Was Sadako rising a flop?

Absolutely

I think Sadako was a bit of a flop... but not because of anything wrong with her or her perks.

The first thing is that she came out not that long after the controversy with MMR. It doesn't take a genius to know that if people aren't happy with the general direction of the game, they probably won't spend money on it. The other problem is that she's a hit and run killer released while CoH is still meta and broken. She's going to struggle in that environment. People know that and probably aren't going to want to spend money on a killer who's going to struggle.

I don't think she was as much of a flop as Twins, but I think there's a decent number of people who didn't buy her who would have if the state of the game was better. To be honest, I'm one of them.

Announcing the chapter so early kind of killed all hype for the chapter. Then when the chapter came out we got a forgettable survivor, a weak killer, and boring/useless perks for both sides. And no new map.

So yes, I think Sadako Rising was a major flop.

It was a flop because she is insanely weak the way BHVR made her,maybe dont release a mediocre killer if you want your chapter to do good.

Yes, I think it was in terms of how they expected it to do vs how it actually did.

This is for a couple of reasons.

1. Bad timing for this type of killer. With the healing meta the way it is and current matchmaking issues, this title was never gonna be enough to actually bring people back in.

2. Underwhelming survivor and killer with underwhelming perks. Until the current meta is brought in line with other perks all newly released perks are gonna seem underwhelming. Unless they release something completely busted again which doesn't solve any issues, as seen recently.

3. The main draw to the title was the killer and the psychological aspect of her power that we were promised. What we were given though is an extremely underwhelming killer that has an easy to learn, hard to master power with very little payoff in the end.

If you look at other killers like blight, nurse, spirit, their powers are also pretty easy to learn but hard to master. But the payoff for mastering them is massive, and it's why they always sit at the top. However with sadako, even if you master every bit of her, her payoff is very small in comparison to most other killers due to the nature of her power. The psychological aspect we were promised was a very easy to learn mechanic that survivors already figured out and knew how to easily counter it before it ever got out of ptb.

Overall it was a release I was hoping wouldn't be underwhelming, but not surprised that it was sadly.

No, not really.

I wouldn't say flop, but lukewarm reception.

I don't think it flopped. To me it made 2 big mistakes:

1. Announcing the chapter 3 months early
2. Releasing the chapter around the time Elden Ring was released

However with that said, she was still played more than Pinhead and Artist combined on release. To me I wouldn't say she flopped, but she didn't have the impact the devs wanted.

If she wasn't announced so early then perhaps there would've been more excitement.

Financially I'm sure it was not a flop, it would have been a relatively inexpensive IP to get and sales seem to have been quite strong. As far as impact on the game? Yeah, no, flop.

Dude, you should have made this a poll.

For me it’s nothing to do with the character.

I really wanted Sadako since before Spirit and when she was made I never thought I’d see a Ringu chapter.

Was super hyped and returned to try the game out before spending money like I did with the Nemesis DLC, and the fact the game still runs so poorly on my last gen PS4 is the sole reason I cannot justify spending money on this game when it doesn’t seem to value me or my format as a player.

If the game ran stably on my console then I would happily spend the cash to unlock her as one of my favourite horror characters: even if she does fall victim to the game balances hatred of M1 killers.

Until then it doesn’t matter how good or bad she is if the game doesn’t run to an acceptable standard for me, I spent my money on Elden Ring, Horizon Forbidden West and Tiny Tinas Wonderlands which all look better, run better, and are much bigger in scale, size and mechanics active during play than DbD.

Not a flop. Sadako is fun to play, but weaker than a boon totem. Sometimes when I play killer, I want to be strong instead of weak.

An unmitigated flop, yes.

Coming out of 4th quarter 2022 with some of the worst player numbers in DbD history and a bitter community, the launch was botched as the devs did their best to inspire hype WAY too far out from launch, which kneecapped the DLC's hype by spreading it out for a couple of months.

That and the PTB was lackluster. A total bomb. Saduko had interesting concepts, but she didn't have the sex appeal of the Trickster, the practicality of the Artist, or the "REEEEEEE" of Twins. Saduko was just a B- killer from the get-go. All the perks introduced were... interesting... but even on paper, they were completely impractical.

I noticed during the PTB a lot of people swore off of the DLC. Watching streamers was like watching a bad review. It made the entire experience less appealing.

That - and all the people still mad about bad MMR and Boon totems not being fixed. I'm sure a lot of community members felt like holding onto their money until the game was worth coming back to.

If you look at the steam numbers - Resident Evil SKYROCKETED the DbD franchise into the mainstream and boosted the player count. The Hellraiser DLC helped maintain that momentum. But the MMR rollout and Makayla Reid came out and stomped the player base down by wholesale partitions. Ringu should have made a bump - all major DLCs do. But Ringu was hardly a blip on the February charts - creating only a slight upward tick during the mid-week and keeping the numbers from continuing their gradual fall for a few days. Literally, handing out Bloodpoints and doing MMR overhaul tests was a more effective way of getting players excited than Ringu was.

Somewhat agreed.

I see Sadukos from time to time - but it isn't anything like previously.

I was there Gandalf, I was there back in 2019.

I've witnessed the launch of the Plague, Ghostface, Demogorgon, Oni, Deathslinger, PPyramid Head, Blight, Big Girl and REE, K-Pop Man, Nemesis, PPin Head, and the Artist.

You know what they all had in common?

Launch week, they were ubiquitous. Each and every match was the NEW killer. Seeing any killer but the most recent one was a miracle. Even lackluster launches like Twins and Trickster - they were EVERYWHERE. Trickster was pretty poor performance at his launch, but it didn't keep him from being over 80% of the killers you'd play against for the first few days after launch. Nemesis dominated the game for weeks, and he's so fun that you STILL see him around.

Saduko, though, I only saw a handful of her during launch week. I saw more Plagues and Artists during her launch than I saw of HER. And for the weeks after - yes, I did see her more than killers like Demogorgon or Freddy - but for being the new kid on the block, it felt like she was 2 years old and forgotten already. I play all the time, even if I try not to; I can count on two hands how many times I played against her, and I'd still have enough fingers to make a little air guitar gesture.

she may have been a flop in terms of sales, but i dont think it was a total failure. she's fun to play, both as and against. like you said, we still see a fair number of onryo's in the game; by this same point after the portrait chapter, the artist had almost completely disappeared. Sadako brings a genuine sense of dread with her design and her teleport powers, and her animations and her basic attack are really unique and cool imo. best of all, her perks seem like they were thought out. call of brine gives killers a reason to kick gens again, merciless storm is like diet DMS, and floods of rage is like bbq and chili but better (except no BP bonus, sadge). i think she was really well made. unfortunately i cant say the same about the survivor: parental guidance is cool but situational at best, and his other perks are really meh. however this may be because i know nothing about him or his lore.

really i think the biggest reason for her lackluster reception has more to do with the contradiction within the community. i've lost count at how many people totally hate on the artist because "ShEs AnOtHeR aNtI lOoP kIlLeR." with the way the game is right now, anti-loop is a powerful killer mechanic, which is why so many were released with some kind of anti-loop feature. but people got tired of it, so BHVR listens and releases an M1, hit and run killer, yet nothing changes; everyone complains that she's weak. so do the people want anti-loop or not?

I was being facetious.