Killer Analysis 2025

Milkymalk

Whenever I played survivor in 2025, I took note of the killers I encountered. I included events unless the event game mode heavily influenced the killer choice. Halloween and winter events are included, for example, but 2v8 or Lights Out is not.

I played exactly 500 matches in total. Here is the table:

Notes: Ghoul released in April, Animatronic in June, Krasue in September.

At first glance, Animatronic seems to be taking the cake with 39 total matches. However, 19 matches of these occurred in June at release, and after that he fell off hard and stabilized on the upper range of picks. Which is still pretty high, considering that he was only available for half the time.

For that reason, I excluded the month of each killer with the highest encounter rate by percentage. With this, the results are as follows:

Legion and Huntress are the eternal classics. They share first place with 29 picks each. Straightforward gameplay and powers that are easy to understand, simple to play with and against.

Next are Spirit (23 picks) and Ghostface (21 picks). Also pretty straightforward powers, but a little harder to use. Nevertheless, nothing complicated.

Myers, Wesker, Nurse and Blight also finish pretty high.

Several killers can be counted as failures in 2025: Demogorgon, Twins, Skull Merchant, Houndmaster, Artist, Hag, Freddy and Sadako barely have any picks at all, with a maximum of 4 picks (before taking out their top month!) and Unknown with 6 picks. Why?

Houndmaster was and is pretty bugged and hard to play, because she has to aim her dog like Pinhead, but does not get his sight when doing so. Twins relies on slugging, which is currently established as not desirable by BHVR and the player base. Demogorgon and Freddy are pretty weak, and Hag is too slow and defensive in her gameplay. Sadako? No idea, I enjoy playing her. And finally, Skull Merchant's power is not very interactive for the killer, so she feels like a pure M1 killer with something extra.

What happened to Krasue? Almost 10% pick rate on release (allegedly much higher), down to 3% in October, down to 0% starting November. October also marked the beginning of the Halloween event, where standards like Ghostface, Blight, Spirit, Myers and Nurse have their comeback to consistently farm the event quests.
Apparently, after the (needed) nerfs, Krasue fell out of favor. Not sure why, because I find her visually interesting and not too bad with her power.

In my opinion, BHVR has a problem with its original killers: Krasue, Houndmaster, Unknown and Singularity are all very creative and visually unique, but have complicated powers that players don't enjoy. Knight, while not an original killer (but might as well be, since the For Honor franchise is not as omnipresent as others), has a similar problem.

Feel free to share your thoughts about why certain killers are barely present or why certain killers were practically dead on arrival. I know that my data set is not very representative because I barely played in some months and October disproportionally many matches, but it is what it is.

[Deleted User]

first off i wanna say that your data feels somewhat similar to my gameplay experience from my memory.

Krasue and houndmaster are unpopular due to different reasons. Houndmaster is apparently still very buggy but for a while she has been fine for me besides some annoying moments when the dog does not go where it should. She is actually a very strong killer but also very difficult to master especially the dog trajectory. On top of that she requires flicks and fast mouse gameplay similar to wesker so controller probably feels trash on her.

As for krasue it’s likely a combination of things. Her antiloop is not oppressively strong anymore and in some loops it is in fact just trash, her mobility is limited and can’t be spammed like the others, and lastly she isn’t easy to pick up and play. She basically feels like an inferior hillbilly.