Dead by Daylight

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For my very first article on this site (not counting that introduction I did), we're gonna talk about one of my favorite games at the moment: Dead by Daylight!


If you're unfortunate enough to not have heard, let alone played, this fun as hell game, it's an asymmetrical multiplayer video game about a group of four survivors trying to survive a single, monstrous killer. Unlike many other multiplayer games, only one player is actually capable of killing anyone (no prizes for guessing who). The goal as the survivors is to repair generators to get a door open and get the hell out. The killer's job, meanwhile, to get everyone up on a big rusty meat hook and sacrifice them to spidery crab Satan.

In a nutshell, the game is basically "80s slasher flick simulator", which is precisely my kind of shit.

I'm a sucker for any game that lets you play as the monster, which by itself would be enough for me to recommend this game....but much to my surprise, I get just as much enjoyment out of playing as the regular ol' survivors. Working on generators and not doing any of the actual killing may not sound like much fun, but it gets super intense and can lead to some very entertaining, sometimes even frightening, games.

This game actually has some surprisingly deep lore involving the killers and survivors themselves, alternate dimensions, and a Lovecraftian beast known as "the Entity". It's actually not far off from the amount of unnecessary, but welcome, lore that's in a lot of slasher franchises.

For this article, however, I want to focus on one thing....the killers themselves!


This game has a fun, varied cast of monsters to pick from, and with the game still receiving content to this day, we're probably gonna see even more. For now, though, let's take a look at the killers we have!


Before we do, however, I should mention this game also has licensed movie monsters, such as Freddy Krueger seen above. I absolutely love this concept, and there's a lot of other crossover content I'd be ecstatic to see......but for now, we're only going to be focusing on the monsters new to this game. I feel like the licensed slashers should have articles to themselves.

With all that out of the way, let's start with....

Evan MacMillan (The Trapper)

Not to be confused with Edmund McMillen, the creator of another awesome horror-themed game, Evan is most commonly referred to as "the Trapper" both in-game and by the player base. Each of the monsters in this game, even the licensed ones, have a title they go by. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm not complaining. Calling any monster "the ______" means that they're bad news.


As you may have guessed, the Trapper's power (basically like Overwatch's hero abilities, but with more bloodcurdling screaming), is placing bear traps around the area to catch survivors. Bear traps are already super cruel and an inhumane way to catch animals....so imagine them being used on humans. Yeesh. I actually don't recall many movies that have killers that use bear traps as their primary method of killing, though I'm sure some exist. If they do, I need to watch them.


His lore is also pretty tragic. Being the son of a wealthy father, a lot of people came to his dad wanting a piece of the pie, and it didn't do ol' papa Trapper any favors for his mental health. Eventually his mind shattered and Evan sought revengeance by (allegedly!) killing over a hundred people via an explosion-induced cave-in.

Design wise, there isn't a whole lot to say about the Trapper, although I do like those metal spikes protruding out of his body.

Philip Ojomo (The Wraith)

The Wraith, if you know even a tiny bit about his namesake, is a vengeful spirit looking to make life difficult for survivors. This wraith in particular is pissed because he worked on crushing cars into metal cubes during his (non-undead) life. One day he finds out a mob boss is using him to turn people in those cars into cubes as well. Needless to say, he doesn't take the news too well.

What I like about his lore is that wraiths are usually associated with medieval or ancient mythology, but this guy gives us a modern take on the idea of pissed-off ghosts. If wraiths existed in our reality, how would they come about? It's interesting stuff.

However, that isn't even close to the coolest thing about this beast.



Remember that mob boss from his backstory? In-game, he uses HIS SKULL AND SPINE as his weapon. That's right. You can play as a vengeful ghost using the bones of the guy that drove him to such anger as a weapon. If that isn't one of the most metal things I ever heard in my life, then pretty much nothing is metal to me anymore.


Oh yeah, and he can use a cowbell to turn invisible or something. That's neat and all, but I can't get over the fact this game has an angry ghost that uses MOB BOSS BONES as his WEAPON. That is just too damn awesome.

Max Thompson Jr. (The Hillbilly)

After coming out of that blood-flooded ocean of radicalness, we come to a killer who is far more "tragic villain" than "metal-as-fuck". Once again born to wealthy parents like the Trapper; but unlike Evan, Max here came out horribly disfigured, and sadly wasn't born to the kind of parents who are loving and accepting of anyone regardless of their outward appearance.

