Don't get me wrong, I liked DBD and actually pulled it out of my backlog during a free weekend (best time to learn the ropes is when everyone else is learning too, haha). It has some good things going for it but due to the limited central mechanics, things quickly boil down to their base elements and the horror aspect peels away to reveal the wonky roots. I mean, it must be really difficult to design assymetric PvP games to begin with, but harder still when you try to theme it around slashers / chase / pressure mechanics. It's really hard to keep matches feeling like anything remotely new happened in them, and you get that sense of a constant holding pattern where it's the same old BS just different match. Worse yet is how both sides have objectives that demand they give no mercy and use every available mechanic to their advantage, which causes both teams to feel cheated by cheap tactics that can't be reasonably avoided.

It's funny that the majority of the (socialising) killer populace in DBD claim to be underpowered and that survivors 'bully' them, therefore deserve to be deliberately camped and made miserable in 'revenge'. The whole us-vs-them mentality that splits the playerbase leads to some really toxic stuff, which is a shame because I've had my most fun as a killer that practiced 'catch and release' and played with my food (which still nets me more BP than even an escaping survivor most of the time), and on survivor side it was nice to have killers that didn't just immediately double-tap straight onto a hook upon every sighting. Being up against a good Myers or a trap-user who isn't beyond making you squirm or trying not to overly focus single people? That was always my jam. Getting the horror back in the horror PvP.

Sadly when you play public and non-grouped that's a rare thing, and you end up on a frustrating downwards spiral while every little scroat parrots salty memes thinking they're funny. I'm honestly surprised DBD's playerbase hasn't effectively cannibalised itself in its effort to deliberately troll/upset the opposing team. Once the numbers get low enough, it'll lose critical mass, the matchmaking queue times will increase exponentially, and it'll die the death all multiplayer-only games get. Somehow it's still kicking though. \:3/

Deathgarden just felt way too... fast and loose. While DBD was slow and ponderous, it at least had structure and a kind of gameplay skeleton that was more tangible, but DG feels more like a slippery sandbox where nothing stops moving and half your actions have no substance or impact, y'know?