Designing the Dredge for the Game Dead by Daylight
Dead by daylight: The Dredge takes over as the antagonist in the latest chapter of Dead by Daylight, titled Roots of Dread. The Dredge is a manifestation of darkness itself, appearing as a shapeless mass of contorted limbs that writhes in the shadows.
It was essential that The Dredge convey the dreadful atmosphere of a beast that might be hiding in your closet.
The Dredge is a distinctively terrifying figure. And despite the fact that Dead by Daylight is undeniably a horror game, the team responsible for designing the game faced an extremely exciting challenge when they were tasked with creating such a singular flavor of fear.
The Dredge takes over as the antagonist in the latest chapter of Dead by Daylight, titled Roots of Dread. The Dredge is a manifestation of darkness itself, appearing as a shapeless mass of contorted limbs that writhes in the shadows.
It was essential that The Dredge convey the dreadful atmosphere of a beast that might be hiding in your closet. The Dredge is a distinctively terrifying figure. And despite the fact that Dead by Daylight is undeniably a horror game, the team responsible for designing the game faced an extremely exciting challenge when they were tasked with creating such a singular flavor of fear.
Hello Darkness
Patrick Harris, the lead game designer for Dead by Daylight, explains that “one of the first things,” which is something that people don’t often consider, is that we must think about the technical feasibility of our desired experience.
“This is something that people don’t often consider,” “Lighting levels and visibility levels are important technological challenges, and we need to take that into consideration when we are envisioning a Power like The Dredge’s.”
“It creates an intriguing dialogue between the tech side and the design side,” he says. “[T]hese two sides complement each other really well.”
“The design side of the company argues that we want an experience like this, and the tech side of the company warns that doing exactly what you just mentioned will have repercussions for performance. We collaborate in order to achieve a sense of equilibrium.
“It can be challenging to get the lighting and visibility to alter in a match while still maintaining performance and staying true to the original design desire.
In addition to that, you need to take into consideration the comments we collect from our playtests, which include participants with a diverse set of skill levels.
Patrick admits with a chuckle that he is not the most amazing Survivor player in the world, and he acknowledges this while playing the game. “When I was fighting The Dredge, I found the darkness to be a very challenging environment, particularly in its earlier versions.
This was a common sentiment among the Survivors with fewer life experience. On the other hand, a significant number of the more skilled players had each Map committed to memory. Even if you covered their eyes with a blindfold, they would still be able to locate the Generators.
“We had to create a balance so that the more experienced players were frightened and affected by the Power, while the less experienced players were not fully overpowered by it.
This presented a challenge, and as a result, the concept of having The Dredge’s aura be visible even when there was no light came about as a solution. It assisted in striking a balance between the two groups while helping to keep the fear element intact. It also helps that The Dredge is very horrifying when you encounter it for the first time.
Lockers
That’s only the tip of the iceberg. It has an oppressive amount of mobility thanks to the Dredge’s teleportation ability, which allows it to get to any locker anywhere on the map. Should it move to a locker while a survivor is inside of it, or should it stay where it is? There are some things, though, that are better left to the reader’s imagination.
Patrick states, “We’ve wanted a Killer that jumped out of lockers and startled Survivors for a while.” In other words, “we’ve desired a Killer.” Something that completely overturns a fundamental principle of security.
“There are three lockers in this room; with that being said, do I really want to go here?” This is going to be the murderer that turns lockers become terrifying places.”
The survivors have the ability to safeguard themselves by closing the door of the locker; however, there is one catch. Patrick tells us, “You’ll only have one shot at locking those lockers.” “Running about and locking all of the doors might not be the best idea in the world. If you do that at the beginning of the game, The Dredge will break each lock, and you will have a difficult time from that point on. Take it easy and keep your mind on the task at hand.”
Finding balance
The game Dead by Daylight is an asymmetrical multiplayer game in which two sides must go head-to-head against one another. The game design team’s toolset must include methods for establishing a successful balance between the Killer and the Survivor in order to ensure the game’s success.
It is difficult to forecast how the community will react to a Killer’s potential for competition because both teams are comprised of players whose levels of expertise span a wide spectrum. This makes it tough to know how the community will react to a Killer.
Patrick ponders that “you never know which tier a Killer will finish up being until the community gets their hands on it,” and he adds that this is a frustrating aspect of the game. “Sometimes it’s because they figure out how to do something you never even considered before,” the speaker says.
They are capable of doing some things that they really shouldn’t be able to. A lot of the time, all that really gets our attention is how creative everything is.
It is usually beneficial when a Killer’s Power allows for the possibility of mind games, since this raises the ceiling for the required level of expertise and invites a good old-fashioned battle of wits.
Despite the fact that The Dredge’s Power enables complete darkness over the map and translocation to the Locker, Survivors still need to be wary of an additional ability known as The Remnant. The creation of a static Remnant takes place whenever The Dredge charges its Power. From there, the Killer can either teleport to a Locker or instantly snap back to the Remnant. Both of these options are available to them.
Consider the possibility that the Survivor you are pursuing is heading for a locker at the same time you are. You get ready to cut them off by teleporting to a locker up ahead, charging your Power, and producing a Remnant.
This puts you in position to successfully cut them off. They catch on after a few seconds and decide to come back around by racing towards you. This shows that they are paying attention.
You have the option of snapping back to your Remnant and immediately picking up where you left off in the pursuit, rather than teleporting to the Locker as was first planned.
Patrick recalls that in the early playtests that they ran with The Dredge, they did not have the Remnant available to them. “It was one of the parts of the Power that was included quite late in the game.
It brought into The Dredge a level of mind-gaming that hadn’t been there before, which made for some exciting gameplay during the many chases. There is a fun and challenging amount of decision-making.”
It is obvious that the team responsible for designing the game is eager for players to become acquainted with The Dredge. This is because The Dredge introduces a new type of terror to The Entity’s Realm thanks to its engrossing gameplay and unnerving visual design.
Patrick is quick to compliment the work of Dead by Daylight’s Killer Designers as one of the game’s beloved cornerstones because of how well the game’s gameplay and characters have been brought together to form a harmonious marriage. “The Killer Designer we have working on The Dredge is Janick Neveu, and he’s been on the team longer than I have,” he points out.
“The Dredge has been in development for quite some time.” “He is the epitome of professionalism in his field. I won’t claim any credit for The Dredge because Janick did an outstanding job with it. He never fails to awe everyone on the crew with the incredible Killer designs he comes up with.
In the brand-new chapter Roots of Dread, which will be released on June 7 for Dead by Daylight, you will have the opportunity to assume the persona of The Dredge.
