Roots of Dread Releases on Dead by Daylight

On June 7th, a new nightmare arrived to Dead by Daylight! The Roots of Dread chapter has been released just before the 6th Anniversary of the game, and fans seem to be loving it! At the time of writing, the DLC has 96 reviews with 93% of them being positive. This makes it one of the best-received chapters for Dead by Daylight in quite a long time. After playing it, this makes a lot of sense as the new map is revolutionary in terms of looks for the game. Additionally, the killer has an ability that changes any match in order to keep the survivors on their toes! Let’s break this DLC down bit by bit.

The Killer is The Dredge, described as “A formless mass of twisted limbs writhing in the shadows, The Dredge is a manifestation of repressed darkness. All light will drain in the presence of this unsettling abomination.” The Dredge’s Power is called Reign of Darkness and allows for the Special Abilities called The Gloaming and Nightfall. The Gloaming is where the Dredge can leave a Remnant behind, which can be used for teleporting.

The description of this is as follows – “The Dredge can teleport to any lockers across the map, allowing for heightened mobility and surprise attacks. Otherwise, The Dredge can return to its Remnant.” Nightfall is the most terrifying of the two specials that starts “whenever the Dredge teleports, places a Survivor on a Hook, or injures a Survivor, which causes the Nightfall meter to build. The meter also fills when Survivors are injured, as well as when The Dredge remains in a Locker. When the meter is full, the entire map darkens. Simple navigation becomes a matter of life and death as Survivors scramble to stay one step ahead. Meanwhile, The Dredge loses its Terror Radius, gaining the element of surprise, as well as a reduced cooldown on Locker teleportation.”

The Dredge comes with 3 new perks, which are Darkness Revealed, Dissolution, and Septic Touch. Darkness Revealed is a perk that reveals the aura of all survivors nearby any lockers after you have searched one. Dissolution allows a pallet to be broken after a survivor uses it after being injured by the killer. The final perk (Septic Touch) causes a survivor to be inflicted with Blindness and Exhaustion when they are healing within the killer’s terror radius.

The new survivor is Haddie Kaur, a very underwhelming survivor until you take a look at her perks. Her three perks are Inner Focus, Residual Manifest, and Overzealous. Inner Focus is very similar to one of Natalie Dyer’s perks, but this one allows you to see the scratch marks of teammates. It also allows for the Killer’s aura to be revealed to you if a teammate is injured near you. With Residual Manifest, flashlights become a more powerful weapon for the Survivors.

Now when you blind a Killer, they gain the blindness status effect. This makes them lose the ability to see the auras of Survivors through whatever abilities they may have equipped. This perk also allows the Survivors to get a flashlight when rummaging through an open chest. Overzealous is perfect for Totem Hunters as it allows a Survivor to repair generators faster after cleansing a totem. This ability only ends when the Survivor loses a health state.

As mentioned earlier in the article, this chapter comes with a brand new map called the Garden of Joy. Initially created on an island to be a perfect Utopia, the society that built this place was soon driven insane by its leader who tried to purge all bad actions and thoughts from his followers. The Dredge took advantage of this and seemingly began to make the members of this society disappear until those who remained turned on each other. Now, the place that was meant to be a place of peace and prosperity is filled with blood and despair. It is by far one of the coolest maps that has been developed for the game as there are parts of the border that look like they should be explorable. It really adds to the disorienting abilities of The Dredge!

That is all for this article! I am looking forward to potentially reviewing this chapter at some point, but I am still exploring all the bits and pieces of it. Make sure to leave your thoughts on what you think of the chapter below in the comments.