VR Games To Play In 2021

Virtual reality games are currently on the rise, so to help those newer VR players out (or those veterans searching for something new) I wrote this article.

The VR 2021 Experience

The VR experience is the best when it comes to immersion, therefore VR as a platform is very difficult to beat. However, it’s not just the VR headset that causes this immersion, the game has to effectively communicate it to you. In this article, we are going to go into depth on which game creates the best immersion that you need to play in 2021 whether you are on an Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, Valve Index, or PlayStation VR, there’s something here for everyone.

Half Life: AlyxHalf Life: Alyx

Without a doubt, this has to be at the top of the list. Half Life: Alyx is arguably the best VR game for immersion to date. Many were afraid for the release of Half Life: Alyx especially with it being one of Valve’s first VR games. But without a slight bit of doubt, this survival / adventure game / puzzle game successfully fulfills the long wait for those half-life fans.

The graphics and physics truly reflect this being the best immersion game, but in particular, my  favourite aspect was the sense of scale of everything, it felt so huge and yet you’re just in your living room! Oh and don’t get me started on how great the puzzles are, they give you enough information but not enough to give it away.

Successfully adding to the immersion is the realistic looking creatures, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t get scared at all during points. If you’re willing to spend a fair bit of money for one game, then this has to be a game you play in 2021.

 BeatSaberBeatSaber

For those looking for something more ‘relaxing’ (depends how you look at it) beat saber is the next stop. I can’t lie, I knocked beatsaber for the longest time, especially since rhythm games aren’t my cup of tea, but playing it is a whole other feeling!

The part that makes it much better has to be the mods to allow custom song maps made by the community, allowing you to listen and dance to your favourite songs instead of lying on your bed with earphones in.

The game has a simple concept, you hit note blocks with the correct coloured lightsaber that comes to you in sync with the music. Some songs are harder than others and feel like a work out, but some are more laid back and relaxing. This is arguably the best pass-the-time game for Virtual Reality.

You can download beatsaber across any platform, so go ahead, jam out to that music and chop some blocks.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

Resident Evil 7 provides that breath of fresh air other VR games lack. This horror game classic has had its first port to VR, and you always know the classic horrors would end up being fantastic in VR, did you forget about the famous VR title Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted?

Resident Evil 7 is different to your typical horror routine however, so you can’t just run through without a breeze. Capcom has taken it back to its roots with all the precautions necessary to give you a good scare, so as you play, you will have to find ways of surviving against the game’s many freaky encounters.

This is a PlayStation VR exclusive, so single player console players, this is the game for you.

Skyrim VRSkyrim VR

By the title, Skyrim doesn’t need any introduction, everyone knows what this game is. Coming as a multiplatform VR, it’s arguably one of the biggest adventure games anyone has ever seen in VR.

You get to relive the entire skyrim story once again in VR, however it does not include some DLCs. The graphics aren’t amazing, but having one of the biggest classic adventure games in VR is still great fun to roam around in.

How COVID-19 Has Impacted E-Sports

The ESports industry went into 2020 with extremely high expectations after the development of it within 2019 and looked like it was heading for a long term growth. But later down the timeline a virus came a long and disrupted this entire process.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has affect almost, if not, every industry and is clear to believe that esports would be one affected by it the most, but how true is this? In this article, we are going to look at how esports has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and how it is attempted to control it.

ESports Vs COVID-19

As Coronavirus took control of most countries by forcing them into nationwide lockdowns, it caused many issues for competing, thus was moved to online. This, like sports, is a huge and significant difference compared to in person competition. 

The Change In-Game

Just like traditional sport, the lack of crowd extremely kills the entertainment value, it lacks that energy that once made the sport what it was. Being in that environment truly impacts the entertainment value, getting you excited for that next big matchup between the two titans, but matchups like these don’t have that energy around them anymore.

Furthermore, Esports played online actually affects the competition directly itself with ‘latency’. Games where every millisecond counts like CS:GO, Valorant and even Call Of Duty, have a big impact in affecting the outcome of the game.

Adding to this has to be the casters. Casters are one of the top reasons why esports does so well with their booming voice echoing throughout that crowd, effectively communicating that energy. However, with it being online the audio quality had to diminish with it, making some – an example would be ‘machine’ from the CS:GO casting desks – take a break to achieve their motivation back, effectively starting a chain reaction amongst other casters.

To make matters worse, events that were allowed to be hosted in person, the COVID-19 social distancing measures meant that not as many people could be in the same place at once.

