In the evolving landscape of multiplayer gaming, cross-platform play has become increasingly important for players wanting to connect with friends regardless of their chosen gaming system. Dead by Daylight, the popular asymmetric survival horror game developed by Behaviour Interactive, has embraced this feature to unite its diverse community. This comprehensive guide explores everything you need to know about Dead by Daylight crossplay capabilities, how to use them, and what limitations exist.
What Is Dead by Daylight Crossplay?
Is Dead by Daylight crossplay? The simple answer is yes, Dead by Daylight does support crossplay functionality across multiple platforms. Introduced in August 2020, this feature allows players on different systems to match together in the same trials, significantly expanding the player pool and reducing wait times for matches.
Crossplay in Dead by Daylight enables survivors and killers to face off against one another regardless of whether they're playing on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, or even mobile devices. This integration has transformed the game's ecosystem, breaking down the barriers that once separated gaming communities and creating a more unified player base.
The implementation of crossplay represents Behaviour Interactive's commitment to fostering an inclusive gaming environment where platform choice doesn't limit who you can play with. For a game that relies heavily on a healthy player population to ensure quick matchmaking, this feature has been crucial for maintaining the game's longevity and community engagement.
Platforms That Support Dead by Daylight Crossplay
Dead by Daylight's crossplay functionality extends across multiple gaming platforms, creating a vast network of interconnected players. Here's a breakdown of all platforms where Dead by Daylight crossplay is currently supported:
- PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store)
- PlayStation 4
- PlayStation 5
- Xbox One
- Xbox Series X/S
- Nintendo Switch
- Google Stadia (before its shutdown)
It's worth noting that the mobile version of Dead by Daylight (iOS and Android) operates in its own ecosystem. While mobile players can play together across iOS and Android devices, they cannot match with console or PC players. This separation exists due to the significant differences in controls, performance capabilities, and the slightly modified gameplay experience on mobile platforms.
The wide range of supported platforms ensures that nearly every Dead by Daylight player can benefit from the crossplay functionality, regardless of their preferred gaming system. This universal approach has helped maintain healthy matchmaking pools across all regions and skill levels.
How to Enable or Disable Dead by Daylight Crossplay
Managing Dead by Daylight crossplay settings is straightforward, giving players control over their cross-platform experience. Here's how to enable or disable this feature:
Enabling Crossplay:
- Launch Dead by Daylight on your platform of choice
- Navigate to the main menu
- Select the settings gear icon
- Go to the "Online" tab
- Find the "Crossplay" option
- Toggle it to "On"
Disabling Crossplay:
- Follow the same path through the settings menu
- Toggle the "Crossplay" option to "Off"
By default, crossplay is enabled for all players. Disabling it will restrict matchmaking to only those on your specific platform, which may increase wait times but could potentially provide a more consistent experience in terms of controls and communication methods.
It's important to note that changing your crossplay settings only affects matchmaking for future games and won't impact any match currently in progress.
For players concerned about competitive balance or communication challenges, having the option to disable crossplay provides valuable flexibility. However, Behaviour Interactive encourages keeping crossplay enabled to enjoy the full benefits of their matchmaking system and maintain healthy queue times.
Benefits of Dead by Daylight Crossplay
The implementation of Dead by Daylight crossplay has brought numerous advantages to both the player community and the game's overall health. Here are the key benefits:
Reduced Wait Times
Perhaps the most immediately noticeable benefit is the significant reduction in queue times. By pooling players from all platforms together, the matchmaking system has access to a much larger player base, allowing it to form matches more quickly and efficiently. This is especially valuable during off-peak hours or for players in regions with smaller local communities.
Playing With Friends Across Platforms
Crossplay eliminates the barrier that once forced friends to purchase the game on the same platform to play together. Now, a PlayStation player can team up with friends on Xbox, PC, or Switch without anyone needing to buy additional hardware or copies of the game. This inclusivity strengthens community bonds and makes the game more accessible to diverse friend groups.