Being born to such bigoted parents would be bad enough, as I'm sure far too many people can relate to (myself included), but this poor guy's mom and dad were so ashamed of him that they sealed him behind a brick wall, with the only care he got being fed through a hole.

Granted, in his adult years, he tortured and killed animals just for the heck of it, but it's not as though it was done out of malice, the poor kid was never raised properly and was dealt a bad hand. A really bad hand. A "not even an ace high" hand. A "you're playing Yu-Gi-Oh and built a deck around summoning Exodia and throughout your entire game you didn't draw a single Exodia card" hand. 

Ha ha! Just a little of that wacky nerd humor to lighten things up!


In all seriousness, this is actually some pretty heart-wrenching stuff. I'm not even scared or intimidated by this guy, I feel downright awful for him. I don't want to run from him, I just wanna give the poor man a hug and tell him he's loved and appreciated.

Oh yeah, he kills people with a chainsaw and hammer. I probably should have mentioned that earlier. Sorry. It's hard to write when your eyes are overflowing with tears.

Sally Smithson (The Nurse)

Our first female monster (and thankfully far from our last!), the Nurse here is often regarded as one of the best killers in the game, if not the best, due to how freaking powerful she is during gameplay. Before we talk about that, however, I feel we should discuss her backstory.

It's a bit longer than the other killers lore we've seen so far, but in a nutshell, she's a nurse who was forced into working at an asylum due to financial issues. She finally snapped due to verbal and physical abuse from the inmates, killed a shitload of the people there, and then the Entity found her, scooped her up, and now she's slaughtering survivors at the highest ranks.

The Nurse's ability is "Spencer's Last Breath" which....uh, makes her teleport. I'm not sure how breathing and teleportation relate to each other. Maybe it's a reference to a movie or something, I don't know. Spencer himself was a warden working at the asylum, so it's pretty obvious he was one of her victims. I guess maybe the name is a reference to what Spencer saw before he died? Seeing a spooky nurse ghost pop out of nowhere and blast his ass? Spencer himself doesn't get a lot, if any, backstory, so who knows.


This power is the reason Nurse is so well-liked by higher-level players, being able to warp through walls, pallets, and other obstacles in a game about chasing people down is pretty diabolical. The caveat is that she's also regarded as the most difficult hero to play, but those who can master her are pretty much guaranteed to win.

As useful as this ability may be....I kinda wish a nurse ghost would get something more thematically appropriate. Not that monsters have to play by the rules, but there's a lot of cool stuff you can do with a scary hospital monster. Maybe a syringe that injects people with an anesthetic that slows survivors down, or being able to spread a deadly disease of some kind? Not entirely sure, but I can't help but feel the dev team missed an opportunity to make a really cool hospital-themed abomination.


Also, and we're going into  TRIGGERED SJW!!!!!1!!!1 territory, but yeah, I think we should address the elephant in the room. The whole "asylum inmates were mean to her" shtick has a lot of negative connotations attached to it. Now, I've never worked in a mental institution, so I can't claim to know what it's like, and the shit that happened to Sally is awful in itself, but intentional or not, displaying people with mental health issues in fiction as monstrous or "dangerous" can put people with real mental health disorders like myself in a bad spot. Ableism is already pretty rampant in our society, and this doesn't really help. I don't even really have anything against "psychopaths" as monsters, but it's water that needs to be tread carefully.

I'm certain that no one on the development team of this game intended any ill will towards those with mental health problems. Hell, they even did a charity a while back for this kind of stuff, but as I said, this is the kind of issue that needs to be done with responsibility.


And, on top of all that, I don't really find her design that interesting. It's clearly inspired by the nurses from Silent Hill 2, which is nifty, but it doesn't do much to set itself apart from other nurse monsters I've seen. Thankfully, you can change her in-game appearance with cosmetic items! My favorite so far being this gas mask, which I honestly think should have just been her normal appearance. How often do you see slasher villains that wear gas masks?! It's an awesome concept.....I just wish I didn't have to pay money for it, in a game you already have to shell out 30 to 60 dollars to play.

With all this in mind, you have probably guessed that I'm not a big fan of this killer. Truth be told, I don't think she's bad, I'm just very indifferent towards her. I think a lot more could have been done with a creature concept like this. I feel her ability should have been given to a more thematically appropriate monster, she doesn't have a whole lot to do with nurses aside from her appearance and lore, and her design is underwhelming.