An example of how this made a difference would be ESL’s Extreme Masters World Championship tournament in Poland, Katowice. It was altered so much after this event that the Polish government ordered ESL to not allow any audience members within the stadium at all, right before the event was scheduled to start.

The Effect On Brands & Businesses

Since the outbreak, many have focused on repairing the industry revenues and some, like ESL and Dreamhack, merged brands behind the scenes. This is a significant example of how bad the esports revenue tanked and it was all done to reduce operation costs.

Not just that, but similar companies within the Overwatch League (Toronto Defiant and OverActive Media) had to release staff to help reduce salary costs by up to 30%. Some took it worse than others and Team Reciprocity came to the conclusion to release all of their staff.

The industry itself has to completely change its infrastructure as it transitioned online, which you would believe would be simple to move everything online. You see, it was a challenge for all the companies and teams involved in this situation because of the adjustment of how things were monetized, more particularly in terms of sponsorships.

Written By Max Lang-Orsini

Was Cyberpunk 2077 Overhyped?

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you would know that a game named ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ was supposed to change gaming forever. What happened to all of this talk? In this article, we are going to diagnose Cyberpunk 2077’s rise to fame and how it suddenly came to a halt, if not a decline after it’s release.

Cyberpunk 2077 – A Victim To ‘Overhype’

After being in development for nearly a decade, Cyberpunk 2077 was in a ‘GTA’ (Grand Theft Auto) style based in the futuristic city called ‘Night City’. It was released at the end of 2020, but ever since hasn’t hit the news as it used to. What exactly happened to this extremely hyped game that was ‘Cyberpunk 2077’?

Cyberpunk’s Breathtaking Rise

CD Projekt Red’s biggest hyped game was Cyberpunk and you have to give it to them, their promotional methods and campaigns were very interesting to say the least. After years of making trailers for the game, they managed to get a spot to world premiere their game on Xbox’s stage at E3 back in 2019 (how does that seem so long ago)?.

After the world premiere, the buzz for Cyberpunk was unreal, you couldn’t go a day without hearing or reading the word ‘Cyberpunk’ somewhere. Keanu Reeves was their main promotional material, a form of endorsement so people with have a good retention span during their presentation (since they recognised the celebrity).

Another factor that further pushed their ever-so-fast growing hype was the memes of Keanu Reeves saying ‘you’re breathtaking’, it surely was a breathtaking meme. Not just that, but more memes popped up around the internet with the Cyberpunk soundtrack, i’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about!

All of these factors pushed the reach of Cyberpunk and at this point in time, everyone had heard of the new game to break the gaming industry, even your grandparents probably.

Beginning Of The End

All seemed well for this amazing video game and as for it’s hype train too, but it then started to drop in attention.

Cyberpunk had to delay their game as they believed it was wrong to release the game in that state, and delayed the game a further 2 more times. This led to frustration within the community and instead of excitement, it was anger. This put a lot of pressure on CD Projekt Red to get the game out, and so instead of throwing their hands in the air and saying “it will not be ready for another year or so”, they felt the need to publish.

This spiraled into many complaints and even refunds as the game was not to what they expected. It was a hot buggy mess of a game, and the extremely long wait made many players frustrated and not wanting to play.

Try to imagine waiting for a game for almost the duration of a decade for it to be boardline unplayable. However, I also like to think it wasn’t so much the developers fault with the added pressure every statement they’d give. Perhaps if they had handled it differently and delayed it for a lot longer and thought it out properly, this wouldn’t have happened.

Not everything is bad with the game, the city skies and the next generation beautiful graphics and scenery are amazing to look at. It’s that good it’s too much for today’s technology and specifications that most graphics cards struggle to meet the 60fps mark.

Victim To The Overhype Disease?

As great as the game is, I’m sure many players will return within a year or so after the release to try and play again. The development team is working hard to polish this game and make it more playable and optimised to today’s technology, but I don’t think this doesn’t make it a ‘good game’.

I can see both sides, so I’m neutral on whether Cyberpunk was overhyped or not. What are your thoughts, was Cyberpunk another victim to the ‘Overhype’ disease? Let me know

Written By: Max Lang-Orsini

Why Should You Play Beat Saber VR?

Have you ever put on some music and just relaxed, doing nothing as you listened to your favourite songs on repeat? If so, you will love Beat Saber VR, atleast, this is one of the reasons why I became so attached and lost a week of my life to it.

