Dead by Daylight: Jason
Behaviour Interactive · Horror, Survival, Stealth
Overview
THE SLASHER No matter where you run, Jason is never far away. Relentless, vicious, and brutally creative, the masked slasher will never run out of inventive ways to kill. It’s all fun and games until a piece of scrap metal bursts through your chest.
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Dead by Daylight’s Jason includes a new Killer, The Slasher. Purchasing this add-on unlocks the Hockey Mask badge and the Misty Cabin banner.
Jason’s Power: Omnipresent Evil
Become Invisible and gain Undetectable.
Lose the ability to see Survivors and Scratch Marks, but not Footprints.
· Special Ability: Impaling Throw
O Grab a Projectile from Scrap Piles or Hooks around the Map.
O Hit Survivors with a Projectile to injure them and knock them back.
O Impale a Survivor and Pin Them Down by knocking them into an object or surface.
O Healthy Survivors can only be Impaled by a Hook Projectile.
· Special Ability: Jump Scare
O While in Omnipresent Evil, look at a Pallet, Breakable Wall, or Vault Location.
O Instantly move to it and perform a Break or Vault action.
O Reveal the location of nearby Survivors with Killer Instinct.
The Slasher comes with 3 new perks.
Hex: Scared To Death
Hook a variety of victims to awaken a Dull Totem. While active, breaking a Pallet during a chase will cause nearby Survivors to scream and briefly slow down.
Perk 2: Silent Shadow
Whenever you hook a Survivor, you gain Undetectable for a short duration. Once all Generators are repaired, you will become Undetectable permanently.
Perk 3: Rampage
Break Pallets and Breakable Walls to amass up to 13 Tokens. Whenever you are blinded or stunned, each token will contribute to a brief Haste boost.
EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER ITEMS: HOCKEY MASK BADGE AND MISTY CABIN BANNER
A terrifying mask that never reveals emotion or remorse. The Jason Chapter includes an exclusive Hockey Mask badge and the Misty Cabin banner, only available as part of the DLC. Please note that these items cannot be purchased separately.
Summer camps, hockey masks, and machetes have never been the same...
JASON UNIVERSE TM & Mask © Horror, Inc.
From the game's Steam store page.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT578 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Reviewers call Jason one of the most requested killers in Dead by Daylight's history, and most of them recommend him. What they praise is how he plays: hunting through the fog with Omnipresent Evil, popping out of a pallet or window with a jump scare, then landing a thrown spike, pinning someone to a wall or finishing them with one of several built-in moris. Several call him one of the most fun killers the game has added in years, and the reviewers who mention the five-dollar price call it cheap. For many short reviews, Jason finally being in the game is the whole review.
His power is the main sticking point. The complaint raised most often is that it is borrowed from killers players already own, Springtrap and Huntress above all, with Dracula and Spirit named less often. Nearly everyone who discusses his three perks calls them weak, and Friday the 13th fans point to what the chapter leaves out: no map, no survivor, no movie skins, and a Jason Universe redesign some find goofy and stiffly animated. Balance divides players. Survivors in launch week called him overpowered, singling out his ability to stay in the fog with no cooldown, while other reviewers called him a mid-tier pick that coordinated teams can dodge, and a few later reviews say nerfs after release made him weaker.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
A fun, satisfying power to playHigh
Praise for how he plays comes up more than any other positive, and it appears in some negative reviews too. Players describe a loop they enjoy repeating: travel invisibly through the fog, emerge with a jump scare and a burst of haste, take a spike shot, and either down the survivor or vanish to reload. One reviewer wrote that "The cycle is addicting and very rewarding", and another summed up the risk and reward: "missing the spike is very punishing. but hitting it feels insanely satisfying." A couple of players single out long-range hits from across the map as the best part.
Several reviewers said he brought them back to the game ("Jason made me comeback to the game."), and some who called the chapter disappointing still admitted he is fun to play. Whether fun is enough when the parts feel familiar is where they disagree (see the recycled power below).
