Behaviour Interactive opened the Dead by Daylight 10.3.0 public test build at 8am PT this morning, and it is the largest patch Behaviour has put in front of players since the September perk overhaul. The Terrifier is in. Sienna Shaw is in. A new map is in. A new Mori system is in. And six perks that were changed three weeks ago are being changed again today.
Here is the part that makes this more than a chapter drop. On 22 October, Behaviour published a recap of the 10.2.0 perk overhaul and, for the first time, put numbers behind it: which perks moved in usage, which moved in kill rate, which moved in escape rate. Six days later, the 10.3.0 PTB re-tuned six perks. Every single one of them is on a list Behaviour published in that recap.
Behaviour is not just shipping a patch. It is publishing the receipts from the last one and then correcting itself in the same breath.
That is the story worth writing about, and it is the one we can check ourselves, because we have been tracking this perk's version history since September.
What actually landed in the 10.3.0 PTB today
The official patch notes went live on Steam at 15:00 UTC today under the title 10.3.0 | Terrifier PTB Patch Notes. Here is the complete content list.
A new Killer called The Terrifier, with a power called Bag of Toys and a special action called Taunt. Three new Killer perks: Laughingstock, Kill Spree and Funny Business. A new Survivor called Sienna Shaw, with three perks: Valkyrie's Rage, Shared Trauma and Best Gift Ever. A new map called Hartshorne Mall, inside a new realm called The Subdivisions. Two feature-level changes: Gore Customization, including a Regional Streamer Mode, and a Mori System Update. Two small quality-of-life changes: a redeem code popup that stops players from spamming an expired code, and improvements to the Tally Screen widgets.
Six perks changed. Twenty bugs were fixed. Eleven known issues were listed.
This is a much bigger patch than 10.2.2, which shipped eight days ago with a single balance change and 22 bug fixes. For scale, the 10.2.0 overhaul that landed on 6 October touched 58 perks. Behaviour has said it wanted to do fewer, bigger things this year, and 10.3.0 is what that looks like when it happens.
The PTB slipped a day, and the reason tells you what is inside
The 10.3.0 public test build was originally scheduled for 27 October. Behaviour moved it to 28 October and went live at 8am PT instead, 11am ET, 3pm GMT. The announcement came from the studio's official community account, DBD Pulse, which is new: it launched alongside the October community stream recap and is described as featuring updates from the community team.
The reason given was four words: there is a lot in store for this PTB.
Read that against the content list and it makes sense. This is not a balance pass with a Killer attached. It is a chapter, a Survivor, a map, a new realm, a new Mori framework, a new gore settings menu, and six perk re-tunes, all at once.
Every perk change in 10.3.0, old and new
This is the full table. Every number below is from the official 10.3.0 PTB patch notes, with the previous value exactly as Behaviour wrote it.
| Perk | Role | Before 10.3.0 | After 10.3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calm Spirit | Survivor | Bless and cleanse Totems, unlock Chests silently, 8/9/10% faster | Same effect, 23/24/25% faster |
| Dark Sense | Survivor | Triggers on Generator completion, reveals Pallets, Windows and the Killer for 5/7/10s | Earn 1 Token at trial start and after each Generator, up to 5. Spend 1 within 20m of the Killer for a 13/14/15s aura read |
| Dark Arrogance | Killer | Vault Windows 15/20/25% faster, cooldown 10% shorter on all outcomes, blind and Pallet-stun penalty 25% longer | Vault Windows 15% faster, successful attack cooldown 13/14/15% shorter, blind, Pallet-stun and missed attack penalty 15% longer |
| Ravenous | Killer | Exposed duration 80/85/90s | Exposed duration 60/65/70s |
| Slippery Meat | Survivor | Other Survivors unhook you 90/95/100% faster, gain 5% Haste when unhooked | Other Survivors unhook you 65/70/75% faster, gain 7% Haste when unhooked |
| Whispers | Killer | Outside 28/26/24m of a Survivor, gain 5% Haste | Outside 28/26/24m of a Survivor, gain 7% Haste |
Six changes. Five of them are reversals or partial reversals of a change made on 6 October. Dark Sense is the exception, and it is a rebuild rather than a tune.
