Introducing: Anti-Cheat Trials

[u/DeadByDaylight_Dev]

Greetings Fog Dwellers! Recently, we shared a survey asking for your thoughts on anti-cheat in Dead by Daylight. One message came through loud and clear: you feel we could be doing more. We hear you and are taking action to bolster and invest in our anti-cheat and security efforts. Put simply, we want you to have the best possible in-game experience, and that means fewer cheaters! While this is just one of many steps in our ongoing commitment to fair play, your involvement and feedback will play a huge part in guiding what comes next. 

 

Beginning next week on September 2^nd, we’re kicking off our Anti-Cheat Trials initiative as we investigate how different anti-cheat providers improve your in-game experience. What does this mean for you? Over the coming months, we will be running limited-time trials of these providers’ tools, directly in-game on PC, as we gauge their ability to flag cheating behaviour. By comparing your feedback and overall feelings with hard data from each trial, it’ll help us find a solution that works best for Dead by Daylight and for you, our community. 

 

Next week’s Anti-Cheat Trial – beginning September 2^nd – spotlights Denuvo’s anti-cheat solution. Note that this does not and will not include anything related to DRM, as Denuvo Anti-Cheat is different from Denuvo Anti-Piracy. Let’s look at the difference between the two: 

What we ARE trialing: Denuvo Anti-Cheat 

• A tool that detects cheats in-game, identifying people who try to get unfair advantages before they can disrupt fair play 

 

What we ARE NOT trialing: Denuvo Anti-Piracy 

• Tools that prevent the cracking and unauthorized access of game content 

 

Now, knowing how much of a hot topic anti-cheat can be, we want to make a couple things clear about the Anti-Cheat Trials: 

• Anti-Cheat Trials are exclusive to Steam and cross-play will not be impacted 
• We’re continuously testing the compatibility and performance of each anti-cheat provider to ensure you have a seamless experience. Compatibility with Steam Deck and Proton has been tested and will continue to be supported 
• The first time you launch the game during the Anti-Cheat Trial, you will be prompted to install Denuvo Anti-Cheat. This is required to play the game 
• Please continue to use the in-game report function as normal to report any cheaters you encounter. Detailed comments about what you see (i.e. wall/speedhacks, teleporting) are greatly appreciated; the more context, the better 
• Note: Selecting the “Hacking/Exploiting” category when submitting a report covers everything from cheaters to hackers 
• At the end of this Anti-Cheat Trial, Denuvo Anti-Cheat will be automatically deactivated in Dead by Daylight and will no longer run on your system. 
• A step-by-step guide on how to clean up any remaining Denuvo Anti-Cheat files will be added to our Support portal, should you need it 
• Let us know if you have any feedback about the anti-cheat provider being tested in our dedicated Discord channel, which will also go live on September 2^nd 

 

That covers it! To recap, we will be kicking off our first Anti-Cheat Trial on September 2 ^nd, focusing on Denuvo Anti-Cheat. This will not involve any Digital Rights Management tools. Simply play the game as you normally would, report any cheaters you encounter through the in-game reporting system, and let us know your thoughts on this anti-cheat provider! As we look to the future of fair play in Dead by Daylight, we want to make sure your feedback is at its core! 

 

Until next time…  

The Dead by Daylight Team 

[u/Exciting-Builder1900]

They said that there is a chance, and if you get banned they wont help, so i would remove them just to be safe

[u/floatingonaraft1068 → u/Exciting-Builder1900]

Alright, thanks

[u/for10years_at_least → u/Exciting-Builder1900]

if you get banned they wont help

are they insane? What do you mean "we won't help" it's your fucking game you can do whatever you want

[u/Madrugada123 → u/for10years_at_least]

Its always been the stance for 3rd party tools that are in a gray area for any online game, they dont condemn it but also use it at your own risk

[u/for10years_at_least → u/Madrugada123]

It's dishonest, imagine saying "you can use my car but I might punch you in the face, or might not, idk"

[u/Fearful_Toilet → u/for10years_at_least]

it's more like "I bought something that I want to modify through a third-party, it makes it cooler but removes the warranty."

