Dead By Daylight's The Dredge: Latest Killer's features explored

Behaviour Interactive held the anniversary livestream yesterday held for their asymmetrical horror game, Dead By Daylight. In this livestream, the developers announced their plans for the game throughout the upcoming year. The latest wave of content has been announced as well.

One of the many things mentioned in this livestream was the long-awaited new chapter for the game. In the weeks leading up to the announcement, leaks hit the internet about the next chapter and what it would contain. These leaks ended up being true as the next killer is exactly what was predicted: The Dredge.

While the new content is yet to hit Dead By Daylight's public servers, the Public Test Build, or PTB, is available for players on PC to try beforehand. Using this build of the game to collect feedback from the community, Behaviour will make final adjustments to the characters before they are released. But when will that be?

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A look at Dead By Daylight's upcoming addition, The Dredge

The Dredge's in-game details, stats, and perk icons as seen in the Public Test Build (Image via Behaviour Interactive)

The release for The Dredge, as well as the entire chapter, will hit Dead By Daylight's public servers on June 7th, 2022. However, as previously stated, players on PC have already begun trying out The Dredge as well as the survivor that will accompany it, Haddie Kaur, a paranormal investigator.

While other killers like The Huntress and The Trickster have made use of lockers before, The Dredge is the first killer to take this mechanic to the next level. Rather than using lockers to reload their abilities, it is the first enemy that will be able to enter a locker. From there, it can teleport to lockers around the map.

The Dredge has a secondary ability that is referred to as "Nightfall." This ability charges passively over time but does so much faster when survivors are injured and put on hooks. Once this ability reaches maximum charge, the entire map becomes darker, which makes it harder for survivors to navigate.

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Community's take on The Dredge

Many Dead By Daylight players have already taken kindly to The Dredge and its powers and perks. However, there are a few concerns had by the community. From a casual and competitive standpoint, many feel that the killer is not ready for public servers and some changes need to be made beforehand.

Twitch streamer Blueinflight has claimed that she feels that The Dredge's teleportation is a little too fast. Blue also stated that the interaction with lockers is a great change in the standard gameplay loop as survivors will have to pay much closer attention to their surroundings when completing objectives.

The Dredge may also go underutilized in competitive play. It has been observed that the character has great map traversal and anti-looping potential when played by experienced players. However, it is also felt that The Dredge's secondary Nightfall ability will be useless in high-stakes play.

Competitive players also feel The Dredge's perks will go mostly underutilized in Dead By Daylight's competitive scene. While Darkness Revealed sounds good, the amount of utility is significantly decreased when playing as The Dredge as the lockers around revealed survivors can be instantly locked.

Septic Touch may have some utility when used in tandem with the perk, A Nurse's Calling. This combination lets killers see the healing survivors before instantly sneaking up and hitting them. Though uneventful, the final Perk, Dissolution, may have some utility for breaking pallets in extended chases.

As a closing thought, the consensus on the current state of The Dredge in Dead By Daylight's Public Test Build is astoundingly average. However, the current state has also left players in great anticipation of the changes that will be made to the chapter before the content goes live on public servers.