There is also a mismatch worth flagging between the 22 October recap and today's notes. Behaviour described Calm Spirit as increasing to 25 percent, Slippery Meat as reducing Unhook Speed to 75 percent, Dark Arrogance as moving to 15 percent, and Ravenous as dropping to 70 seconds. Every one of those was the top tier of a three-tier value. The shipped PTB notes give the full tier spread instead: 23/24/25, 65/70/75, 13/14/15 and 60/65/70. The recap was quoting tier three. The patch is not nerfing harder than Behaviour said it would, but anyone reading only the recap will have the wrong tier one and tier two numbers for four of the six perks.
BHVR published the data, and the patch follows it
This is the part we could not have written before Behaviour released it.
On 22 October, in the October community stream recap, Behaviour wrote: "Last update, we adjusted over 50 perks, focusing on improving generic perks and those that were affected by Diminishing Returns and could use an adjustment. Watching the results of these changes, we saw some shifts in the usage and kill / escape rates for these perks. Here's a recap of which ones saw the biggest increases and decreases."
Four lists. Here they are in full.
Killer usage
| Direction | Perk |
|---|---|
| Up | Scourge Hook: Monstrous Shrine |
| Up | Undone |
| Up | Help Wanted |
| Down | Dead Man's Switch |
| Down | Hex: Thrill of the Hunt |
| Down | Hex: Blood Favor |
Survivor usage
| Direction | Perk |
|---|---|
| Up | Five Moves Ahead |
| Up | Spine Chill |
| Up | Resilience |
| Down | Windows of Opportunity |
| Down | Stake Out |
| Down | Slippery Meat |
Kill rates
| Direction | Perk |
|---|---|
| Up | Help Wanted |
| Up | Ravenous |
| Up | Shattered Hope |
| Down | Hex: Thrill of the Hunt |
| Down | Hex: Blood Favor |
| Down | Dissolution |
Escape rates
| Direction | Perk |
|---|---|
| Up | Road Life |
| Up | Sole Survivor |
| Up | Spine Chill |
| Down | Shoulder the Burden |
| Down | Stake Out |
| Down | Self-Preservation |
Now put the 10.3.0 patch list next to these tables and the pattern is close to mechanical.
Ravenous appears in the kill-rate-up column. It is the perk getting nerfed in 10.3.0, with Exposed dropped from 80/85/90 seconds to 60/65/70 seconds. A perk that makes Survivors scream and go Exposed went up in kill rate, so it gets pulled back. It is worth noting that Ravenous is not a general perk at all: it is the unique perk of The Krasue, and everyone else gets it once that character is prestiged to the matching tier.
Slippery Meat appears in the survivor-usage-down column. It is the perk losing 25 points of Unhook Speed. A perk that makes rescuing safer got picked less, so Behaviour makes rescuing less automatic and moves the power into Haste instead.
Hex: Thrill of the Hunt and Hex: Blood Favor appear in both the usage-down and the kill-rate-down columns. Behaviour's answer in 10.3.0 is not to touch either of them, which is a decision worth noting on its own. Sometimes the answer to a perk that underperformed is nothing at all, because the perk is not the problem.
Stake Out appears in both the survivor-usage-down and the escape-rate-down columns, and is not touched in 10.3.0. Windows of Opportunity and Self-Preservation also fall in usage, and are not touched.
Meanwhile Spine Chill goes up in usage and up in escape rate, and Resilience goes up in usage. Both are untouched in 10.3.0. The perks that worked are not being touched. That is the behaviour of a developer reading their own telemetry instead of guessing.
Dark Arrogance has now been redesigned four times in six weeks
We covered this perk's third design on 21 October, when we wrote that Behaviour had changed it three times in five weeks and had admitted in writing that the middle version was wrong. As of this morning there is a fourth design. Here is the whole history since September.
| Version | Vault speed | Basic-attack cooldown | Penalty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 10.2.0 | 15/20/25% faster | None | 15% longer on blind and Pallet-stun |
| 10.2.0 PTB, 15 Sep | 15/20/25% faster | 15/20/25% shorter on every attack | 25% longer on blind and Pallet-stun |
| 10.2.0 live, 6 Oct | 15/20/25% faster | 15/20/25% shorter on missed and obstructed attacks only | 25% longer on blind and Pallet-stun |
| 10.2.2, 20 Oct | 15/20/25% faster | 10% shorter on all outcomes, flat | 25% longer on blind and Pallet-stun |
| 10.3.0 PTB, 28 Oct | 15% faster, flat | 13/14/15% shorter on successful attacks only | 15% longer on blind, Pallet-stun and missed attack |
The 10.3.0 dev note is the most revealing sentence Behaviour has written about this perk: "Dark Arrogance regained its successful basic-attack cooldown in 10.2.2, but we felt it could be buffed a little further. To offset this, we're reducing the vault speed bonus while also decreasing the penalty to blinds, pallet stuns, and we're adding missed attack cooldowns to the penalties."