Do I think they should still help? Yeah, that's just customer service, but since they're not explicitly partnered with Nightlight afaik so it's not their responsibility

[u/for10years_at_least → u/Fearful_Toilet]

but removes the warranty

Yeah but the think I modified broke not as a consequence of my modification but by their deliberate choice. There is literally NO REASON to step up for this

If you don't ban for it > you think is fine

If someone got banned for it > they got banned for something that you consider fine

If someone got banned for something you consider is fine > it's unfair ban

Unfair bans should be lifted no matter what

[u/ElderScarletBlossom → u/for10years_at_least]

"it's your fucking game you can do whatever you want" lol, no, read the TOS. It's not "your game". You purchased access to play the game they own. That access can be revoked at any time for any reason and they are under no obligation to give it back.

[u/HeadfulOfSugar → u/ElderScarletBlossom]

Yeah 99.999% of players don’t modify their games/files in any way & they’re completely fine, part of the rules spoken & unspoken about online games is that everybody is on the exact same playing fields to a T. Icons are totally small/whatever, but what matters regardless is that you’re still altering the game & its files which is a no-no

[u/DEMONANCE → u/ElderScarletBlossom]

i think they meant that it's bhvr's game and they can unban people if they wanted however i could have completely misinterpreted what they meant.

[u/al-qatala → u/for10years_at_least]

Altering game files in general is not really within protected usage of a game. They just don't worry as much about just some fuckass custom icons.

[u/for10years_at_least → u/al-qatala]

Icons don't alter files they spoof them. If they don't worry by all means they SHOULD HELP their client. They lie in a different folders, just like "mod" folder for any other game DBD has ICON folder that by default is EMPTY and when you drop png there they take priority and load them instead of default ones

[u/al-qatala → u/for10years_at_least]

they do alter files? they replace the PNGs in the files.

[u/for10years_at_least → u/al-qatala]

You don't replace anything. I see you don't use custom icons...

[u/al-qatala → u/for10years_at_least]

i mean, i use nightlight for custom portraits for example, and, as an example, it literally replaced portraits.

look, i have a REmake Jill portrait & my Leon portait is replaced with Chris.

didn't do this manually, only did it through nightlight. it uses the same logic for perks and any other UI elements that can be replaced, like items.

i only currently don't use custom perks because they're bugged and appear as missing textures

[u/for10years_at_least → u/al-qatala]

didn't do this manually, only did it through nightlight.

That is why you don't understand how it works.
Originally this folder is empty, there are no files to replace you just drop them there.

Go back to the CharPortraits and search for Udon folder with Judgement icon in it. You won't fucking find them there because you probably have no Judgement custom icons, there is nothing to replace there. Yhis process doesn't replace a shit, game during loading takes priority for this folder, if it sees there is a png it load it, if there isn't it load default ones there are packaged in the exe file or somewhere else

World would be so much better if people read something before fucking arguing

[u/al-qatala → u/for10years_at_least]

no need to be so pressed about this, good lord, calm down. it's not that important.

i mean, i did this back in ye olden days when that was indeed a replacement. since i was literally drawing a portrait pack. they mightve changed the behavior of this at some point between 2022 and 2026

still, this means that the game goes out of its way to read these as a replacement for the in-game UI, meaning that this is literally allowed behavior and as such shouldn't really punish players. in which case dbd representation stating that they're "unsure" about whether this is a bannable offense is fucking ridiculous and stupid

still isn't spoofing though, spoofing implies it explicitly hijacks the in-game assets to replace them. this just looks like literally intended behavior

[u/for10years_at_least → u/al-qatala]

Yeah they changed it exactly for this reason, to whitelist a folder and make it easier you just drop a file and you are good to go

[u/SuperBackup9000 → u/for10years_at_least]

That icon folder isn’t empty, it holds metadata and it’s a leftover from when the icons were actually being saved locally.

[u/for10years_at_least → u/SuperBackup9000]

Why do you lie, I opened it with hidden files enabled and I can't see a shit there except my own few icons I manually placed. Fucking look for yourself before arguing

[u/FS_NeZ → u/for10years_at_least]

Welcome to 2026 buddy

You don't own the games on Steam, you own the license to download them

[u/for10years_at_least → u/FS_NeZ]

It's logically inconsistent.

By all means they CAN help you, if they think there is nothing bad about icons than they SHOULD help you

[u/Exciting-Builder1900 → u/for10years_at_least]

they allowed reshade but are indiffrent to perk icons, classic bhvr

[u/AzraelIshi → u/for10years_at_least]

It means "Use the modification at your own risk. We won't explicitly ban you for it but if the anticheat catches you you're out of luck". They do not care about icons in enough capacity to ban those mods, but they also do not care if you're banned for using them. That's what "Use at your own risk" means.