Original VS Licensed Characters
Which do you prefer and hope to see more of in the game?
While the licensed characters are fun and have crowd appeal I personally hope to see a lot more original Survivors and Killers in the game. The dev team is so creative and comes up with great lore that I think really shines the most when they have total freedom in the design and writing!
Original VS Licensed Characters 47 votes
27 votes
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20 votes
Comments
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Original Characters
Both honestly I love how laurie being in the realm is canon and i love feng's and plague's lore ngl So i guess both?
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Unsure tbh, Trickster and Twins are an absolute nightmare balance wise. Licensed Killers usually don't have as much of an issue. Probably as a result of the fact that they are limited to the lore of that character. You can't have Michael Myers running around shooting lasers from his eyes, Y'know? They can't just do whatever. While I enjoy the uniqueness of original characters, they are also more susceptible to introducing... Balancing issues.
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Licensed Characters
I enjoy both definitely!
but I do think the licensed chars are making DbD special. And I appreciate the cool and interesting ways the devs make the chars work within the Entitys realm/game mechanics!
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Original Characters
Shards
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Original Characters
My only actual issue with originals is how the last few original chapters have taken a deep dive in power, however they have always seemed to bring in a strong or balanced killer for every weak one so I'm not too concerned. Other than that, I really love seeing what the devs can come up with instead of all what we could probably already guess based off of preconceived notions of the licensed killers and survivors.
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Definitely original cuz they're faster,unique,desgined and what not.love original
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Licensed Characters
I prefer licensed. I enjoy finding little familiar touches in the maps and having add-ons associated with the franchise.
Saying that, some of the DBD originals has some rather good backstories, eg Clown, Trickster and Wraith.
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Licensed Characters
^ This
Both have their place in the game and both contribute in their own unique ways. Just because you know the stories of licensed killers and what their powers are most likely to be does not necessarily make them any less unique than the original concepts.
And in fact, Dead By Daylight's original concepts which are for the most part well developed, compelling, and interesting characters which can stand on their own two feet aren't even all that original to begin with. Every single original killer has had some kind of previous inspiration, archetype, or story that it is based off of.
As far as inspired by other licenses go:
Trapper has roots derived from Jason Voorhees
Wraith and his power was influenced at least in part by The Predator
Hillbilly is very obviously based on similar themes as Leatherface.
Legion shares some conceptual ideas with Ghostface
The Deathslinger was inspired partly from Stephen King's The Dark Tower book series
The Blight is Dead By Daylight's version of Robert Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
And another chunk of the Dead By Daylight's original cast is based off of folklore, myth, local legend, etc.
The Oni is a perfect example of this, being ripped basically straight out of storybooks that tell of Oni: which is a kind of yōkai, demon, ogre, or troll in Japanese folklore, typically portrayed as hulking figures of blue white or red skin with one or more horns growing out of their heads.
The Spirit is also based off Japanese traditional beliefs and literature, the onryō (literally "vengeful spirit", sometimes rendered "wrathful spirit") refers to a ghost believed to be capable of causing harm in the world of the living, injuring or killing enemies, or even causing natural disasters to exact vengeance to "re-address" the wrongs it received while alive.
The Hag has been said by some to be potentially based on the Wendigo, an Algonquian myth that says those who commit cannibalism will become possessed by spirits, deformed and eventually turn insane. However, it's more likely she's more closely related to Voodoo, Witches, and Witch Doctors due to the nature of her power more than anything else. Although nobody has ever said it can't be a little bit of both.
The Plague is very directly connected to Babylonian Priestesses, Culture and Religion. Not much else to say about that, it's directly written in the lore where she's from.
The Nurse is related more to the standard creepy Nurse (who goes insane) archetype than any specific story, though I don't doubt if I did enough digging that I might find an example of a similar story out from the UK (the nurse is Anglo American)
A very minor portion of the original cast can be seen as based off of real life figures and killers.
The Doctor is well known to be allegedly based on Yang Yongxin, a real life controversial Chinese doctor (Psychiatrist according to google, he's still alive today by the way) who used electroconvulsive therapy on internet addicts to "cure" them of their addiction. I remember the character received a lot of praise on release, especially from those in the Chinese community, for bringing this issue to light and spreading greater awareness about these horrible medical practices. Of course the Doctor could just also be based on your standard archetype of a murderous Medical Doctor (though in Dead By Daylight he's got nothing to do with medicine).
Though I'm not sure if it's confirmed The Clown can also be very easily tied to real life American Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy who performed as a Clown at local parties, charitable events, children hospitals, etc. The Clown from Dead By Daylight can also be somewhat related to Pennywise the Clown from IT, or just your standard archetype of a creepy murderous Clown.
The only original killers I haven't mentioned are the Huntress, and two most recent: The Twins, and the Trickster. But again, with research I have no doubt I could find some origin or source material for the ideas that sparked these characters.
Long Story short, as far as "uniqueness" goes the only difference is that the licensed characters of Dead By Daylight are already so easily recognizable and iconic. They have already proven their worth as characters, and important parts of fictional horror that's why they're popular. People have heard about them and are familiar with their concepts, tones, and themes, and many have proven to be interesting and compelling characters in their own right which have captured the attentions of audiences for literal decades of time. There's a reason why people like them, and there's nothing particularly wrong with liking them. Their source material, or how they appear within Dead By Daylight.
In truth, the question that's left is can any "original" idea- truly be original?
Be prepared, there'll be a quiz next Monday reviewing these concepts.
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Licensed Characters
Holy wall of text, but I do agree with you. though I really like their take on the original killers - even if they are inspired by other stuff. The devs still got the storys, design and feeling super well done, and they work on their own!
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