Eh.....sorry competitive players. The Nurse doesn't do much for me.

Lisa Sherwood (The Hag)

Now we're talking! This is our second female killer, and she's infinitely more interesting than our last one, in my opinion. 

Once a friendly spellcaster living with a small society of people in a swamp, she slipped on a rock, badly injuring her head during a storm and came out slathered in mud. If that wasn't enough of a lousy day, she and the rest of her family were captured by an unknown group of people, and put through agonizing torture. She finally had enough and used her previously harmless magic to turn the tables, and gave her kidnappers what for. Now she roams the Entity's domain as this badass mud zombie you see before you.


Her lore is already interesting enough, but good god, look at this design. She's beautiful. I love any undead monster that has a "swamp" or "mud" motif to them, and this gorgeous bayou-based diva takes it to a whole other level. I love those long, Salad Finger-esque hands of hers, which I'm very sure are meant to invoke gnarly tree branches. The fact she's covered in roots also implies she's becoming more of a plant monster than a fleshy zombie, which is a cool as hell concept.

My only gripe, design-wise, is that I kind of wish she communicated her "mud" aspect a bit more through her looks, but that's a pretty minor complaint. She still gives off a very swampy vibe, even without the mud or moss. That's the sign of a good design, when it gives you a certain feeling of "I can probably guess this lady is from the swamp even without knowing her lore".

.....but sadly, as awesome as the Hag is conceptually and aesthetically, she's often regarded as the polar opposite of the Nurse when it comes to gameplay. Hounded as being the worst killer in the game due to her lackluster power. She can place symbols engraved in dirt around the map and teleport to them at will, but this doesn't really help against survivors who can just....well, run away.


I myself am not at all a high-level gamer. I'm actually cartoonishly bad at video games. With that in mind, I usually don't give regards to picking characters based on their ranking on a tier-list. As long as I think they're cool and/or fun to play as, I'll pick them up.

It's been said, however, that the Hag isn't even fun to play due to the tedious nature of her ability. Which is a real shame, I actually haven't played the Hag yet due to her being locked behind paid DLC (which, as much as I love this game, I'm not at all a fan of), but that's pretty sad to hear. Hopefully at some point the Dead by Daylight devs will give her a much needed boost in an update, and people can finally show the world how wonderful my sickly swamp witch is.

Herman Carter (The Doctor)

Far more intimidating and thematically fitting than our other medical menace (okay, last time I rag on her, I promise), the Doctor is the game's second syringe-toting baddie, and one of my personal favorite killers in the game from a design standpoint. I know a lot of the more "sophisticated" horror fans regard that goofy face mask as "stupid" or "hard to take seriously" and it's not without merit, but I like it. I love campy, cheesy shit like this, and it's a great way to balance out all the otherwise wholly unsettling or ghostly looking killers which, for a game with multiple playable monsters, is very much a good thing.

Besides, look at those eyes of his! They're creepy as fuck. Those pale yellow, glowing, wide-open peepers are pretty ghastly on whatever monster design you can think up.

As for his lore? Oh, the usual. Scientist gets hired by the government to do experiments on prisoners. He does crazy shit. Government finds out too late it was a bad idea. Giant evil crab-legged monster takes a liking to him. Basic stuff.


On top of a wicked design, he has a pretty cool power too! This guy can conjure up lightning and zap survivors, but unlike other electric monsters like say, Pikachu, these thunderbolts can cause you to go nuts, disallowing you from preforming useful actions like repairing generators. It's basically reverse shock therapy! That's a really creative superpower for a monster with an "evil scientist" motif.

Anna (The Huntress)

Quite possibly the creepiest, most unsettling killer in the game. Her backstory is that she lived in the woods with her mother, who actually treated her pretty well, at least compared to the Hillbilly's terrible mom and dad who I hope are burning in Hell along with being the Entity's midnight snack.

....but, uh, anyway, Anna's mom taught her survival skills, how to get by in the woods, and most significantly of all; how to hunt. Her mother tragically died when Anna was only seven years old, but that didn't seem to stop her from being a survival machine. She managed to live a surprisingly decent life in the woods, with her main hobby being hunting animals for sport. She later found other girls to befriend, but they all eventually died due to sickness and cold. She would then raid villages to find more girls to make friends with, by force if needed.