Reasons To Play Beat Saber VR

Beat Saber is a VR game, bought by oculus, falling under the category of ‘rhythm games’. The main objective is to hit the notes coming at you and get the best score possible. To say that rhythm games aren’t my thing, Beat Saber VR compared to other similar games like guitar hero, it’s much more for for these reasons:

Music Packs

Beat Saber, the game itself, has managed to get licenses from popular artists like; BTS, Imagine Dragons and Linkin Park and have music packs dedicated to these artists. If you like them, you will be able to play an official version within the game. Furthermore, if you are looking at listening to new songs, Beat Saber offers many of their own songs for you to slice notes to.

Custom Songs

My personal favourite part about this amazing beat game is being able to upload custom songs to beat saber. Hitting notes on beat to your favourite artists is truly a great and addictive feeling, you get swallowed by the music, it’s amazing.

New Player Friendly

Fast paced songs are more difficult as there are more notes for you to hit, but the great part about Beat Saber is that it is very new player and ‘average’ player friendly. They offer multiple difficulties ranging from; easy, normal, hard, expert and expert + allowing you to get used to the game.

A tip for you new players I’ve found to work like a treat is to use more wrist movements than arm movements, it’s easier to hit notes that spread far out to the next.

Move To The Beat

Like I said at the beginning of this article, instead of sitting or laying and listening to music, you can get your body into your favourite songs by dancing to the beat and hitting the notes. Combined this with the custom song idea, you can search for your own songs on the ‘BeastSaber’ website where people from the community upload their maps of songs.

Furthermore, if your song is not listed, you can auto generate the map by using BeatSage which uses AI technology to create rhythms from the song you uploaded. Whilst it’s not perfect, it’s an amazing feeling to slice notes to your personal favourite songs.

Challenges

If you begin to get bored of the standard slicing block routine (you would be crazy to), Beat Saber offers many challenges for you to master your favourite songs on the hardest (or fun) difficulty.

Availability

Beat Saber is available anywhere for you to purchase and start dancing to. Beat Saber is on Steam, Oculus store and Playstation VR, and further is available on the oculus quest for all of you wireless players out there.

I hope you enjoyed this detailed article and I hope it gave you a good reason to at least try Beat Saber VR for yourself. Even if you are unsure, try it, that’s what I did and I fell in love and became addicted.

Written By: Max Lang-Orsini

Twitch Live Streaming For Dummies – Max Lang-Orsini

Twitch Live Streaming For Dummies

You’ve most likely clicked on this article to learn how to stream professionally, and that is exactly the right reason you should be here for. Live streaming on Twitch, or on any other streaming platform takes a lot of energy and work, much more than you may believe. So, how do these popular streamers do it and how can you get your hands on Twitch Affiliate with consistent returning viewers?

Video Game Broadcasting For Beginners

In this article, I, Max Lang-Orsini, will break down the important points to help you become a consistently ‘good’ streamer. We will focus on some nerdy algorithm facts whilst also giving you advice for your broadcasts. But first, how do you begin and what’s the best software to use for your live streaming endeavours?

Live Streaming Software

Picking the right live streaming software to start streaming may seem daunting at first, or easy from what you’ve heard. There are a fair few streaming softwares that are worth a mention, but OBS Studio is the most obvious choice. Compared to other softwares, Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is free and is placed at a high standard amongst many other streamers.

What makes OBS great is its user friendly navigation, as well as it’s optimised capability to encode streams effectively and efficiently. Those top twitch streamers you watch are more than likely using OBS (OBS Studio to be specific), and understandably so.

Remember that you will need a capture card to stream from your console to your computer to Twitch.

Even I would recommend OBS, however, if you believe it’s not for you, here are some other great broadcasting softwares that deserve that mention;

Decast Live Streaming

VidBlasterX

XSplit

The Basic Setup

First, before streaming, you will need to follow some tutorials on building your stream up from the ground. If you know some good editors or artists, commissions are an extra you can do to help improve the quality of your stream, remember, you’re not alone!

Follow these YouTube tutorials to make sure you have the correct settings for your broadcast, no one wants to watch 5fps gameplay. Speaking of people watching, interact with Twitch chat as much as possible, you’d be surprised at the amount of people that don’t talk to the viewers in their stream. Engagement and interactivity is what drives twitch streams, so engage with the viewers the best you can!

Furthermore, setup hotkeys to mute your microphone and headphones and add the ‘noise suppression’ effect. This will help to reduce background noise and the hotkeys can be used to prevent audio you don’t want being broadcasted live.

Keeping Viewers Engaged

Remember that you are here to stream and have fun, not gawk over the numbers. These numbers you keep looking at can prove to be a very distracting factor. I would recommend to hide the viewer count number, as seeing low or less than usual can be very demotivating.

