Dead by Daylight: The SAW® Chapter

My first honest reaction to The Pig was that Behaviour nailed the atmosphere and then quietly shrugged when it came to competitive viability. The SAW Chapter drops three pieces of licensed content into Dead by Daylight: Amanda Young as the killer (The Pig), Detective David Tapp as the survivor, and the Gideon Meat Plant as the map. All three land with varying degrees of success, and if you're a DbD regular weighing up whether this chapter is worth your money, the answer depends almost entirely on which side of the chase you prefer to play. As a killer, The Pig's core power is called Jigsaw's Baptism, and it is genuinely one of the most thematic mechanics in the whole roster. She starts each trial with four Reverse Bear Traps, which she can snap onto the heads of downed survivors. Once a generator is completed, those traps activate and a death timer begins - trapped survivors have to stop what they're doing and search Jigsaw Boxes scattered around the map for the correct key, or they die at the exit gates. On paper it's a brilliant pressure tool that splits survivors between repairing generators and saving themselves. In practice, the randomness of the box system means a survivor can find their key on the first try and lose almost no time at all, which blunts the fear considerably. Pair that with her crouch ability - which suppresses her terror radius and red stain entirely so she can set up ambush dashes - and you have a killer who is legitimately fun to play but consistently undercuts herself in high-skill lobbies. The community has long rated her among the lower tier of killers, and the developers have applied a string of tweaks over the years that have not fully resolved her ceiling problem. On the survivor side, Detective Tapp brings three perks: Stake Out (rewards time spent near the killer without being chased by converting good skill checks into great ones), Detective's Hunch (reveals auras of generators, totems, and chests after a generator is completed), and Tenacity (lets you crawl faster and recover simultaneously while downed). Stake Out and Detective's Hunch have genuine cross-build utility, especially Hunch, which works as a solid totem-tracking tool. Tenacity is situational to the point of being near-useless in most games, but two out of three useful perks is a decent perk haul by DbD chapter standards. The Gideon Meat Plant is where this chapter actually earns its reputation. It was DbD's first two-floor interior map, and the maze-like layout with interconnected rooms, a bathroom straight out of the films, a freezer trap room, and a pig vat creates a genuinely claustrophobic arena. Sight lines are short, vertical play is real, and both killers and survivors have to rethink how they move. For a game that lives and dies on map variety, this is one of the stronger additions the license has produced. If you play killer and want something with personality over raw power, The Pig scratches that itch well. If you're a Saw fan who just wants to live out the Amanda Young fantasy, the chapter delivers it faithfully. If you're a survivor-side player hunting strong perks, Tapp's kit has enough value to justify the pickup. The one group who should temper expectations: anyone buying this specifically to climb with The Pig. She is rated hard difficulty for a reason, and her Reverse Bear Trap mechanic's reliance on RNG means some games will feel rewarding and others will feel like you're playing with one hand tied behind your back.

Alex · Scout Team

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