And from the October recap, the intent behind it: "We know many of you really liked this perk back on the 10.2.0 PTB, so we're continuing to tweak it to capture its PTB feeling without being too strong. And of course, we will continue to monitor how this goes!"
Here is what the 10.3.0 version actually does, in three moves.
First, it restores tier scaling on the cooldown, which 10.2.2 had flattened. 10.2.2 gave a flat 10 percent on every outcome. 10.3.0 gives 13/14/15 percent, and only on successful attacks. So a tier one Dark Arrogance is now worse than the flat 10 percent it had a week ago, and a tier three is better.
Second, it moves the successful-attack cooldown back onto a penalty footing. Missed attacks now count as a penalty trigger, exactly as they did in the September public test, which was the version players said they liked.
Third, it makes the penalty smaller but wider. Blind and Pallet-stun drops from 25 percent to 15 percent, and missed attacks join them.
The net effect on Dark Arrogance is that it is now a perk for Vecna players who want a version of the September design they can live with, rather than the September design itself. And on paper it still has the same problem we identified on 21 October: the flat cooldown value that Unrelenting gives on a hit is the benchmark to beat, and the successful-attack numbers here are lower than what a flat 10 percent gave until tier three.
Calm Spirit and Dark Sense: two perks that shipped wrong
Both of these are survivors, and both are fixes for a 10.2.0 design that did not work as intended.
Calm Spirit's original job was to let you unhook and cleanse without drawing a Crow. In 10.2.0 it was rewritten into a chest-opening perk with a small Action Speed bonus of 8/9/10 percent. Behaviour's own recap says the bonus was too low: "We felt the Action Speed bonus was a little low, so it's increasing to 25 percent." The shipped value is 23/24/25 percent, which is roughly a threefold increase on the bonus and makes Calm Spirit a real chest-speed perk rather than a rounding error. It also gives that perk a genuine niche against the usual chest options, because it opens chests silently and fast.
Dark Sense got the bigger rebuild, and the dev note explains exactly what went wrong: "Dark Sense was updated as a generic alternative to reveal pallets and windows within a radius. In 10.2.0, it activated upon generator completion, meaning if it didn't get a chance to trigger, players would lose value. With this PTB, we are adding a token system to allow players to have more chances to activate the perk."
So Dark Sense no longer fires on its own schedule. You now earn one Token at the start of the trial and one after every Generator you complete, up to five. When the Killer comes within 20 metres of you, you burn a Token and for the next 13/14/15 seconds you see the auras of Pallets and Windows within 32 metres, the auras of other Survivors, and the Killer's aura.
That is a much better perk. It is now a tool you spend on a chosen moment instead of a gift that arrives on someone else's schedule. It is also, notably, an aura-reading perk, which puts it in the same family as Windows of Opportunity and Spine Chill, and both of those sit on Behaviour's own lists this month for opposite reasons.
Slippery Meat is the biggest single swing in the patch
No other perk changed as much, in either direction, relative to its 10.2.0 value.
Slippery Meat used to give 90/95/100 percent Unhook Speed, which is functionally a guaranteed safe unhook. Behaviour's recap calls it out directly: "Due to the Unhook Speed, this was too efficient at securing risky unhooks, so we're reducing Unhook Speed to 75% while increasing Haste to 7%."
The shipped numbers are 65/70/75 percent Unhook Speed and 7 percent Haste when you are unhooked, up from 5 percent.
Read that as a design change rather than a nerf. The perk used to remove the risk from the rescuer entirely. Now it makes the rescue a little less free and pays you for the trouble with movement speed. The Haste is not a flat 7 percent you get every time you get unhooked, it is an increase to the Haste granted by Unhook Protections, so it compounds with whatever speed you were already carrying. That is a real shift in what Slippery Meat is for, and it is the kind of change that will show up in high-rank Killer matchups immediately, where a resuer who cannot be punished for rescuing is a genuine problem.
It also lines up with the usage data. Slippery Meat was one of the three survivors to drop in usage after 10.2.0.
Ravenous and Whispers: the two buffs that did not land
Both of these are numbers that were set before the game around them changed, and both of them are Killer perks.