Oh yeah, and she hunts humans for sport.


Hoooo boy, that's a lot to take in, and that's barely even half of her lore. What I think is truly the scariest part, however, is that Anna isn't hunting people for sport because she's "evil" and definitely not because she's "insane"....she's still a little girl inside of a grown woman who doesn't know any better. To her, throwing hatchets at poor survivors is just like playing a very messy game of tag.

Her mother may have taught her how to live in the woods, but she never taught her something which is arguably far more important....how to live with other people. Because of that, now she happily chops heads as a hunter would with a deer.

And scarier still? She sings this lullaby her mom sang to her while she's doing it.


This is easily the most chilling killer in the game so far. A little girl who was never taught social skills, and slaughters people just for the heck of it, but not out of sadism or malice....just because she's a child inside who does it as her hobby. That is creepy as shit....and I love it.

Kenneth "Jeffrey Hawk" Chase (The Clown)

The game's mandatory killer clown! This guy was a student who wasn't much in academics, but could hold his own in sports. As a kid, he became obsessed with catching birds using a dentist's anesthetic . Originally he only intended to hold them in his hand, but accidentally killed one.....but rather than feel any sort of shame or horror, he felt a rush of power that encouraged him to start doing the same to other small animals....and eventually human children.

There's actually a lot more to this creep-o's origin, but in a nutshell, he ran away from his dad to join the circus, became a clown, got into some bad habits like junk food and excessive drinking (relatable!), and soon went into killing again.


True to his lore, and possibly as a homage to Batman's arch-nemesis, the Clown uses gas to incapacitate survivors; putting them into violent coughing fits, impaired vision, and even a reduction to their movement speed. Brutal! For these reasons, the Clown is another killer that's popular with the competitive crowd. I wouldn't be surprised to know he's a fan favorite among "regular" players as well. Killer clowns are all the rage, and who can blame them? Clowns as villains are always a lot of fun.


Oh yeah, and he likes to collect human fingers. And he licks them. And hangs them on his belt. And probably also eats them.

Kenneth is basically what would happen if you took Yoshikage Kira and the Joker, and threw them in a blender. A very gross, disturbing, ethical-concern-raising blender. That I want in my kitchen.

Rin Yamaoka (The Spirit)

Another favorite of mine, at least from a conceptual standpoint. J-horror ghosts (or more appropriately, "Onryō") are always, always cool as hell, and this gal is no exception.

The daughter of a man who had a crappy job, and an even crappier boss, Rin's dad was slowly losing his grip on reality due to his agonizing work. Even worse still, her mother grew ill, forcing her to work a part-time job which didn't help in the end. One night, Rin came home only to find her mother chopped to bits by her own husband. After a nasty scuffle, Rin died and the Entity came to her promising vengeance.

What is it with killers having such bad parents??? Anna's mom was probably the best one, but only by default. She still failed to teach her daughter basic social skills, and look how she wound up! Someone needs to get the moms and dads of this world some damn parenting books.

I mean, okay, granted, Rin's dad went bonkers, so it isn't really his fault, but still; people in Dead by Daylight have rotten luck when it comes to relatives.


All that backstory aside, there isn't a whole lot to the Spirit, but that's fine with me. All a Japanese ghost needs to do is exist and I'm happy. I love anything that has a whole bunch of different monsters, and includes J-horror ghosts in the party.

Her design I'm a bit mixed towards. I love that creepy, perpetually flowing hair of hers, she's appropriately bony and spindly for an Onryō, and I love how most of her body is just a bunch of cut-up parts floating to form a somewhat humanoid form; but sad to say, I'm not big on her only clothing being bandages barely covering up her boobs and badonkadonk. You may think I'm one of those guys who hates fanservice, but I assure you I'm not.

I just....think it's kind of weird and unfitting for a monster who's supposed to be creepy also be sexy. I don't know. For me, sex appeal makes a monster a lot less scary, it's just distracting, you know? Besides, she's a dang ghost! Wouldn't being aroused by a ghost count as necrophilia???

Eh, whatever. I still like the Spirit. A J-horror ghost is a J-horror ghost, and I have yet to meet a J-horror ghost I don't like.