To keep viewers retention, engagement is your best way of doing so, remember that returning viewers are better than unique viewers! You want people to come back to your stream, not watch once and never again, interacting with your chat is key to keep that retention for as long as possible.

Communicating and talking a lot is also important, if you notice things becoming silent, start a conversation about a topic that the viewers may be interested in, or further, tell a story. Streamers prepare their streams throughout the day and some write notes on conversation topics they think of, this is a great improvisation technique.

If you can get them to follow you on your other social media platforms, that would be a great outcome. Posting when you’re about to be live or any other notices on streaming updates 

Be Yourself

As silly as this sounds, try your best to be yourself and avoid putting on a persona, some can see through this. On top of this, be as positive as you can, as well, it’s a known fact that humans drift away from negativity, so try your best even on days you don’t feel 100%.

For that matter, if you don’t feel like you have the energy to stream, do not worry, it’s better to have no stream than a bad stream. Chances are, those viewers will come back another day when that bad stream might have driven them away from your twitch account.

The Algorithm Tips

Once you’ve got all this, it’s a matter of finding your audience and your audience finding you. However, there are workarounds to help you get these viewers more effectively.

Finding the right categories for your interests and audience is difficult when put together. Starting out will be you finding your footing. Focus on games that are big but are not oversaturated with professional players or the big named streamers, i.e Valorant and CS:GO.

Games like Sea Of Thieves or Stardew Valley are popular games without it being oversaturated. Finding these games that suit you too is that hardest point, but once again, find your footing and where you stand on streaming games.

However, if you play games that you know you can be good at, you may find viewers tuning in to watch your skill. I noticed that on Call Of Duty: Cold War Zombies, most of the higher up streamers are on the high 100 rounds, so if you know you can get to that, do so and put it in your title!

Furthermore, your title is the first impression a viewer gets of your stream, so making them want to click will be important. Puns are a great way of doing so, especially if you give off a ‘funny’ atmosphere. It’s also worth mentioning that only the first 36 characters will be shown before it gets cut off, so make the first 36 characters count!

A huge tip for much smaller streamers is the ‘5 viewer rule’. For those that don’t know, when you have 5 viewers, your chances of discoverability are much higher because you get pushed much higher in the category. This leads onto my next point;

Friends & Family

As much as it may be embarrassing to show your friends and / or family you playing games online, having them simply ‘lurk’ within the stream, or interact every now and then helps your viewer count. Having those friends tune in to help build the numbers will furthermore help your discoverability, and if they talk in your chat, it’s extra conversation starters, it comes full circle.

These are the few tips for live streaming beginners I believe to be the most helpful, especially when I started out. Remember that you do not need a separate streaming PC or even a green screen, let alone a camera, being yourself is why your viewers will keep returning (obviously if it’s watchable).

Please share if you found this helpful and reply with your input, it’s always interesting to read up on other people’s experience.

Written By: Max Lang-Orsini

Why An SSD Is Necessary In a 2021 Gaming PC – Max Lang-Orsini

Why You Need To Improve Your Gaming PC Using SSD

According to Max Lang-Orsini, playing video games has become a cultural thing in today’s society. With each release, each game becomes more realistic due to advancements in technology. That is why you need a better gaming PC in 2021.

If you are using older computers with older storage devices for gaming, you are probably giving up a lot in terms of performance and speed. Speed is an essential factor that almost every gamer considers when building their gaming PC.

It can be frustrating to look at that spinning icon on your monitor as you wait for your game to load. You get even more frustrated if you have to listen to the stuttering noise while your gaming PC struggles to accommodate your game and some unknown background task.

If you have a gaming PC in 2021, an SSD is the best solution for your performance and speed woes. You can’t excuse yourself from having a mega fast Solid State Disk inside your PC in 2021 since SSD prices have been dropping over the past few years.

Actually, there has never been a better time to build yourself a super-fast gaming PC that can offer both speed and performance.

Why An SSD Is Necessary In a 2021 Gaming PC

Higher Performance

As a gamer, you probably want smooth and uninterrupted gameplay. With an SSD, that is what you get because their headline specifications are data transfer speeds. If you have an SSD in your gaming PC, you can have shorter game loading times and other things such as faster level transitions.

SSDs have a shorter access time (IOPS) to gaming files. With this shorter access time, SSDs give you a better gaming experience than their counterparts because games contain loads of small files that are frequently accessed.

SSDs can access game files and data in microseconds, while older hard drives can take milliseconds. Even though a milliseconds-difference in access time does not seem like much, you would notice a big difference once the drive needs to access multiple locations in your storage drive for data.

