In Patch 7.7. 0, Behaviour Interactive quietly ported Dead by Daylight to Unreal Engine 5. However, it didn't turn out as expected and players were very disappointed with the game's graphics after the update. Some even claimed that the game looked worse because of it.

An April 24 Reddit thread posted by user Mitokovo compared the previous and current versions of Dead by Daylight running on Unreal Engine 4 and 5. They looked at the same areas in both and attempted to highlight the main differences in the graphics, which mostly concerned the lighting. The UE5 version of DBD looks grayer, has thicker fog, and lacks some contrast compared to UE4. The lights also don't work the same and, whether due to a bug or a feature, are significantly less pronounced. Commenters generally think that the update has made the game "washed out," as one user put it, and hasn't added anything significant.

“I knew I wasn’t crazy,” said one user who played the game after the update and noticed some things were amiss. “Without graphics, the game feels more… washed out and bright. Certain elements look stiff and dull, like something is missing,” wrote another. “Looks worse,” was the simplistic summary from someone else, and many agreed.

DBD Patch 7.7. 0 not only upgraded the game to a new engine (it wasn’t even mentioned in the patch notes), but also added new mechanics, tweaked the menus a bit, and brought a whole bunch of new stuff to the in-game store. However, it seems like the new graphics may rub some people the wrong way, especially with the way engine upgrades are often paraded as huge, game-changing updates. “You just added more fog to the maps,” one player said.