Ravenous is the clearer case, and Behaviour's recap says it outright: "Since this was originally designed when Vigil affected Exposed (and is no longer the case), we're lowering the Exposed duration to 70s."
When Vigil reduced the duration of status effects like Exposed, a long Exposed window on a hook was survivable because you could shake it off. With Vigil no longer doing that, a long Exposed became a death sentence, and the perk got stronger without anyone meaning to. The shipped change drops Exposed from 80/85/90 seconds to 60/65/70 seconds, and Ravenous also gains a token system where the first time you hook each Survivor you earn a Token worth 4 percent Haste while carrying and 4 percent faster hooking.
Ravenous appeared in the kill-rate-up column. A perk that makes every Survivor scream and go Exposed on every hook was already the strongest hook-slot perk in the game, and the Exposed timer was the reason why. Shortening it is the fix.
Whispers is the other one, and it is the opposite problem. This is a general Killer perk, and it was changed twice in 10.2.0 at once: the detection radius was pulled in from 48/40/32 metres to 28/26/24, and a Haste bonus was added for when no Survivor is inside that radius. Behaviour's recap is candid that the Haste side undershot: "We were a bit conservative with our initial Haste increase, so we're increasing it a little more to 7%."
So Whispers gets a slightly tighter detection radius and a slightly bigger speed reward. The whispers are now a proximity alarm rather than a map-wide hint, and the 7 percent Haste pays you for the rotations where the lobby is spread out.
Together, Ravenous and Whispers are the two "we did not think this through" buffs, while Dark Arrogance is the "we changed our mind three times" buff.
The Terrifier and the Bag of Toys
The new Killer comes with a power that is unlike anything in the roster, because it is not one thing. It is a bag of five things.
Holding the Ability button opens your Bag of Toys and selects one of two random Toys. The bag then enters a cooldown state and cannot be opened again until that cooldown expires. Holding the Power button readies a Toy and tapping the Attack button uses it. Every Toy is single-use.
| Toy | What it does | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Acid Bottle | Throws Acid Bottles at Survivors or creates Acid Puddles | Torture |
| Flail | Sweeping attack that can strike over certain obstacles | Torture |
| Handgun | Fires a bullet | Torture |
| Flamethrower | Shoots a stream of fire that can inflame Pallets, Windows and Generators | Torture |
| Bike Horn | Reveals Survivors with Killer Instinct and applies Oblivious | Torture, plus interrupts and regresses progress |
The Toy damages healthy Survivors. On an injured Survivor it inflicts Torture instead. Using one Toy to Torture a Survivor and then a different Toy to down them inflicts the Terrified status.
The special action is Taunt. Taunting a Terrified Survivor who is hooked or downed grants one point of Deadliness to all Toys and removes their Terrified status. Deadliness is the ramp: when a Toy applies Torture it gains a point, and at maximum Deadliness that Toy can down injured Survivors outright. The Bike Horn has its own payoff at maximum Deadliness, where it interrupts Survivors repairing or healing and instantly regresses their progress.
So the loop is: cycle Toys, build Deadliness on one of them, Torture a Survivor with a second Toy, then down them and Taunt to bank the point for the whole bag. It is a slow, deliberate Killer rather than a chase Killer, and the bag cooldown means it punishes players who leave the loop.
The Flamethrower inflating Pallets and Windows is the detail that will generate the most discussion, because it touches the interaction between Killer powers and map objects rather than adding another timer.
The three new Killer perks
| Perk | Effect |
|---|---|
| Laughingstock | Survivors within 12m of a completed Generator gain Exhausted and Oblivious, and the effect lingers 3/4/5s after they leave. You see the auras of completed Generators |
| Kill Spree | When all remaining Survivors have 2 Hook States and all Generators are completed, you can kill Survivors. Both Exit Gate Switches are blocked while you are killing, and the effect ends 6/8/10s after you finish a kill |
| Funny Business | Whenever you damage a Generator you gain 10% Haste for 10s, and one of four things happens at random: you keep the Haste 5s longer, you are stunned for 2s, the Generator is blocked for 30s, or nothing happens. Cooldown 60/50/40s, and the same effect cannot happen twice in a row |
Laughingstock is the one to watch, and it is not a joke perk. Survivors within 12 metres of a completed Generator are Exhausted and Oblivious, which means they cannot use their abilities and do not know where the Killer is while they are near a lit Generator. For a Killer whose whole plan involves cycling Generators, that is a positioning tax on every Survivor in the endgame.