Extended Game Longevity
By unifying the player base across platforms, Dead by Daylight crossplay helps ensure the game remains active and viable for longer. Multiplayer games rely heavily on maintaining a critical mass of active players, and crossplay effectively combines what would otherwise be separate ecosystems into one thriving community.
More Diverse Matches
Exposure to players from different platforms can create more varied and unpredictable matches. Different platforms may develop slightly different metas or playstyles, and cross-platform play brings these diverse approaches together, keeping the gameplay experience fresh and challenging.
Consistent Content Updates
With a unified player base, developers can focus on delivering simultaneous updates across all platforms, ensuring that all players have access to the same features, balance changes, and content at roughly the same time. This creates a more equitable experience regardless of your chosen platform.
The combination of these benefits demonstrates why Dead by Daylight crossplay has been such a positive addition to the game, supporting both its community engagement and long-term sustainability.
Limitations of Dead by Daylight Crossplay
While Dead by Daylight crossplay offers numerous advantages, it does come with certain limitations that players should be aware of:
Communication Constraints
One of the most significant challenges in cross-platform play is the lack of integrated voice chat. Since Dead by Daylight doesn't have built-in voice communication, players across different platforms have limited ways to coordinate. PC players might use text chat in pre-game lobbies, but console players are restricted to the basic communication tools provided in-game, creating potential coordination disparities.
Performance Differences
Different platforms offer varying levels of performance:
- PC players may have advantages with higher frame rates and graphical settings
- Last-gen consoles might experience performance issues in demanding situations
- Input methods vary (keyboard/mouse vs. controller), potentially affecting certain actions
These performance disparities can sometimes create an uneven playing field, particularly in competitive scenarios.
Friend Management Complexity
While adding friends across platforms is possible through the game's own friend system, managing these connections can be more complicated than platform-native friendships. The process involves using Behaviour Account IDs rather than familiar platform usernames, which adds an extra layer of complexity to social interactions.
Regional Restrictions
In some cases, Dead by Daylight crossplay might be subject to regional restrictions or regulations that limit cross-platform functionality in certain areas. These restrictions are usually beyond the developer's control but can affect the crossplay experience for players in those regions.
Mobile Exclusion
As mentioned earlier, the mobile version of Dead by Daylight operates independently from the main crossplay ecosystem. Mobile players can only match with other mobile users, creating a separate community divided from the main player base.
Understanding these limitations helps set appropriate expectations for the crossplay experience in Dead by Daylight. Despite these challenges, most players find that the benefits of an expanded player pool and shorter queue times outweigh the potential drawbacks.
How to Play With Friends Using Dead by Daylight Crossplay
Creating cross-platform parties in Dead by Daylight requires using the game's friend system rather than relying on your platform's native social features. Here's a detailed guide on how to connect with friends across different platforms:
Setting Up Cross-Platform Friends
- Create a Behaviour Account:
- All players need a Behaviour Account (formerly known as BHVR account)
- This serves as your universal identity across platforms
- Link your gaming platform account to your Behaviour Account
- Finding Friends:
- Access the "Friends" tab from the main menu
- Use the search function to find friends by their Behaviour Account ID
- Each player has a unique alphanumeric code that identifies them
- Sending Friend Requests:
- Once you've found a friend's ID, send them a friend request
- They'll need to accept this request from their Friends menu
- After acceptance, they'll appear in your friends list regardless of platform
Creating Cross-Platform Lobbies
- Inviting Friends:
- From the main menu, select "Play as Survivor" (crossplay parties can only be formed for survivor teams)
- Click on the empty survivor slots or use the invitation button
- Select friends from your Behaviour friends list to invite them
- They'll receive an invitation notification in-game
- Joining a Lobby:
- Accept the invitation when received
- Your character will appear in your friend's lobby
- Coordinate character and loadout choices through the lobby interface
The gmru community offers additional resources for players looking to maximize their cross-platform experience in Dead by Daylight, including guides on optimizing settings for cross-platform play.
Remember that while in a cross-platform lobby, the in-game communication options are limited, so many players opt to use third-party voice chat applications when possible.
