Dead by Daylight’s 9.1.0 update is here, spotlighting two new survivors from The Walking Dead, Rick Grimes and Michonne Grimes. Alongside fresh perks, new items like the Fog Vial, and some key reworks. The update also introduces a new map tile and brings keyboard and mouse support to consoles. So, what’s new and what should you watch out for?
New Survivors and Perks
Rick Grimes
- Apocalyptic Ingenuity: After opening or rummaging through 2 chests, you can spend 4 seconds next to a broken pallet to build a fragile pallet that breaks after being dropped. You also see the auras of broken pallets within 24 to 32 meters.
- Come and Get Me! After unhooking a survivor, while crouched and idle, you can make injured and dying survivors within 24 meters leave no scratch marks, blood pools, or grunts of pain for 10 to 15 seconds — but you scream, revealing your aura to the killer for 5 seconds.
- Teamwork: Toughen Up: When another survivor pallet-stuns or blinds the killer while you’re injured and nearby, your grunts, scratch marks, and blood pools are fully hidden for 20 to 30 seconds.
Michonne Grimes
- Conviction: After healing one survivor, if downed with at least 25% recovery, you can instantly recover by pressing a button, but you gain the Broken status and are downed after 20 to 30 seconds.
- Last Stand: Spending 90 to 120 seconds in the killer’s terror radius without being chased lets you stun the killer for 3 seconds when fast-vaulting if they’re close. This perk then disables for the rest of the trial.
- Teamwork: Throw Down: When you pallet-stun or blind the killer, injured survivors nearby gain Endurance and see the killer’s aura for 6 to 10 seconds.
New Survivor Item: Fog Vial
The Fog Vial lets survivors release a fog cloud that reduces visibility, suppresses scratch marks, auras, and sounds within an 8-meter radius. It has 1 charge and recharges over time. There are three variants:
- Apprentice’s Fog Vial (Common): Max size in 2 seconds, lasts 8 seconds, 70-second recharge.
- Artisan’s Fog Vial (Uncommon): Max size in 1.5 seconds, lasts 10 seconds, 65-second recharge.
- Vigo’s Fog Vial (Rare): Max size in 1.2 seconds, lasts 12 seconds, 60-second recharge.
Several add-ons tweak the Fog Vial’s behavior, like increasing cloud size or decreasing recharge time. The Potent Extract add-on now decreases visibility by 10%, reduces cloud size by 25%, and cuts lifetime by 50% — but no longer muffles audio.
Survivor Item Reworks: Key and Map
Key
- Press Use Item to channel the Key, revealing survivor auras in range once fully charged.
- Near locked chests, it can unlock them quickly (uncommon or higher keys), consuming 1 charge and guaranteeing a rare or better item.
- Unlocking a chest reveals its aura to other survivors, and one other survivor can rummage it once.
- Can unlock closed hatches (uncommon or higher keys), consuming 1 charge.
- The Key is no longer destroyed after escaping a trial.
Key variants include Broken Key (common), Dull Key (uncommon), and Skeleton Key (rare), each with different aura reveal ranges and charges. Add-ons like Friendship Charm add charges, while distinct Wedding Ring shows mutual auras with the obsession.
Map
- Channeling the Map reveals auras of windows and pallets within range.
- Pressing Use Item while revealing auras creates a beam of light that reveals generators within 32 meters to all survivors.
Variants range from Cryptic Map (common) to Bloodsense Map (event), with increasing range, duration, and charges. Add-ons can increase duration, range, and reveal totems or the killer’s aura.
Killer Updates
The Executioner
- Increased Punishment of the Damned’s range from 8 to 10 meters.
- Rites of Judgement duration increased to 10 seconds, trail lifetime to 90 seconds.
- Movement speed during Rites of Judgement decreased slightly.
- Inputs for abilities can be held to start immediately when available.
- Survivors rescued from cages gain 10% Haste and Endurance for 10 seconds.
- Bloodpoints for cage rescues increased to 2000.
Multiple add-ons for The Executioner have been reworked, adjusting ranges, durations, cooldowns, and effects like aura reveals and status inflictions.
The Clown
- Afterpiece Antidote’s Haste increased to 12%, activation time decreased to 1 second.
- Afterpiece Tonic’s Hindered effect decreased slightly and lingers less.
- Reload speed increased, and inputs for reloading and throwing can be held.
- Add-ons like VHS Porn have been reworked to tweak gas cloud size and spread.
The Pig
- Ambush movement speed increased to 7.1 m/s, crouched speed to 4.0 m/s.
- Time to crouch and uncrouch decreased to 0.8 seconds.
- Terror Radius fades faster when crouching.
- Inputs for crouching and ambushing can be held.
- Bloodpoints for escaping Reverse Bear Trap and searching Jigsaw Boxes increased.
- Jigsaw Box searches now award Survival points instead of Objective.
The Knight and The Oni
- The Knight’s patrol path length, creation speed, acceleration, and strafe speed increased.
- The Oni’s Demon Strike turn rate limit during open attack phase increased to 540 degrees.
Gameplay and Quality of Life Features
- Custom Games & Spectator Mode: Hotkeys for spectating players are now visible and toggleable, with a marker showing who is being spectated. The spectate button moved for easier access.
- Hooks: When only two survivors remain, two failed struggle skill checks skip straight to sacrifice. If all survivors are hooked simultaneously, sacrifice sequence triggers immediately.
- Keyboard & Mouse on Consoles: Added support for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, and PS5 (numpad not supported on Xbox).
- Presets: Players can now save up to 7 loadout and cosmetic presets, select them via dropdown, and rename them.
- Quests: New “Into the Fog” quests aimed at new players.
Known Issues
- The Walking Dead theme may keep playing despite disabling copyrighted music setting.
- Nintendo Switch users should update firmware to avoid connectivity issues in cross-play.
- Movement slowdowns on the right side of staircases.
- Michonne’s hair may glow abnormally near light sources.
Bug Fixes
There are tons of fixes across audio, bots, characters, maps, perks, UI, and miscellaneous issues. Highlights include fixing audio bugs with map and character sounds, improving survivor bot behavior, correcting animation glitches, and addressing multiple map clipping and visual errors. Perks and add-ons also got attention, like fixing interactions with Last Stand and various aura reading bugs.
Wow, that’s a lot to take in! Dead by Daylight keeps pushing content and fine-tuning gameplay in some pretty cool ways. Will Rick and Michonne become your new favorites? What do you think about the Fog Vial’s stealth potential? Let me know your thoughts below!