Dead by Daylight: Spark of Madness DLC Review

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Dead by Daylight continues to expand its offerings with the release of the new Spark of Madness DLC pack. This contains a new survivor, Feng Min, and killer, the Doctor, as well as a new set of maps in the form of the Léry Memorial Institute; a mental asylum turned nightmare.

Feng Min, the new survivor on the scene, is a professional gamer from Korea and a technically savvy survivor. She comes with available skills that decrease overall noise during generator repair while reducing the chances of explosions. She also has a speed boost after vaulting over objects. She's an interesting character with a backstory revolving around her rise to fame in the professional gaming world before ultimately finding herself trapped in this nightmarish dimension. Feng stands out from other survivors based on her backstory, but still plays similarly to existing characters albeit for her specialized skills.

Spark of Madness's new killer really shines through in this DLC pack. Unlike Michael Myers, the Hag, or the Nurse, the Doctor introduces entirely new gameplay mechanic of Madness. While being an outright killer on his own with his punishing stick weapon (for when treatment is no longer effective, of course), the Doctor is able to switch between "Punishment" and "Treatment" modes of attack. Treatment allows the Doctor to send out a wave of electricity similar to electric shock treatment. Prolonged use against survivors causes their Madness to build, culminating in different tiers. Higher tiers of madness cause the survivors to hallucinate the Doctor (which can clue the real Doctor in on their location), force them to scream or leave them constantly hearing the heartbeat making it nearly impossible to figure out where to hide. When all else fails, however, this creepy psych-doctor-turned-killer can resort to simply beating survivors to death with his punishment stick. Add in the fact he's absolutely terrifying looking, and you have yourself a perfect deranged medical professional!

Like the other DLC maps, the Léry Memorial Institute realm consists of one overall map, but considering it's an old, abandoned asylum where the Doctor performed his crazy and torturous experiments, it fits extremely well within the Dead by Daylight universe. I'll take what I can get; however, I was hoping for some additional maps to go with the asylum myself.

Simply Put

Spark of Madness adds some great new variety to Dead by Daylight. I thoroughly enjoyed using the Doctor as I hunted down survivors and Feng, once leveled up, makes a great addition to any survivor team. Considering how generally creepy the Doctor is, I think Spark of Madness does an excellent job in padding out Dead by Daylight.

Note: Dead by Daylight: Spark of Madness DLC was reviewed on PC. A digital copy of the game was provided by the publisher/developer.