A Look at the New Killer 'The Spirit' in the Dead by Daylight Shattered Bloodline

On the evening of 28th August, the Dead By Daylight Public Test Build was updated, sporting a variety of changes ranging from revamping the Emblem system to be more informative about your performance, to buffing the Wraith in an attempt to make him less of a laughing stock. The primary and most important introduction however, is the new Killer, a phase-walking Spirit with a horrifying backstory and an even more horrifying appearance.

I’ve been playing Dead By Daylight for just over a year now, and the Killers that have been released during my time have been quite lacklustre and unfortunately haven’t really found a proper seat in the game’s current meta. Leatherface just gave players an easier alternative to playing The Hillbilly and Freddy was just an absolute disaster that we won’t talk about. Amanda ultimately only became good at delaying the end-game (although her sneak ability brought a brand new style of play for both killers and survivors). Whilst The Clown can somewhat combat being looped around items/buildings, he’s still inferior when compared to the capabilities of the three top tier killers (Hillbilly, Huntress & Nurse) which are all freely available.

The DLC, set to be called ‘Shattered Bloodline’, sports the introduction of Rin Yamaoka, a vengeful daughter formerly from Japan, where she was butchered by her own father, and Adam Francis, a Jamaican teacher residing in Japan until his selfless acts launched him into The Entity’s domain.

Rin, also called ‘The Spirit’, uses a power called ‘Yamaoka’s Haunting’. Using Yamaoka’s Haunting depletes The Spirit’s power bar, with longer uses draining even more. The power bar must be full in order to use the ability. By using it, The Spirit will enter the ethereal plane, where her movement speed increases from 110% to 176%. She can not see survivors in this form, but she can still see the scratch marks they leave when running, meaning she still has a method of tracking when in the ethereal plane. When ready, she can simply use it again to reappear and attack with no delay. When in this state, survivors can not see where she is, instead they will see a ‘husk’ of where she was standing when she activated it. This ‘husk’ is treated as if it was really the Killer, thus it triggers the heartbeat radius and shows the red stain in front of it. This offers an incredible amount of potential to fake out survivors into thinking that The Spirit is using her ability by standing stationary during chases, and I’ve already seen this being used to a disastrous effect against survivors.

With her special ability already holding incredible potential, her perks are the icing on the already satisfying cake. Her three teachable perks are ‘Spirit Fury’, ‘Hex: Haunted Ground’ and ‘Rancor’. Starting with Spirit Fury, upon breaking four pallets (decreases in number as the perk is levelled up), if you are stunned by a pallet, it is instantly destroyed, although you will still receive the stun effect. I saw this combined with Enduring (75% quicker stun recovery at max level) to give what was essentially a guaranteed hit if stunned with a pallet. Hex: Haunted Ground is a Hex perk (duh!) that places two lit totems into the map. When one of these totems are broken, all survivors are given the Exposed effect (become downed in a single hit) for 40-60 seconds (perk level determines length of the effect). Upon one of the totems being broken, the other is turned into a dull totem. The most frequent and effective use was alongside Hex: Ruin, as it turned the game into a form of Russian Roulette which in one match actually resulted in all four of us being killed within the 60 seconds because we chose the wrong totem.

Finally, Rancor is an Obsession-based perk that will, like all of The Spirits perks, sit comfortably amongst the more powerful perks that killers have access to. Each time a generator is fully repaired, you see all survivors auras for three seconds. It works both ways though, as the Obsession can also see your position at the same time, which starts at five seconds and decreases with each level. Upon the last generators completion, the Obsession permanently gains the Exposed effect and the Killer can outright kill (Mori) the survivor once they are in the dying state without the need of hooking them.

In layman's terms, The Spirit does what The Wraith does, but substantially better, if not being a lot more difficult to fully master. She is to The Wraith what The Hillbilly is to Leatherface: a much more effective killer that is offset by the skill that is required to use them effectively, making the latter choices more accessible to killers still learning the ropes. Her perks complement a hunting playstyle that makes her difficult to hide from, as well as giving her a massive leg-up in chases themselves, even without the use of her power. One thing I will also add is that The Spirit has the potential to really put the ‘horror’ back into Dead By Daylight. Not only does her ability hold good jump-scare opportunities, but her physical appearance is rather harrowing. Most of her limbs are sliced off, causing her arms to hover where they should. Her facial expression is one that is bound to haunt your dreams, and her presence can be noted not just by her heartbeat radius, but the shattering of shards of glass that are pierced into her skin and the cracking of her bones as her body randomly and violently contorts. On top of this, she seems to passively flicker in and out of existence. While this only happens for fractions of a second, it can cause for a real surprise if she happens to ‘flicker’ when changing direction. There were multiple instances where I would attempt to loop her around an object, only for her to vanish for a split second and find that she doubled back during this time and was now directly in my face.

Now we have Adam Francis to talk about. Like all survivors, he offers no real advantage over another, so the only thing to talk about are his three teachable perks, called ‘Diversion’, ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Autodidact’. With Diversion, you first need to charge it by standing within the killers terror radius while not being chased for 45 seconds (does not have to be consecutively). Once the perk is active, use the Active Ability button (default E) when crouched and motionless to throw a pebble that gives the Killer a visual and auditory cue if he is within 10-20 meters (distance depends on perk level). There isn’t any obvious perk that works well alongside Diversion, and the close proximity required for the cue to actually go off means it will be unlikely to work effectively unless on a map like Treatment Theatre or The Game, especially against experienced killers. Deliverance is a perk that requires you to first unhook another survivor before it activates, and once you have, you have a 100% chance to unhook yourself if you are caught. Doing this will give you the Broken effect (can’t be healed) for 100-60 seconds, the length decreasing with the perk level. If you’re also running something like Dead Hard, this will be a very valid choice that will force Killers to either waste time watching you and allowing your teammates to complete objectives, or leave you and allowing you a free save without pulling another player out of game to do so. A helpful perk, despite being undermined by there being less situational perks to choose from. Finally, there’s Autodidact, which changes how you heal other survivors. You start the trial with a -20% regression upon a skill check when healing others, even if successful. However, each successful skill check will give you a token, capping at 3-5 (depending on perk level), with each token giving you a +20% bonus progression on successful skill checks, adding up to a possible total of +80% progression upon a successful skill check when healing another survivor. Autodidact has clear potential in working its way into healing-orientated builds, likely to be found sat alongside the likes of Botany Knowledge & We’ll Make It.

So ultimately, how do they fare against the game’s ever-growing ensemble? The short answer is surprisingly well. Adam brings Deliverance, which will likely cause paranoia in killers out of fear that a survivor will have a guaranteed unhook attempt, in the same way Unbreakable made killers scared of slugging. Rin’s power is genuinely well-made and amazingly terrifying, with perks that are quickly going to find their way into many killer builds. During my time playing Dead By Daylight, I’ve never felt excitement for a DLC, but Shattered Bloodline may change that, as I’m genuinely curious to see how Adam and The Spirit will influence gameplay once the DLC is fully released on 11th of September.