If you notice environment pop ups appearing, lags, stuttering and loading icons that interrupt your gameplay, you need to get an SSD for your gaming PC. When doing something like patching a game, having an SSD in your gaming PC is essential.

Patching a game involves modifying and rewriting huge files, which can become a heavy burden on a drive. Thanks to their shorter access time, SSDs can ensure you spend more time gaming than waiting for your slow drive to complete patching your game.

Durability

SSDs are less susceptible to damages as compared to their HDD counterparts. Meaning, you do not have to worry about replacing the SSD drive in your gaming PC for years. SSDs do not have mechanical movable parts that make HDDs susceptible to environmental damages. Therefore, SSDs can save you an extra dollar despite being a bit expensive compared to HDDs.

Also, SSDs do not have that disturbing whirring noise made byHDDs, thus making your gameplay peaceful.

Conclusion

With the advancement in technology, each video game becomes more realistic with each release. Meaning you may need to improve your gaming PC to continue enjoying smooth and uninterrupted gameplay.

SSDs provide your gaming PC with the improvements you need to accommodate the advanced 2021 video games. With an SSD drive in your 2021 gaming PC, you are set to enjoy a wide variety of cutting-edge games in 2021.

How Did ‘Among Us’ Become So Popular? – Max Lang-Orsini

To think that a simple indie game exploded in popularity and became one of the most popular games of all time is hard, but the game Among Us managed it. I had to call this emergency meeting as I saw (according to Steamcharts,) 438,524 players in September 2020 all playing concurrently, competing with the top games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (which is pretty sus).

What Caused Among Us To Be Popular?

Released in June 2018, the game only saw a couple of hundred to a thousand players playing at one time, which sounds like a lot, but compared to your competitors is nothing. It wasn’t until the end of August 2020 when it really began to rise in popularity. In this article, we will target the points that caused this uprising for this video game.

Streamers

Arguably, big twitch streamers began streaming the game which is the biggest argument for the popularity boom. It all makes sense, your favourite streamer played the game, you wanted to play the game, it’s basically free promotion. On top of that, streamers and content creators began playing together and many collaborations that viewers finally wanted happened (like KSI & PewDiePie).

Viewer numbers on Twitch can be misleading to determine a game’s true popularity, a good example is Valorant and its beta drops, but Among Us is different. With Among Us, you can tell that everyone watching is genuine.

COVID-19

Another big point to why so many players are playing this game right now is COVID-19, the lockdowns and isolation. You see, when people are having to isolate or be locked down, many turn to gaming as a pass time and because so many people are doing so, it doesn’t appear to be as difficult to get a group of players or friends to have a laugh.

Among Us has become a hilarious option to escape from the year that is 2020.

Easy To Learn, Easy To Play

For a third reason on the Among Us’ popularity boom has to be the gameplay. I don’t have to mention the simplistic style of the game that any age can play, but the core mechanics of the game have purpose.

As a ‘Crewmate’, you have to complete tasks, causing you to potentially split away from the group and allowing the impostor to make a move. The tasks for crewmates are very simple, and within a game or two on either side, you already understand the basics for the mechanics.

As an ‘Impostor’, your job is to kill your fellow crewmates, get away with it and outnumber them before they can complete their tasks. You are able to vent in areas around the map to help navigate quickly.

Mobile Game

Something that makes the game have a huge audience and ties to a previous point is the fact that you can play on mobile, for free! Mobile Among Us is free and can play cross platform with PC, meaning you can play with friends just about anywhere. This is a great addition for multiplayer gaming

Furthermore, it increases the reach for Among Us even more by being one of the top games on the Google Play Store and IOS App Store. So in reality, there are more than 440,000 players playing at once!

Among Us has become a titan in today’s gaming, proving no matter the basicness of your game, you can still conquer the top games like Dota and CS:GO.

Dead By Daylight | A Survivor Review

Dead By Daylight is an unforgettable gaming experience full of thrills, torment and laughter as you evade against the killer to escape. The concept of Dead By Daylight is like no other, and for so long people wanted to translate this into an actual game and well, it happened.

Dead By Daylight Survivor

Over recent decades, online gaming has advanced tremendously. Not only in its graphical quality but the creative ideas are truly coming to light, Dead By Daylight is a spectacle of this.

In Dead By Daylight, you can play as a survivor, but you can also play as the killer. In this article, however, we will focus on the survivor side but if you wish, you can read the killer version I created.

Trivia

This great game was published by Behaviour Interactive on Steam in the June of 2016. Shortly after, Dead By Daylight gained a significant following with many live streamers and content creators making content on this fantastic horror game. It was later ported to Xbox and PlayStation in 2017 following it’s instant success.