Jason is finally in the gameHigh
Dozens of positive reviews are relief and celebration: Jason after ten years, the killer fans asked for from the start, a fitting tenth-anniversary pick. Some longtime Friday the 13th fans recommend him on that alone. Many of these reviews are short and say nothing about how he plays, so they add to the positive share without describing the DLC.
Moris, wall pins and slasher feelMedium
His kill animations get specific praise: several moris depending on how the survivor goes down, wall impales and hook-spike kills. "All 3 of his mori's are amazing and so are the cosmetics," one player wrote. Others singled out the sound and presentation, the breathing, the footsteps and the iconic whisper; one called "his visual/audio design is almost unmatched." Not everyone agrees on the moris: a few reviews call some of them goofy or rushed, and one says the wall impale "feels REALLY wonky at times."
Cheap for what you getLow
Players who mention the price mostly call it an easy buy at five dollars, for example "It's Jason. It's peak killer gameplay. It's 5 USD. Immaculate." Critics did not dispute the price, only whether the content behind it is worth even that.
Easy to pick upLow
A few reviewers recommend him to newcomers as a good first or starter killer who is not hard to learn, though one warned that new players "may want to avoid for a bit" because missed throws are costly.
Where players are split
Overpowered or mid-tierHigh
In launch week, survivor-side reviewers called him broken and asked for an immediate nerf, saying he "can consistently secure 4Ks with very little room for counterplay" and that his map presence leaves no downtime. Other reviewers answered that he is a B-tier killer at best, easily handled by a good team: "Against any half-decent team, he's just an M1 killer with a single slow-firing projectile that's easy to dodge and tedious to recharge."
Nerfs feed both camps. Survivor players wanted them, and killer players feared them from day one ("SURELY they wont nerf him, right?"). A couple of later reviews say slower spike readying and other changes made him weaker after people had paid ("He was fun, but of course they nerfed him after they made their money."). A third group, including some reviewers who play both sides, calls him well balanced and hopes he is left alone.
Facing him as a survivorMedium
Some positive reviews say he is fun to play as and against, but a group of survivor players disagree. Their complaints are specific: Omnipresent Evil has no cooldown and no time limit, so matches open with everyone crouch-walking until someone dares to repair: "Beginning of any match is a game of chicken of 'who starts repairing first' because he can just stay in the fog forever until you stop moving." Others say crouching is a counter that makes him tedious rather than tense, and that in the endgame he can sweep the map, close the hatch and cover both exit gates. "Fun to play as him. Less fun to go against him," one reviewer put it.
The Jason Universe look and animationsMedium
Reviewers note that this Jason uses the Jason Universe design rather than a movie version, and opinion on it is divided. Some like it outright ("I LIKE THE JASON UNIVERSE DESIGN") or accept it as the price of having him at all. Others say he looks like a cartoon or "a Disney villain" and lacks menace. The animations draw harder criticism: "Jason's animations are very stiff," with complaints about his walk, his swings, kicking, vaulting and hand pose. One reviewer who played the test build said "the janky animations got smoothed out" for the live release, so even this point is contested. A couple of fans call the launch outfits bland and want movie looks.
What frustrates players
A power built from other killersHigh
No complaint comes up more often, and it runs through many of the negative reviews. Players describe his kit as parts they have seen before: a Huntress-style thrown projectile, Springtrap-style traversal, Spirit or Dracula-style stealth. The comparisons are often blunt: "springtrap 2 with better secondary and better mobility," or "Jason is nothing more than an uninspired combination of multiple killer powers that leads to the most boring chases the game has yet to see." One negative review made the same point about a killer fans waited years for: "they've made him a spear thrower ghost."
Some positive reviews concede it too, recommending him while noting he is "very similar to springtrap" or "brings nothing new to the table at all." How much it matters depends on the player: fans of the playstyle shrug, while players who already own those killers see no reason to pick him over them.
