The Thing vs RJ MacReady killer/survivor idea
So this isn't super well thought out, but I think the gimmick a killer like The Thing could bring to DBD would be super fun.
The main goal of this killer would be similar to the goal of John Carpenter's The Thing. As this creature, you'll be able to confuse, terrify, and ultimately become every survivor in the match. This obviously comes with some fun mind games on the killer's part, and some interesting counter play on the part of the survivors. This is also an opportunity for the devs to make a survivor that looks like their movie counterpart as the killer is technically just a mass of tentacles and mangled body parts.
A simple killer backstory: After your murder spree came to a close on that remote arctic base, the entity granted you a new life, an improved power, and a new set of victims to devour.
Power:
Shape Shifter - The entity has enhanced your natural abilities and granted you the power to become your prey in the blink of an eye. This power has a passive and active effect.
Passive: You start the match in the form of a survivor not found in the current match. (This ensures players will always know at the start of a game who the killer is at a glance) In this form, you will move as fast as other survivors and you can crouch and work on generators too. Working on generators will slowly regress the work other players have put into that gen. You also do not have a terror radius in this form, but you may not use pallets or vault over windows. When a survivor is killed by your hand - from a mori or a final hook - you will transform into said survivor after a 3 second delay until you've killed another survivor.
Active: After a 5 second delay in which the character transforms and lets out a terrifying howl, you will enter a frenzied state and move at a 50% increased speed. You will stay in this mode for 4 seconds or until you have left the chase state, are stunned by a pallet, or blinded by a survivor. (this is basically where the animation team can have a lot of fun with some extremely spooky looking body horror effects. Like tentacles sprouting from the body and limbs becoming detached or malformed) This ability should probably have a fairly long cool down as it's a great surprise and chase tool.
Perks:
Deceptive Hex- As long as your totems stay up, survivors will be restricted from seeing each of the following actions for each totem (these stack depending on how many totems have yet to be cleansed)
3 totems left: Survivors can no longer see who has died, and the animation/sound effect of a survivor on their final hook is 50% dampened. (This is to better help The Thing pretend to be a survivor who has died or to surprise players that attempt to play the hatch game)
2 totems left: Survivors can no longer see who has been put into the dying state (This perk would override perks like empathy)
1 totem left: Survivors can no longer hear their teammates cries of pain when they've been hit. (they will still be able to see said teammate get hurt on the hud)
Insatiable Hunger- If a survivor has been hooked twice, you can kill them by your own hand if they're in the dying state and no other survivors are within 10 meters of you. (this gives the killer the ability to mori survivors on a strict draw back because more than likely they're about to die anyways)
I'm sure you guys could come up with a fun third perk, but those are the only two I could think of for now
In terms of survivors, I'd like to see RJ the protagonist that kills the creature from the movie. I think his play style would revolve around spotting and tracking the killer's location. This makes him a decent counter to The Thing, but it also give him the ability to warn teammates of incoming danger, but almost guarantee he's the obsession. Some of his perks would include the following:
Bold intentions- getting bold points increased gives you stacks of boldness. At 3 stacks, you are able to clearly see the killer's aura for 10 seconds within a 40 meter range (this will no effect cloaked killers such as freddy, the spirit, or the wraith when they're invisible)
Fighting back- if a teammate is killed within 25 meters of you, your next flash light stun, pallet stun, or decisive strike stun duration is increased by 50%. You may only use this ability twice per match
Honed Tracking- after 2 generators have been completed, the killer will leave behind scratch marks for 30 seconds similar to a survivor's when they've been hit. The effect persists even if the killer is cloaked. (this perk would give players some counter play to killers who rely on ambush attacks or invisibility. This perk is activated every time 2 gens have been completed meaning it will happen twice in a full match.)
Please note that I'm a very new player and all of this is just me throwing around ideas. I think the general idea of a killer that can turn into other survivors would be really neat though. Let me know what y'all think and if you can come up with a third killer perk.