Dead By Daylight is a multiplayer game (that sadly has no voice chat) where there are 4 survivors and 1 killer. It’s a grindy like game as you progress up the levels, spending your hard earned bloodpoints (points by playing) to level up characters for better perks, items, add-ons and offerings.

Your Job As a Survivor

Dead By Daylight Generator Screenshot

Your main job in Dead By Daylight as a survivor is to complete 5 generators to power the exit gates, in which you can open once powered and escape. Sounds easy, but when there is a killer on the loose, the difficulty ceiling does get higher. The maps in the game vary in size, tho typically are big with many places to hide, one of the common places are lockers. Lockers look like an obvious hiding spot, but because it looks so obvious, who would use them?

To know where the killer is, you can listen to the ‘Terror Radius’ to determine how close they are. The terror radius is a heartbeat that progressively gets more and more intense the closer he is, this is a good sign to get out of there.

When the killer enters a chase with you, a good way to tell which way he is facing is by looking at the red light in front of him. Good killers will know this and if they know you can’t see them, they will turn around as they come round the corner, giving you less time to react.

Perks, Items, Add-Ons

To help you survive, the game has various ways you can use as aid. These perks, Items and add-ons for the items vary, so when you bring them into the trial, make sure you have a strategy.

Perks

To start with perks, I will mention the ‘meta’ perks that everyone finds to be the most strong and effective. For new players, you must level up a survivor to levels 30, 35 and 40 to unlock all of that character’s unique perks. To see which perks you can get from characters, read the ‘character info’ by pressing F1 on PC or you can read about teachable perks.

I find the combo ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Decisive Strike’ a good combination. Deliverance means you can instantly escape off your first hook if you have previously made a safe save on another teammate. To combine this, Decisive Strike allows you to get off the killers’ shoulder if he picks you up within a minute of unhooking yourself, giving you a quick get away.

Items

Every survivor has the same items, these items are; medkits, toolboxes, flashlights, maps and keys. Most are obviously by their name, but flashlights, maps and keys work differently to how you would expect.

Flashlights

Flashlights are not a tool to help you see, rather they can shine in the killers’ eyes to blind them. It takes a few seconds to have an effect, so I wouldn’t recommend doing this when you’re mid chase.

Maps

Maps are similar to how you would expect. When in use, the map reveals the aura of generators, or, if you are using a rainbow map, almost everything interactable.

Keys

Keys are used to open ‘Black Locks’. For those who do not know what this means, it’s referring to the ‘hatch’ that spawns randomly in the trial opening up a free escape.

Add-Ons

For the items above, you can apply add-ons to increase the duration, or increase the amount of charges your item has. Some can apply unique effects, such as the toolbox’s brand new part. This part allows you to complete 25% of a generator if you land the skill checks correctly.

The Survivor List

Before we dig in, it’s important you know that it does not matter much which survivor you play. Some injured survivors are louder than others, but that is only the real difference and is not significant, so here are my favourite survivors.

Laurie Strode | Determined Survivor

Laurie Strode | Determined Survivor

The first licensed survivor to be added to Dead By Daylight was Laurie Strode. Laurie Strode is the main character from the classic horror movie, Halloween with the inclusion of Michael Myers.

Her teachable perks are; Sole Survivor, Object of Obsession and Decisive Strike. Click each named perk to read more about how it functions.

Yui Kimura | Hardened StreetracerYui Kimura | Hardened Streetracer

Yui Kimura is a fairly recent survivor that was added to Dead By Daylight, however, a bit of bias may be on her side because of how great her outfits are. Yui Kimura is a Japanese motorbike racer who is The Oni’s survivor opposition.

Her teachable perks are; Lucky Break, Any Means Necessary and Breakout.

Quentin Smith | Resolute DreamwalkerQuentin Smith | Resolute Dreamwalker

Quentin Smith was the survivor version of the ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ DLC. This determined survivor helps lead his team survive through thick and thin.
His teachable perks are; Wake Up!, Pharmacy and Vigil.

Dead By Daylight | A Killer Review

Everyone has heard of Dead By Daylight by now, it’s definitely earnt its mainstream fame, rightfully so. The concept of Dead By Daylight sounds like one of those games that will never get made, but now has its own title with its thrilling gameplay!

Dead By Daylight Killer

Dead By Daylight has two sides, the survivor side and the killer side. In this article, we will primarily focus on the killer side, but if you wish to read the survivor side instead, go ahead.

Trivia

The horror game, Dead By Daylight, was published by Behaviour Interactive as a multiplayer game on Steam in June of 2016. With its instant success and climbing followers, it was later ported to Xbox and Playstation in 2017.