Funny Business is a gamble perk in the most literal sense. It has a four-way random outcome, one of which is literally nothing happening, and it cannot repeat the same result twice in a row. Behaviour has built a small slot machine into the power.
Sienna Shaw, and the prediction we made in July
On 29 July we published a piece on what was then known as the Art the Clown chapter. At the time, Behaviour had confirmed the Killer, the November release window and nothing else. We noted that the Survivor had not been announced and that Sienna Shaw was the strongest speculation. We also flagged that no power, no perk names and no PTB date existed.
Two of those three calls landed. Sienna Shaw is the Survivor. And today we finally have her kit.
| Perk | Effect |
|---|---|
| Valkyrie's Rage | After being chased for 40/35/30s, the next time you pallet-stun the Killer they are stunned 75% longer |
| Shared Trauma | Whenever you take a protection hit, all Survivors within 12m recover from Exhausted while running for 30/35/40s. Within 32m you see the auras of Exhausted Survivors |
| Best Gift Ever | At the start of the trial you earn 4/5/6 Tokens. The first time you drop an Item of each type, spend 1 Token and the item is consumed, and you gain a passive effect based on the item type |
Best Gift Ever is the interesting one, because the effect depends on what you drop. A Flashlight makes your next Killer stun also blind them for 2 seconds. A Fog Vial makes your scratch marks disappear 50% faster for 5 seconds after a fast vault. A Key gives you plus one rummage on each chest. A Map extends every aura you see by one second. A Medkit gives you healing progress at 25% speed while healing another Survivor. A Toolbox shows you the auras of the three Generators closest to each other.
Valkyrie's Rage is a classic anti-tunnel payoff built around chase duration. If you survive a chase for 30 seconds at tier three, your next pallet stun is 75 percent longer. That is a real build, and it slots into the anti-tunnel counter space we have written about before, alongside Decisive Strike, Iron Will and Enduring.
Shared Trauma is a team-Exhausted recovery perk. Protection hits include vaulting a pallet on a hooked teammate, blocking a hit for them and similar saves. When you take one, nearby teammates get their Exhausted cleaned up. That is a genuine support perk and it pairs well with Resilience and Boon: Circle of Healing style setups.
Hartshorne Mall and The Subdivisions
The PTB introduces a new map and, with it, a new realm. The patch notes phrase it as "Introducing the The Subdivisions realm with the Hartshorne Mall, a new environment loaded with lore where players can experience a new environment in Dead by Daylight."
Hartshorne Mall is the map that the Year 11 roadmap has been calling The Mall since the 10th Anniversary Broadcast on 14 June. We wrote a piece on it back in June, when all we had was the anniversary concept art, and two of our calls need updating now.
First, the name. The Mall is Hartshorne Mall, and its realm is The Subdivisions.
Second, the timing. The roadmap slotted The Mall into December 2026 as a standalone map addition with no Killer, no Survivor and no chapter attached. The 10.3.0 PTB lists it as part of the Terrifier update, which is expected to land on 17 November. Behaviour has not published a release date for the map on its own, and PTB content routinely shifts, so treat the November date as the likely case rather than a confirmed one. What is confirmed is that the map exists, has a name, and comes with a realm attached.
The lore shipped with the patch is a Dwight Fairfield story. Dwight was no older than five when he lost his parents in the Hartshorne Mall, a place that was once a magical escape that twisted into something more horrifying. He ducked behind a door marked Employees Only, found himself somewhere completely different, somewhere quiet but no less disturbing. Something called out to him. He followed the call, and woke up at home with his parents pleading him to say where he went. He did not answer. He could not remember.
That is the same Dwight backstory the anniversary concept art was built around, and it connects directly to the liminal-space horror angle: the map is a building that is also a place you can fall out of.
The Mori system update is the biggest change nobody is talking about
Every new Killer arrives with a Mori, the ritualised kill animation that ends a Survivor. Up until now, each Killer has had whatever it has had. Behaviour is standardising it.
The October recap set out three categories. Finisher Mori is used to kill the final Survivor, ending the match, and is a longer, more cinematic animation. Power Mori is a mini-Mori triggered by certain Killer powers, and is short. Short Mori is a simple Mori triggered by perks and offerings, and is also short.