F. J. S. J. (The Legion)

There's a lot to like about the Legion. For one, the Legion is actually a bunch of killers in one! And not in the ableist "he has multiple personalities!!!!" way either, like a certain other Legion from a certain horror movie. Nope, it's literally just a bunch of punk-ass teens causing trouble. That brings me to another thing I like about the Legion, they're teens! Having teens as a killer is a fun concept. It's also a pretty disturbing concept, if you're even passingly familiar with A Clockwork Orange.

Of course, this does also carry the weight of negative connotations, what with baby boomers hounding over the damn country, this maybe gives off the message of "TEENAGERS/MILLENIALS ARE BAD!!!!!". Something that we see far too much of on both social media and mainstream news outlets.

Again, however, I'm sure this was not the intention from the dev team. Besides, the majority of this game's fanbase is probably teens and/or young adults anyway. It'd be weird to alienate them, you know?


Fittingly enough, the Legion ranks as one(ish) of the fastest killers in the game, very appropriate for a band of misfit teens. Gameplay-wise, I'm not usually into "speedster"-type characters, but the Legion is one(ish) I could see myself enjoying, if only because the concept of playing as a group of killer teenagers is a fun one.

Not much else to say about these little brats, but I like them.

Adiris (The Plague)

The last killer released for Dead by Daylight for the time being, and appropriately enough....she's probably my favorite from both a design and conceptual standpoint.

Adiris was originally a revered priestess, hailed for her beauty and piety, until the fateful day a plague overthrew her and her followers. She desperately tried to appease the gods in order to get rid of the infection, but nothing worked. She then banished herself from the city, and spent her remaining living days in a dark cave. Eventually, a dark god came to her (very likely the Entity) and offered her a solution in exchange for human sacrifice.

Damn. That is brutal. It already sucks the big one for all these other killers to either have their loved ones die, or their families just be dicks, but having hundreds upon thousands of people you care about die on you, and the only guy who wants to help you out is probably an eldritch god that's bullshitting you? Yikes.


So why is the Plague my favorite monster in the game thus far? Well, for starters, her design is superb. It stands out really well against all the guys with generic masks and suits, giving us a very unique-looking horror "villain". That headdress alone is enough to really communicate a theme of holiness, which only adds to the irony.

That brings me to the main thing I love about this monster; the juxtaposition of her design, her methods, and her intentions. It's actually not uncommon for holy figures be horror villains (which makes a lot of sense if you lived in the Bible Belt....like I still do), but Adiris here isn't at all malicious or evil....she's just desperate. Very rarely have I seen a killer monster slaughter out of desperation from a problem that may not have an answer, it's a great idea that should be explored more.

Even better still?


Her power is just puking on people.

Did you honestly expect that to be her superpower? If you never heard of this killer before this post, probably not. Yeah, she's infected with a horrible disease and all, but you would expect a priestess monster to have like, a sword or a holy beam of light or something. But no, throwing all conventions right out the window, her ability in-game is just straight up barfing on her victims. That is ingenious.

I know I said with the Nurse that I wish the dev team used a more thematically appropriate power for her, but I also said monsters don't have to play by the rules, and with the Plague, it's easy to tell that the lack of a suitably themed power was very much the intention. At first glance, the Plague seems like a wholesome creature, albeit twisted from disease, but it soon becomes clear that she's using that same disease to her disgusting advantage. It really takes you off-guard, which is great for horror and monster design in general.

The Entity

We talked about every playable (non-movie licensed) killer so far, but I feel we should talk about the game's main antagonist. This big leggy guy is the whole reason that killers are going after survivors. It seems to have a hobby of collecting murderers and having them go after innocent people. The reason for this is currently unknown.

Perhaps most fascinating of all is that none of this takes place on Earth, or at least not a version of it known to anyone the Entity takes away. Instead, it takes them to its own world to a "realm", basically a recreation of a location back on Earth, to pull all this off.

Not much else is known about the Entity, and to be honest, I kind of hope it stays that way. I like a bit of ambiguity, especially in horror.


Me personally, though? I like to think the Entity is a giant, eldritch, beastly horror movie fan that uses its godlike powers to watch what are basically big, elaborate fan films. Think about it, the Entity specifically goes after killers, some of which are even from movies, and has them go after innocent people like a slasher villain, with their performances being acted out in realms that were once the site of horrible murders.

In the end, the Entity is a huge monster movie nerd. What we're dealing with, I'm guessing, is a giant Lovecraftian spider monster that writes horror fan fiction and picks actors to play them out. It would actually be kind of cute if it wasn't so damn evil.

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