This game was perfect for streamers and content creators as it was something you could stream and record with ease, but was something completely new that the gaming industry has never seen before, thus helping its follower count climb.

Your Job As a Killer

Dead By Daylight Screenshot

In Dead By Daylight as a killer, your main goal is to prevent the survivors from repairing generators and, well, kill them. Your job is to force the survivor into the ‘dying state’, pick them up, and place them on meat hooks. Sounds gruesome, but you have a tremendous amount to worry about as the killer.

As a killer, you have a ‘Terror Radius’, which to the survivors will be a heartbeat, and that heartbeat beats faster the closer the killer is. This way the survivors will know you are on your way…

Something that does make the killer easier is the fact that survivors will leave a trail (it looks like a load of red scratches) when they run. The tracks can get messy, especially when there’s a lot so in some instances can be your enemy by leading you to confusion.

Perks & Add-Ons

Now, you’re not technically on your own as you can have perks and small add-ons to help you catch those pesky survivors. These perks can range from seeing the outline of the survivors, or causing the skill checks to be harder for the survivor to land.

Some perks you can combine with others, for example, one of my favourite perks to using together is ‘Distressing’ and ‘Unnerving Presence’. ‘Distressing’ makes your terror radius huge whilst ‘Unnerving Presence’ causes skill checks to be incredibly small and appear more often.

As the killer, you are in a first person perspective whilst the survivors have a 3rd person perspective, knowing this will hopefully allow you to use it to your advantage.

Each killer has their own perk types relating to their ability kit. Ah yes, there is more than one killer, there’s around ~21 killers in the game currently.

The Killer List

One of the elements that makes Dead By Daylight so good, especially in today’s age, is because of how many characters in the game there are. Remember that each killer has their own 3 unique perks, that’s 63 perks alone not counting the default ones.

In this section, I will cutdown and name a few that I particularly love playing whilst jumping to some nerdy parts of the character.

Michael Myers | The Shape

The classic killer was the first licensed killer to be ported in Dead By Daylight. I may be a bit biased since I love the Michael Myers horror movie series (excited for Halloween Kills) but his playstyle I find stands out from many killers. Your power is stalking, quite literally how he acts in the movies. You build this power up and go through 3 tiers.Michael Myers | The Shape

Tier 1 – Your lunge is small, but you have no terror radius, meaning you can sneak up on your prey. Tier 2 – you become more standard, however, you are unable to go back to tier 1. Tier 3 allows you to have a huge lunge and instantly down any survivor from healthy, but sadly this has a timer and you will drop back down to tier 2.

Evan Macmillan | The TrapperEvan Macmillan | The Trapper

Evan Macmillan was the first killer added to Dead By Daylight and was their very own original character. His power is unique and is one of the few killers in Dead By Daylight to be able to place things around the killing game.

He is able to place bear traps around the place with the hopes that some unsuspecting survivor will step right into it. This disables the survivor from doing anything until they are able to escape themself, or have help from another survivor.

Caleb Quinn | The DeathslingerCaleb Quinn | The Deathslinger

For ages in this game I’ve always wanted a character that could shoot some sort of weapons, the deathslinger finally gave us this. The Deathslinger, as you can imagine, is a killer that was born in the backlands of the american midwest and was attracted to the idea of a harpoon like gun to reel in his prey.

This killer is a little more mechanically skill based compared to other killers as not only do you have to predict the harpoon delay as it’s launched, you’ve got to focus on the survivors movements and the potential objects that could interfere with your shot, but I must say he is a blast to play.

Pyramid Head | The ExecutionerPyramid Head | The Executioner

For those who remember the classic horror games, Silent Hill will definitely strike a bell. There was huge demand for Pyramid Head, so the developers added him earlier this year to celebrate the 4 year anniversary. His unique gameplay and power makes him arguably one of the strongest killers in the game.

He is able to strike judgement on any survivors that get in the way of his path. Leaving torment trails around the place allows him to send survivors to a judgement tank somewhere random in the trial. On top of this, he has a secondary ability known as ‘The Punishment Of The Damned’ allowing him to launch a direct and straight strike in front of him, hitting any survivors in it.

Talbot Grimes | The BlightTalbot Grimes | The Blight

The Blight is the latest and 21st killer to be added to Dead By Daylight. This original character brings fast paced unique gameplay, arguably making him one of the top strongest killers at the moment.

