The new killer “Houndmaster” in Dead by Daylight is the least popular of all time. Hardly anyone wants to play him – because he doesn’t work properly at all.
Dead by Daylight has pursued a fairly aggressive content plan over the last few years. In essence, a new chapter comes out approximately every 3 months, with a new killer, a new survivor – and sometimes also new maps. Between these major updates, there are always smaller patches with improvements or new game modes, such as the celebrated 2vs8 mode.
However, the abundance of content has drawn criticism. It is increasingly noted that the quality is suffering. The “peak” of this criticism seems to have been reached. Because the latest DLC chapter is viewed negatively by 67%.
What’s going on with Dead by Daylight? Just a few days ago, Dead by Daylight released the chapter “Doomed Course”. It comes with a new survivor, but primarily the new killer “Houndmaster”. The grim pirate lady has a trained dog that she can unleash on survivors. Either as a usable ability or directly from the dog’s perspective. At least, when the killer functions properly.
This is how the community rates the DLC: The chapter “Doomed Course” is currently rated very poorly. Only 33% of the ratings are positive. A staggering 67% are negative (as of: 02.12.2024, 11:00 AM). The biggest criticisms are the numerous bugs and errors that have crept into the chapter. The most common criticisms include:
- The new killer is bugged. The killer’s dog struggles with basic pathing, often gets stuck in the middle of the path, or becomes completely passive by the end of a round, leaving you without a killer ability.
- The animations are bugged or incorrect. When a survivor tries to save another from the dog, the animations are not “connected” – you essentially scare away the dog from a distance.
Some opinions in the Steam reviews:
“How can anyone take this company seriously when they release DLCs like this? Sloppy, bugged. I mean, what are those dog animations? Absolutely horrific. Maybe it’s time to stop with these many DLC releases and focus on improving the game.” – Jo
“No matter how much money, manpower, or time Behaviour has, they will always find a way to release completely bugged paid content. Literally in my first match playing this killer, the power was completely bugged, so I couldn’t even use it. To be fair, that’s very representative of the killer, because even when the power works (which is rare), it does absolutely nothing.” – metalmanijak
Even the positive reviews are sarcastic
If you look at the positive reviews, some of them are seen quite negatively. Because some praise the DLC for the fact that “the new killer is not played, and that’s a good thing, because new killers have never made the game better.” Even the praise is meant sarcastically in several cases, although there are undoubtedly some positive words as well.
“I don’t understand why people are review-bombing this chapter 🙁
The killer is cool, the dog AI is stupid, but the power is fun to play or to play against.
Sure, there are bugs, but in the 30 games (without exaggeration) I haven’t experienced a single “game-breaking bug” that everyone is reporting here.” – average James enjoyer
Dead by Daylight can actually do better. The game as a whole still stands at a solid 80% positive ratings, even at 87% in the last 30 days – a very good figure. However, the latest DLC seems to put quite a dent in that image.
Do you see the killer often? The perception in the community: Most buyers of the DLC only play this killer once or twice before they realize that he does not function properly. Normally, it is the case that in the first week after the release of a DLC, nearly all killer fans would exclusively play the new killer – this time, it’s an absolute rarity to even encounter the Houndmaster.
It seems clear that the Houndmaster urgently needs an update to fix the most pressing bugs and issues. However, many believe that something like the rather silly animations cannot be fixed with a simple hotfix. The developers will have to come back and do some fundamental work on it.
In stark contrast, the previous killer, Dracula from Castlevania, was a complete success.