Weak perksMedium
Nearly every review that discusses his three perks (Hex: Scared to Death, Rampage, Silent Shadow) calls them weak, niche or useless, including many positive ones. Players say the hex is easily cleansed or countered, Rampage only pays off once you are already losing, and Silent Shadow is the only one with any use in endgame builds. "His perks are quite awful though, as all revolve around the number 13," one fan wrote, and another advised: "I wouldnt buy him for perks tho.." Only one review praised them outright.
A bare chapter for such a big nameMedium
Friday the 13th fans point to what is missing: no new map, no Camp Crystal Lake or summer-camp setting, no survivor such as Tommy Jarvis, no movie skins, and no mention of Pamela or the films in his lore and voice lines. "Of course, no map, no survivor," one reviewer noted, and even a positive one admitted "Only downside is the DLC itself feels a bit light." Several asked for movie-era costumes (Part 3, Jason X, Savini) and a themed map later.
Complaints about Dead by Daylight itselfLow
A number of reviews use the DLC page to vent about the base game: the survivor meta, coordinated four-stacks, MMR, the tenth-anniversary event and its cake rewards, and the community. These say little about Jason; one review praised the DLC and still voted no because "Unfortunately you still have to play Dead by Daylight."
Jason in every match and long killer queuesLow
At launch, survivors met Jason match after match ("back-to-back Jasons are tiring"), while killer players reported long queues to play him ("match wait times for Killer are terrible but man is this guy fun to use."). These complaints cluster in the first days after launch.
Spike hitboxes and bugsLow
A few players report inconsistent spike hits ("Whenever you throw spears they go through people and dont hit but when you get spears thrown at you they go 6 feet to the right and still hit you"), wall impales failing on uneven map surfaces, and being unable to pick up a survivor downed by a spike on their second hook.
3. The player conversation
Most reviews are short and happy: memes of his sound cue, "finally", "peak", "worth it". The longer reviews lean critical, and they split by who is writing. Killer players praise the chase loop but call him mid-tier, mourn the perks and resent nerfs. Survivor players are the ones calling him overpowered, objecting to the endless fog and the crouch standoffs. Friday the 13th fans form a third group that cares less about balance and more about authenticity: the Jason Universe design, the stiff animations, the missing map, survivor and movie skins.
Opinion cooled after launch. Launch week produced three quarters of all reviews at 83% positive; in week two that fell to 67%, and across every review written after launch week 68% recommend it (98 of 145). The complaints changed with it. In launch week, reviews calling him too strong far outnumbered those calling him weak; after it the gap narrowed, and the recycled-power complaint took up a larger share of the conversation, alongside a couple of players saying he had been nerfed since they bought him. The small number of reviews written from late August onward lean positive again.
4. What the developers could do
- Put a limit on Omnipresent Evil. Survivor players say he can stay in the fog indefinitely, which turns the start of matches into crouch-walking standoffs and lets him sweep the hatch and both gates in the endgame.
- Rework his three perks. Nearly every review that discusses them calls them weak or useless, including many players who otherwise love the killer.
- Give his chase something of its own. Players most often complain that the spike and traversal copy Springtrap, Huntress and Dracula; suggestions included a weapon wheel and walking straight through pallets the way Jason did in Friday the 13th: The Game.
- Add movie-flavoured cosmetics and a themed map or survivor. Fans asked for Part 3, Jason X or Savini looks, a Crystal Lake style map and a Friday the 13th survivor, and a couple called the launch outfits bland.
- Fix spike hitboxes and wall impales. Players report spikes passing through survivors, impales failing on uneven walls, and a bug that stops him picking up a survivor downed by a spike on their second hook.
- Polish his animations. Several reviews single out his walk, swings, kicks, vaults and hand pose as stiff.
- Explain balance changes when they land. A couple of later reviews say slower spike readying and other changes made him weaker after launch, and clearer reasoning would address the "nerfed him after they made their money" reaction.