By following these steps, you can easily enjoy Dead by Daylight crossplay with friends regardless of which platforms you're all using. This system has greatly enhanced the social aspect of the game, allowing communities to remain connected across hardware boundaries.
Cross-Progression in Dead by Daylight
An important distinction to make when discussing Dead by Daylight crossplay is the difference between crossplay and cross-progression. While crossplay refers to the ability to play with others on different platforms, cross-progression concerns whether your game progress, purchases, and unlocks transfer between platforms.
Current Cross-Progression Status
As of now, Dead by Daylight has limited cross-progression support:
- Full Cross-Progression: Currently available between PC platforms (Steam, Epic Games Store) and Google Stadia (before shutdown), with Nintendo Switch integration
- No Cross-Progression: Not supported between PlayStation, Xbox, and other platforms
This means that if you play on both PlayStation and PC, for example, you would need to maintain separate progression paths, purchasing characters and cosmetics individually on each platform.
How to Use Cross-Progression Where Available
For platforms that support cross-progression:
- Create and link a Behaviour Account on all your platforms
- Complete the linking process on each platform
- Your progress, including characters, perks, and cosmetics, will sync across linked platforms
Future of Cross-Progression
Behaviour Interactive has expressed interest in expanding cross-progression to more platforms. However, this process involves complex negotiations with platform holders regarding:
- Revenue sharing for purchases
- Platform-specific content restrictions
- Technical implementation challenges
Players hoping for expanded cross-progression should keep an eye on official Dead by Daylight announcements, as the development team provides periodic updates on their progress in this area.
Understanding the current limitations of cross-progression is important for players who use multiple gaming systems, as it affects purchasing decisions and progression strategies across platforms even while Dead by Daylight crossplay allows for playing together.
Performance Differences in Dead by Daylight Crossplay
When utilizing Dead by Daylight crossplay, players should be aware of the performance variations across different platforms, as these differences can impact gameplay experiences:
PC Performance
- Customizable graphics settings allow for optimization based on hardware capabilities
- Higher frame rates possible on powerful systems (potentially 100+ FPS)
- Mouse and keyboard controls offer precision for certain actions like skillchecks
- Variable performance depending on individual PC specifications
Current-Gen Consoles (PS5, Xbox Series X/S)
- 60 FPS capability with more stable performance
- Faster loading times due to SSD storage
- Enhanced visual fidelity closer to high-end PC settings
- Controller-based input which may affect certain gameplay mechanics
Previous-Gen Consoles (PS4, Xbox One)
- 30 FPS target with occasional drops during intensive moments
- Longer loading times between matches
- Reduced graphical details compared to current-gen and PC
- Possible input lag during demanding sequences
Nintendo Switch
- Capped at 30 FPS with more frequent performance fluctuations
- Lowest graphical settings among all platforms
- Portable play option unique to this platform
- Increased difficulty for precision-based actions due to performance constraints
These performance differences create subtle variations in how the game feels across platforms. PC players might have advantages in spotting movement or hitting skill checks, while console players might face additional challenges in high-intensity situations where frame rates become crucial.
Despite these differences, Behaviour Interactive continuously works on optimizing performance across all platforms to create as even a playing field as possible. The development team regularly releases patches focused on platform-specific improvements to narrow the performance gap.
For competitive players concerned about these disparities, disabling Dead by Daylight crossplay remains an option, though this comes at the cost of potentially longer matchmaking times.
The Impact of Dead by Daylight Crossplay on the Community
The introduction of Dead by Daylight crossplay has significantly transformed the game's community landscape in several important ways:
Unified Player Base
Before crossplay, the Dead by Daylight community was fragmented across platforms, with separate metas, strategies, and community figures. Crossplay has helped merge these subcommunities, creating a more cohesive overall player base that shares experiences across platform boundaries. Community discussions now represent a broader spectrum of players rather than platform-specific perspectives.