The PTB notes tighten the rules. The three categories are Finisher mori, Power mori, and Memento Mori offering and Perk mori. Each mori type is superseded by the one above it as long as the trigger conditions are met, so there is only ever a single Kill interaction prompt on screen at one time. All Moris now activate on the Attack input, with a standardised keybinding. And critically: "Starting with The Terrifier, all upcoming Killers will adhere to this Mori system update." Behaviour adds that not all Killers have or will have a Power mori, but any Mori they do have falls into one of these three categories.
For existing Killers, the recap sets the interim position: they will use their current Mori for both Finisher and Short situations, and older Killers will be revisited down the road.
Why this matters more than it sounds: the Memento Mori offering is a consumable that lets a Survivor make themselves unhookable, and it is one of the most debated items in the game. By putting offerings and perks into an explicitly named third category, Behaviour is acknowledging that a Mori can be a mechanical resource rather than just a cutscene. A perk that triggers a Short Mori is now a defined thing in the ruleset rather than an accident of one Killer's kit.
Gore Customization and Regional Streamer Mode
Under the Gameplay tab in Settings, players can now customise gore settings. Death Sequences can be toggled to reduce their goriness. Natural Blood Color can be toggled to a neutral green tone. And Regional Streamer Mode, on top of the gore toggles, will anonymise all player information.
That last one is the feature streamers and content creators have been asking for since the natural blood colour option arrived. It is a quality-of-life change that costs Behaviour nothing and removes a real barrier for a large group of players.
It is also worth noting the green tone sits comfortably in the palette Dead by Daylight already uses, which is a small sign that the studio treats this as a supported setting rather than a novelty.
Backend tunables: balance changes without a patch
Behaviour is building something it calls backend tunables, and it is the most strategically interesting line in the October recap.
The plan: "a system which lets us make changes to Live content without needing to wait for a patch. The intention is to get small balance changes in your hands more frequently, tapping into your feedback and making adjustments between patches, which previously limited when we could make changes."
The first targets are already named. "Using this system, you can expect some tweaks to The Executioner (Faster charge! More range! Snappier feel!) and The Judgment (Power cooldown! Zealous duration!) soon."
The Executioner is worth dwelling on. It is one of the oldest Killers in the game and one of the most complained about, and a faster charge with more range is close to the single largest buff that Killer has ever received. If it lands, it changes the chase meta on every map with a wide open lane.
The Judgment is the other one, and it is the killer we covered in detail in our Judgment build guide and our best Judgment build. Zealous duration in particular interacts with aura and Hex setups, and a Zealous change is a change to how that Killer's aura pressure works at endgame.
Behaviour also set expectations about scope. The system will largely focus on Killer adjustments and base game number tweaks, and support for addons, perks, items and more is a future goal rather than a launch feature. Which means the tuning levers available to the community team right now are narrow, even if the long-term intent is wide.
10.4.0 in January is the first roadmap date Behaviour has committed to
The recap ends with a section it labels a sneak peek, and it is the first time Behaviour has put a month on a future update.
"Coming in January, this update will feature a medium-sized Killer update, multiple smaller Killer tweaks, and adjustments to around 15 perks (including Eruption, Sloppy Butcher, Surge, Hyperfocus, Shoulder the Burden, and Resurgence)."
Around 15 perks is roughly a quarter of the scale of the 10.2.0 overhaul, and the named six are all generic perks with tiered values rather than character-specific ones. That is the same target Behaviour set for 10.2.0: generic perks, and the ones that Diminishing Returns had suppressed. If the pattern holds, 10.4.0 in January is where the second wave of the perk rework lands.
The perks named are all ones we already track: Eruption, Sloppy Butcher, Surge, Hyperfocus, Shoulder the Burden and Resurgence. Shoulder the Burden is already on Behaviour's escape-rate-down list from the 10.2.0 recap, so it is a perk they already know is underperforming.
MMR: altruism finally pays properly
The October recap opens with an MMR section, and it contains a change that is not in any patch notes, because it did not need one.
Back in 10.1.0, Behaviour rewrote how MMR is calculated. Kills and escapes are still part of it, but they are no longer the only thing, and a wide range of actions that help progress the game now feed into it, including emblems. Killers keep individual MMR ratings, Survivors share theirs, matchmaking prioritises wait times over exact MMR matching, and MMR gains and losses are calculated by comparing Killers and Survivors against each other in a match.
The problem Behaviour found: "we've been keeping a close eye on this system and recently noticed that Survivors' Altruism wasn't giving as much MMR as it should have."
The fix: "we made an adjustment to our MMR system earlier this week (thanks to the adjustable elements of the algorithm), increasing this value."
