most maps you will be able to cover up to 70% of its total distance. During these crucial 20s, you can pick-up multiple teammates, unhook someone, Pallet stun / blind to save someone or even run out of the gates and survive altogether.

I’d recommend coupling this perk with Cheryl Mason’s (Silent Hill DLC) Perk Soul Guard. Using Conviction will activate Soul Guard and grant you Endurance for 8s, making you invulnerable to being downed shortly after you picked yourself up. You can then confidently use Conviction- guaranteeing brief safety -even with the Killer looming over you.

Teamwork: Throw Down

Encouraging others to persevere is what true Survivors do.
Another addition to the Teamwork line of Perks, Throw Down allows nearby injured allies to bare witness to your victories; inspiring them to stay on their feet.

After Pallet stunning or Blinding the Killer, injured Survivors around you gain Endurance. All affected Survivors see the Killer’s Aura at the same time.

This Perk is a strong edition to the Teamwork Perks. Inspiring allies by revealing the Killer when you fight back is unique to this perk. The endurance it provides will prove extremely valuable if the Survivor Team is caught injured and gathered together. Blind saves with an injured squad will make it literally impossible for most Killers to immediately retaliate.

Together, Rick and Michonne survived one brutal world, but The Entity’s Realm will test them like never before

Dead by Daylight: The Walking Dead is available to play if you have access to the Player Test Build. Otherwise it is being introduced with the coming full Chapter on July 29th.