Tournament and Competitive Play
Crossplay has revolutionized the competitive scene by allowing tournaments to include participants regardless of their platform. This has:
- Expanded the talent pool for competitive events
- Created more diverse and representative tournament rosters
- Allowed competitive players to face worthy opponents across all platforms
- Fostered a more inclusive competitive community
Content Creation and Streaming
The content creation ecosystem around Dead by Daylight has also benefited:
- Streamers can now collaborate more easily across platforms
- Tutorial content reaches a wider audience regardless of platform
- Community challenges and events can include all players
- Creator-hosted custom matches can draw participants from any platform
Community-Reported Challenges
Not all impacts have been universally positive. Some community-reported challenges include:
- Perception of platform-based skill stereotypes
- Accusations of certain platforms having advantages in specific situations
- Communication barriers between PC text chat users and console players
- Different community norms regarding gameplay etiquette across platforms
Despite these challenges, the overall community sentiment toward Dead by Daylight crossplay has been predominantly positive. The increased player pool and diversity of experiences have enriched the community, creating a more vibrant and sustainable ecosystem for the game.
Community events like the annual "Anniversary" celebrations have become more unified experiences, with players across all platforms participating together rather than in separate platform-specific instances. This unity has strengthened the game's identity as a cross-platform multiplayer experience.
Tips for Optimizing Dead by Daylight Crossplay Experience
To get the most out of Dead by Daylight crossplay, consider these practical tips that can help overcome platform differences and enhance your cross-platform gaming experience:
Communication Solutions
- Use external voice chat applications like Discord, Xbox Party Chat, or PlayStation Party Chat when playing with friends across platforms
- Establish communication protocols before matches, such as specific flashlight clicks or movements to convey information
- Learn universal visual cues that work across all platforms rather than relying on text chat
Performance Optimization
- Adjust your video settings appropriately for your platform to maximize performance
- On PC, consider lowering certain graphical options for better framerates in crucial moments
- On consoles, ensure you're using "Performance Mode" if available rather than resolution-focused options
- Close background applications on all platforms to dedicate maximum resources to the game
Cross-Platform Etiquette
- Be mindful of platform-specific limitations that other players might face
- Avoid assumptions about skill based on platform icons
- Remember that text chat is PC-only in pre-game lobbies
- Use the game's emote system which works universally across platforms
Control Optimization
- For controller users, customize your button layout to optimize reaction time for crucial actions
- For keyboard/mouse users, set sensitivities that match your playstyle without sacrificing precision
- Consider investing in better hardware like a gaming controller or mouse if you play frequently
Social Features
- Maintain a separate list of cross-platform friends and their corresponding platforms
- Schedule gaming sessions in advance to overcome the challenges of different platform notification systems
- Use the in-game friend code system rather than trying to search by username
By implementing these strategies, you can minimize the potential friction points in Dead by Daylight crossplay and focus on enjoying the expanded player pool and social opportunities that cross-platform play provides. The key is adapting to the cross-platform environment rather than expecting it to function exactly like single-platform play.
Future of Dead by Daylight Crossplay
As Dead by Daylight continues to evolve, the future of its crossplay capabilities looks promising, with several potential developments on the horizon:
Expanded Cross-Progression
Behaviour Interactive has repeatedly expressed their commitment to expanding cross-progression to more platforms. While technical and business challenges have slowed this process, the development team continues working toward a future where players can access their full collection of characters, cosmetics, and progress across all platforms.
Mobile Integration Possibilities
While the mobile version currently operates separately, technological advancements might eventually allow for limited integration with the main crossplay ecosystem. This could begin with shared social features before potentially expanding to actual crossplay functionality, though significant control and performance differences would need to be addressed.
Enhanced Cross-Platform Communication
Future updates may introduce improved in-game communication tools specifically designed to bridge the gap between platforms. Potential features could include:
- Universal quick communication wheel
- Cross-platform voice chat integration
- Enhanced visual communication tools
- Platform-agnostic party systems
Cloud Gaming Implications
As cloud gaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and NVIDIA GeForce NOW continue to grow, they offer another avenue for Dead by Daylight crossplay expansion. These services could potentially allow mobile devices to join the main crossplay pool by running the full PC/console version rather than the mobile-specific version.