That adjustment landed on 21 October, the day before the recap was published, and it shipped with no patch notes and no client version. If you have played since then and felt like rescuing your teammates was worth more, that is why.
The phrase worth noticing is thanks to the adjustable elements of the algorithm. That is the first public description of the backend tunables system, and it is telling us the MMR tuning was already running live before the recap explained it.
Bugs fixed and known issues
Twenty bugs were fixed in the PTB, grouped the way Behaviour groups them.
Bots: Survivor Bots no longer try to cleanse Totems when a player is already interacting with one, and there is a tentative fix for Bots not unhooking while walking into the hooked Survivor. Characters: the aura of completed Generators no longer becomes visible after controlling Victor during the End Game Collapse, The Judgment can no longer block a Survivor from escaping past the 32 metre range, the camera was too far away from The Good Guy, and injured Survivors hit by The Slasher's spike are now correctly pinned to nearby surfaces. Environment and maps: a Killer can no longer block a hook in Raccoon City Police Station and prevent an unhook, a Survivor can now interact with one side of a generator in the Pale Rose corner, Grim Pantry collisions under the stairs are restored, the Nurse can blink through some walls in the underground section of Temple of Purgation, and Survivors are no longer clipping through Disturbed Ward locker doors. Perks: Lay Waste no longer applies its Generator regression speed increase before other regression perks trigger, Merciless Storm no longer auto-fails a Skill Check against The Doctor, Hex: The Third Seal activates consistently, and Chemical Trap can explode when placed on a pallet at the same time it is being broken by certain Killer powers. UI: the Wiggle Skill Check bar starts in the correct position, The Onryo Condemned HUD indicator no longer stays dim after a TV teleportation near a Survivor with active stacks, and a Bloodweb error no longer occurs when selecting the Loadout tab during a Bloodweb progression.
Eleven known issues are also listed, and they are worth reading, because several of them are new content problems rather than old bug fixes.
- Best Gift Ever: Deathslinger gets blinded when his chain breaks if the Survivor has the Flashlight buff.
- The Blood vignette when failing a Skill check on a hook is red instead of green when Natural Blood Color is turned off.
- The Singularity's biopod splashes white when created or destroyed with Natural Blood Color set to Off.
- Blood from Moris remains red with the gore adjustment active for some Killers when Natural Blood is off.
- The Terrifier mori tracker does not change state when a power mori is used.
- Opening match details shows incorrect information.
- Additional polish on The Terrifier Mori animations and VFX is ongoing.
- The Terrifier power description does not specify that Horn Oblivious and Deadliness Score only trigger when multiple Survivors are detected.
- Applying Terrified to a Survivor affected by Endurance displays the Terrified VFX while they remain Injured.
- The Terrifier's camera shakes temporally after interrupting a Survivor from vaulting.
- Misaligned animation during the Survivors Pick Up interaction.
Three of those are Terrifier-specific and three are Natural Blood Color bugs. The Deadliness one is a documentation gap rather than a broken mechanic, but it matters: it means the Bike Horn's best effects only fire against groups, which is a significant strategic detail that is currently missing from the in-game description.
What to do right now
If you play Killer, the 10.3.0 PTB changes your options in four specific ways. Dark Arrogance is worth picking up again at tier two or three, because the successful-attack cooldown now scales and the penalty is smaller and broader. Ravenous on The Krasue is weaker than it was on 6 October, but a 60/65/70 second Exposed is still a serious hook-slot payoff, and the new Haste tokens make it a better pick in low-tier games where Exposed is rarely exploited. Whispers is now a proximity alarm with a 7 percent Haste reward for the rotations where the lobby is spread out, which is a better version of the perk than the one most people ignored in 10.2.0. And if you have been waiting for a reason to run The Executioner, backend tunables are the reason, and they arrive without a patch.
If you play Survivor, Dark Sense changes from a passive you cannot use into a resource you control, and banking tokens into the endgame is the play. Calm Spirit is now a real chest perk rather than a rounding error. Slippery Meat is no longer the automatic safe unhook it was, so pair it with Vigil or an aura read rather than relying on the rescue being free.
If you run the game on a stream, turn on Regional Streamer Mode. It is the one change in this patch that costs you nothing and removes a problem you have been working around with overlays.
And if you are a theorycrafter, the 10.3.0 numbers are the first datapoint from a system Behaviour now says it will run continuously. The 10.4.0 list of around 15 generic perks in January is the next one.