His power allows you to charge forward, but you can only attack after you bump into an object. Imagine playing ping pong in a killing game, how insane does that sound? Nevertheless, the developers created this monstrosity bringing another form of ‘mind games’ in chases, easily one of the most fun killers to play. Whilst he takes a bit to get used to, good survivors who know how to counter his movements can make The Blight look silly.

Freddy Krueger | The NightmareFreddy Krueger | The Nightmare

Freddy Krueger, this killer has his own home within the classic killer neighbourhood. Pulling survivors into a dream allows Freddy to play his game whilst they are asleep. 

His main power is ‘dream snares’ that causes hands to come out the ground and grab to slow down any survivor that runs into this puddle.

If you wanted, you could switch this for fake pallets, playing on survivors’ feeling of safety. On top of this, he is able to teleport to any generator that is not completed, causing the gen to spew blood and himself coming out of the ground next to it. The most fun out of this killer is seeing every survivor scarper, only to be messed about in some way.

How Are Simplistic Games Running The Industry In 2020?

Gaming has advanced significantly over the past few decades. Playing games has become a common and cultural thing, however, the video game industry this year has been dominated by the simple type of online games.

How have the games ‘Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout’ and ‘Among Us’ managed to influence and gain control over the gaming market?

2020: The Simplistic Gaming Experience

We all play video games as a way to relax, but recently the emergence of the simple games have taken over, and with a fair few reasons. In this article, we will explain how these popular games exploded in popularity, and I’m sure this is obvious, but both games require an internet connection!

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

Released in February of this year, the game developers ‘Mediatonic’ published Fall Guys through Devolver Digital. Instantly, the game was a success, reminding players of how the basics of games at times can be a lot of fun. Fall guys is available on Windows and Playstation and are extremely popular for console gaming.

Building up to the release of Fall Guys, they caught a lot of their attention through social media. Their social media manager, @OliverAge24, has brought a lot of attention to their games by cracking jokes on the Fall Guys accounts making their followers laugh whilst interacting with them constantly.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is sort of like a Mario party crossover, but instead vs in 60 players. There is a maximum of 5 rounds and only a certain number of people each round can qualify until one guy is the last one standing and wins. From winning, you earn a crown, and you can spend these crowns on cosmetics in the game, making winning worth it.

Among Us

An older game that has recently blown up was released all the way back in June of 2018. The Among Us game concept is all about you and your crewmates in space having to do day to day tasks, but, there is an impost among you. It’s your job to suss out and eliminate the imposter, or eliminate everyone if you are the imposter! It’s significantly more fun with friends, especially how it’s become ‘the norm’ to mute your mic at certain parts of the gameplay to be more immersed.

Arguably, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout could have been an influence for the rise of Among Us since people began having an interest in the basic style games. To say the characters look fairly similar, this could also be another reason for finding out about the game.

If you didn’t know, you play Among Us through mobile gaming on IOS and Android.

Looking At The Statistics

To show you how big these games have gotten, let’s look at the statistics to get a better perspective.

If we look at steampowered statistics, Fall Guys had it’s an all-time peak in August of 172,000 concurrent players at once on Steam alone. It is estimated that Fall Guys have an active player count of 15.6 million players in their first-month launch.

Among us had an extremely low player count with an average of ~25 players until the boom this year. Its concurrent player peak hit 306,000 with an estimation of over 2.7 million players.

Typically it’s gaming companies that own the bigger and higher quality games, but as a fun fact, Among Us is run by a small team of 3 and they’ve been taken by surprise with this popularity boom! They’re working many hours to keep the servers stable and generally keeping the game a happy place, bless them.

Battle Royales

Almost everyone is aware of the battle royale craze that lasted from 2017 to 2020. Whilst battle royales are still fairly popular today, I would argue that the complexity of such a genre has exhausted games that require a lot of skill, like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Call Of Duty and Fortnite.

I’m not in any way downplaying the value of these skilful games as they take years to master, but in terms of the casual market, they seem to be looking for simpler games to pass the time. These types of games that have blown up prove to have been explicitly made to have a laugh with your friends, something that has over time slowly been forgotten about.

Live Streaming Services & Video Content Creation

One of the biggest reasons for the popularity boom is high-quality live streamers broadcasting this hilarious game to the world. This is no surprise, the majority of smaller games that gain popularity is through video creation content and gaming live streams.

Fan content is one of the leading carriers to the rise of both games. Both have managed to respond to their communities in a great manner, keeping their players entertained through their social media. This is showing other games how you should handle your social media, even though it appears as ‘less business-like’.

Both of these games have done tremendously well and deserve the top spots they have, I’m excited to see what Among Us 2 brings us next year!

  • Written By: Max Lang-Orsini