Community Tournaments and Events
We can expect to see more officially supported cross-platform tournaments and community events that take full advantage of the unified player base. These events could help further cement Dead by Daylight's position as a truly platform-agnostic multiplayer experience.
Behaviour Interactive's continued support for Dead by Daylight, even years after its initial release, suggests that crossplay will remain a priority feature that receives ongoing refinement and expansion. As next-generation consoles become more prevalent and performance disparities between platforms decrease, the crossplay experience should become increasingly seamless.
The future of Dead by Daylight crossplay will likely focus on removing remaining barriers between platforms while preserving the core gameplay experience that has made the game successful across all systems.
Key Takeaways About Dead by Daylight Crossplay
Is Dead by Daylight crossplay? Absolutely yes. Here are the essential points to remember about this feature:
- Full Crossplay Support: Dead by Daylight supports crossplay across PC (Steam, Epic, Microsoft Store), PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
- Mobile Separation: The mobile version (iOS/Android) has its own crossplay ecosystem separate from the main game.
- Default Setting: Crossplay is enabled by default but can be turned off through the in-game settings menu if desired.
- Friend System: Cross-platform friendships require using Behaviour Account IDs rather than platform-specific usernames.
- Communication Limitations: No built-in cross-platform voice chat exists; text chat is PC-only in lobbies.
- Limited Cross-Progression: Currently, cross-progression (shared purchases and progress) is only available between specific platforms, not universally.
- Performance Variations: Different platforms offer varying levels of performance, which can affect gameplay experiences.
- Community Benefits: Crossplay has significantly reduced matchmaking times and unified the previously fragmented community.
Understanding these key aspects of Dead by Daylight crossplay will help you navigate the cross-platform features effectively and make informed decisions about how you engage with the game's multiplayer components.
Frequently Asked Questions About Dead by Daylight Crossplay
Is Dead by Daylight crossplay between all platforms?
Yes, Dead by Daylight supports crossplay between PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store), PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. However, the mobile version operates in its own separate crossplay ecosystem between iOS and Android devices only.
How do I enable or disable crossplay in Dead by Daylight?
Navigate to the settings menu from the main screen, select the "Online" tab, and toggle the crossplay option on or off according to your preference. By default, crossplay is enabled for all players.
Can I add friends from different platforms?
Yes, you can add friends across platforms by using the Behaviour Account system. Each player has a unique ID that can be used to send friend requests regardless of platform.
Does Dead by Daylight have cross-progression?
Currently, Dead by Daylight has limited cross-progression between PC platforms and Nintendo Switch. PlayStation and Xbox do not currently support cross-progression, meaning purchases and progress do not transfer to or from these platforms.
Will disabling crossplay improve performance?
Disabling crossplay will not directly improve game performance. However, it will limit your matchmaking pool to only players on your specific platform, which might result in more consistent performance experiences across matches.
Can PC and console players communicate in-game?
Communication options between platforms are limited. PC players can use the pre-game lobby text chat, but this isn't visible to console players. There is no built-in voice chat, so cross-platform friends typically use external communication tools.
Do mobile players play with console and PC players?
No, Dead by Daylight mobile operates as a separate version of the game with its own player pool. Mobile players can only match with other mobile users (iOS and Android), not with console or PC players.
Is there a competitive disadvantage when using crossplay?
There can be performance differences between platforms that might create slight advantages or disadvantages. Generally, PC players may have higher frame rates and more precise control options, while console players are all using similar hardware within their respective console generations.
Can I play custom games with friends on different platforms?
Yes, custom games support cross-platform play. You can invite friends from any platform to your custom game lobby using the Behaviour Account friend system.
Will turning off crossplay make matchmaking take longer?
Yes, disabling crossplay will typically increase matchmaking times as it restricts your potential match pool to only players on your specific platform who have also disabled crossplay.