Dead by Daylight multiplayer and how to play with friends explained

✓ At a glance

• Dead by Daylight has two separate multiplayer queues – one for Killers, and another for Survivors.
• You can play with your friends by joining the group together before matchmaking, but only as Survivors.

Getting a firm grip on the multiplayer aspects of Dead by Daylight is crucial if you’re planning to play Behaviour Interactive’s asymmetric survival horror game. After all, it’s a game centred around online play with fellow survivors if you’re trying to escape, or going in alone as a killer if you’re looking to hunt down and sacrifice other players.

How multiplayer works in Dead by Daylight

In Dead by Daylight, you’ll have two separate multiplayer queues available when playing – the Killer queue and the Survivor queue. In order to join and play, you’ll need a stable internet connection to the game’s servers.

• Since there’s only one Killer per game, you’ll be automatically put into matchmaking once you join this queue and hit “Play.” From here, just play as the Killer to complete the match.
• If you’re a Survivor, you can either queue on your own and be randomly matched with three other Survivors. Alternatively, you can queue in a group with friends to play together.

Matchmaking will generally aim to place people of similar ranks and progression together to balance matches, though this doesn’t always work.

How to play with friends

Playing with friends is fairly straightforward. First, click on “Play as a Survivor”, this will take you to the prep screen prior to active matchmaking. From here, click the plus sign on any of the empty spaces in your party next to your character. Popup text to “Invite a friend” will appear if you hover over them. On clicking, your Friends list will open up, and you can select the friends you can send an invite to.

You can also open your Friends menu directly and invite individuals to your party that way. Click on the dual silhouette icon along the bottom of your interactive buttons from the main or prep menus to bring up your Friends list.

If you’re joining a friend’s party, you’ll get a notification when they send an invite. Click on the notification and accept the invite to join. If you don’t click the notification in time, open up the Friends menu and navigate to the Requests tab, then check under your Pending Invites.

✓ Pro tip

If you want to play as a Killer with your friends, you won’t be guaranteed to join the same matchmaking by using the normal queues. Instead, you will have to create a custom game to be able to play together that way.

How to add friends in Dead by Daylight?

Adding friends is also pretty straightforward. You can use the standard method for adding friends on your platform. For example, if you’re playing on Steam, add a friend with their Steam Friend Code, and they should then appear on your friends list in-game. Alternatively, you can open the Friends menu, and click on the silhouette with the plus icon to the right of your name at the top. Enter your friend’s profile name from here, and it’ll send them a request.