Dead by Daylight: How To Play The Pig

The Pig, also known as Amanda Young, was introduced with Dead by Daylight's Saw chapter, adding her to the game's growing roster of licensed killers. She comes with three abilities that allow her to sneak up on survivors and slow down their progress, but these skills can be hard to master. Great survivors know how to counter most killers' abilities, so players need to know how to play The Pig effectively in order to counter the best survivors.

The Pig can crouch, ambush dash and run across the map to injure survivors before placing them on sacrificial hooks. She can also use her reverse bear traps to force survivors to complete side objectives to remove the trap or die. Understanding how to use these abilities well can quickly turn a beginner killer player into a true expert. Here is how to play The Pig effectively in Dead by Daylight.

Crouch And Ambush

The Pig can use her crouch ability to sneak up on survivors and effectively mind-game loops. Since The Pig becomes Undetectable when she crouches, survivors will not be able to hear her terror radius or anticipate her arrival when she is crouching. She is slower when crouched, though. Players can use the ambush attack to quickly dash forward and hit a survivor after crouching, but this attack does bring attention to The Pig since she makes a growling sound as she dashes.

Survivors can counter The Pig's sneak abilities with Spine Chill or Premonition, perks that alert survivors to the killers' location. Experienced The Pig players tend to look slightly next to a survivor rather than directly at them in order to prevent Spine Chill from activating.

Understand Your Strengths

The Pig's strengths lie in generator slowdown, not in chase. Her element of surprise is also a particularly unique strength. Some killers have powers that allow them to insta-down survivors or hit them through walls, but The Pig is not one of them. While she can land some fun hits with the ambush dash, it isn't reliable since survivors can hear it coming and will often run before she is able to make the hit. The Pig players should focus on protecting generators and getting a cheeky hit in when possible rather than attempting to engage in chase with survivors.

That said, it might sometimes be worthwhile to attempt mind-gaming an unsafe pallet with crouching, confusing the survivor as to which direction the player is going. Experienced players should assess the situation to determine whether it's worth it to pursue a survivor; generally, if a chase takes longer than fifteen to twenty seconds, The Pig should break the chase and seek out another survivor.

Use Add-Ons Creatively

The Pig has some add-ons that switch up her power in unique ways, and making use of these add-ons can help players discover new play styles that they love or help them hone existing strategies. The strongest of The Pig's add-ons involve altering her bear traps in one way or another. Others, like John's Medical File, which grants a slight speed increase while crouching, don't tend to get a lot of use. Because The Pig's add-ons involving her reverse bear traps are so versatile, it's easy to mix-and-match to create an add-on build that works for any player or with any build.

To create chaos early game and force survivors to take off their traps instead of doing generators, players can mix Amanda's Video Tape with other reverse bear trap add-ons. This forces all survivors to start the trial with bear traps on their head. Adding another add-on that affects bear traps could inflict survivors with another status effect, too, keeping them both occupied and unaware of the killer's location.

Players can try mixing-and-matching the following add-ons for the most effective gameplay:

Video Tape - All survivors start the trial with reverse bear traps installed.
Razor Wires - Failing a skill check at jigsaw boxes will injure healthy survivors.
Rules Set No.2 - Disables the survivors' ability to see the auras of jigsaw boxes until their reverse bear trap is activated.
Interlocking Razor - Failing a skill check at Jigsaw Boxes will apply the deep wound status effect to injured survivors.

Use Your Traps Effectively

The Pig players should note that they only get four reverse bear traps per trial, making it necessary to use them wisely in order to get the best use out of them and slow down survivors. Trapping all four survivors at the beginning might result in some interesting chaos, but it robs The Pig of her passive slowdown throughout the match, which is one of her greatest strengths.

Traps activate when a generator is completed, so having a trap in play can make survivors wary of completing generators, too; this is best used during the match, not at the very beginning or end. In fact, placing a reverse bear trap on a survivor after the last generator is completed is futile, since no generator can activate it. As such, having leftover bear traps after the last generator is completed is not a good thing, either. The Pig players should use their traps whenever they need slowdown; it's best to steadily use them throughout the match rather than throwing a reverse bear trap on any survivor who is on the ground.

Dead by Daylight is available on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mobile, and Google Stadia.

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