Frequently asked questions
When does Dead by Daylight 10.3.0 go live for everyone? The public test build opened on 28 October 2026 at 8am PT, 11am ET and 3pm GMT. The full update is expected on 17 November 2026, alongside Chapter 42: Terrifier. Behaviour has not published a separate confirmed date for the live release, so treat 17 November as the expected date rather than a locked one.
Is The Terrifier the same as Art the Clown? Yes. The Killer revealed at the 10th Anniversary Broadcast in June was Art the Clown from the Terrifier films. Behaviour's in-game and official naming for the Killer is The Terrifier, and the chapter is called Terrifier. We covered the original announcement under the Art the Clown name and have updated it, because the official name matters for anyone searching for the perk, the power or the chapter.
What is the new killer's power? Bag of Toys. Hold the Ability button to open the bag and select one of two random Toys. The bag then goes on cooldown. Each Toy is single-use and inflicts the Torture effect. The five Toys are Acid Bottle, Flail, Handgun, Flamethrower and Bike Horn.
What is Deadliness? It is the ramp on the Terrifier's power. When a Toy applies Torture it gains a point of Deadliness. At maximum Deadliness that Toy can down injured Survivors directly. The Bike Horn has its own version, where maximum Deadliness lets it interrupt and instantly regress Survivors who are repairing or healing.
Did Dark Arrogance really change four times? Yes. It had one design before 10.2.0, then a public test version on 15 September, then a live version on 6 October, then the 10.2.2 version on 20 October, then the 10.3.0 version today. That is five distinct states and four changes, spread across six weeks. We tracked the first three in our 10.2.0 reversal post and the third in our 10.2.2 post.
Is Dark Arrogance worth taking now? At tier three, yes, for Vecna players who want a version of the September design they can live with. At tier one, no, because a flat 15 percent vault bonus and a tier one cooldown is a weaker package than what 10.2.2 gave everyone. The perk now scales again, which it did not under 10.2.2.
What is changing about Moris? Three defined categories. Finisher mori ends the match when you kill the final Survivor and is cinematic. Power mori is a short animation triggered by a Killer power. Memento Mori offering and Perk mori is a short animation triggered by a perk or an offering. Only one Kill prompt is ever shown, all Moris use the Attack input, and every Killer released after The Terrifier has to follow the rules.
Does the new map mean The Mall moved up to November? The PTB lists Hartshorne Mall inside 10.3.0, which points to November. The roadmap had The Mall in December as a standalone map. Behaviour has not confirmed a standalone release date for the map, and PTB content moves, so the safe reading is that the map now ships with the Terrifier chapter.
Why was the PTB delayed by a day? Behaviour's official account said there is a lot in store for this PTB. It went live one day later than scheduled, on 28 October rather than 27 October.
Is the January 10.4.0 update confirmed? Behaviour published it as a sneak peek in the October community stream recap, which is a first-party statement: a medium-sized Killer update, multiple smaller Killer tweaks and adjustments to around 15 perks, including Eruption, Sloppy Butcher, Surge, Hyperfocus, Shoulder the Burden and Resurgence.
Did my MMR change? Possibly, and you did not need a patch for it. Behaviour adjusted the value of Survivor altruism in the MMR system on 21 October, one day before the recap that announced it. If you have been rescuing teammates more since then and the rewards felt better, that is the change.
Where do I read the full patch notes? The official notes are on Steam under the title 10.3.0 | Terrifier PTB Patch Notes, and Behaviour posts every update on the Dead by Daylight news page as well. The October community stream recap that published the 10.2.0 data is on the Behaviour forums and on Steam.
Sources
Everything in this article is drawn from first-party sources. The 10.3.0 PTB patch notes were published on Steam on 28 October 2026 at 15:00 UTC. The October community stream recap was published on Steam and on the Behaviour forums on 22 October 2026. The Dark Arrogance version history was reconstructed from the 10.2.0 PTB notes, the 10.2.0 developer update, the 10.2.2 patch notes and the 10.3.0 PTB notes. The chapter release date of 17 November 2026 comes from the Dead by Daylight wiki and the Wikipedia downloadable content table, both of which cite Behaviour. The Terrifier PTB delay to 28 October came from the studio's official community account, which also confirmed the release time of 8am PT. Our own earlier coverage of the chapter announcement and of the map is on this site, and both have been updated.
Where Behaviour's October recap and today's patch notes disagree, we have used the patch notes. That is the version that goes live, and it is the one that will be in the game.