Is time linear in the entity’s realm?

I prefer it being just gameplay, i never liked the idea of multiple of the same people.

Regarding the presence of more than 1 of the same survivor in a trial, I clearly remember Cote saying in one of those old weekly dev streams they did years ago that it's just a gameplay decision that has nothing to do with the lore.

time isn't linear in the fog, it's Jeremy Bearimy.

for real though, I'm pretty sure time is all through the entity's perspective, and since the entity is immortal and likely experiences time differently, the linear time outside of the fog is slightly reflected within the trials, but only in fragments.

I think it's a brilliant idea, and I personally believe it's the exact thing that the lore points to, since it perfectly explains why multiple of the same survivor can be present in the same trial.

Imagine it like this: you walk into a room and then walk out. 10 minutes later you walk into that same room and walk out again.

Because time doesn't exist, you and your previous self could both walk into the room at the exact same time and interact.

This is exactly how it works in the realm of the entity, and four versions of Dwight, all pulled from different times at the campfire, now must survive together in a trial.

This concept also adds an element of psychological horror or torment to the universe in Dead by Daylight. How awful would it be to see yourself mutilated, butchered, and killed? and on top of that, the layer of uncertainty: is that you in the future? Will your decision to not save yourself in the present condemn you in a trial later on?

This is my preferred thought process, but there's also the idea of "infinite dimensions" and all that, so you could also chalk it up to literal different versions of the same character from different universes. An infinite number of Dwight, running in an infinite number of trials, an infinite number of times- if nothing else at least demonstrates the scale of the Entity's power and the horror of the story.

But I think the "it's just for gameplay reasons" has to be the most boring perspective imaginable to such an age old question. Especially when , Dead by Daylight is in the unique position to actually answer this question in a satisfactory way that makes perfect sense- unlike many other multiplayer titles who have to deal with that hiccup in their story and are in a position where they genuinely cannot answer that question so "it's just for gameplay reasons."

As far as Dead by Daylight goes, this is the last thing I want to believe about the lore of the core game. It'd be the absolute greatest disappointment when there's so much potential for unique storytelling. But to each their own I guess.

Well I don't know about the whole killer and survivor being the same person bit, I fail to see how that connects to the question about how time is linear or not, and besides that I don't see very many parallels that would result in killers being the same people as survivors anyway.

But I'm glad we agree on the non-linear time element.

Maybe it takes a little more thought, but I wouldn't say it overcomplicates the story at all. Especially if you decide you'd rather just boil it down to the conclusion of what it means (no time = multiple of same character. boom. done.) rather than thinking it through thoroughly enough to properly understand it.

For example, you don't have to completely understand Back to the Future or Inception to enjoy those stories, which isn't to say they are or are not complicated to understand- those are just examples I thought of off the top of my head.

But that all that aside even if it did complicate the story slightly, lore generally requires you to think anyway, especially when discussing it at length- so I hardly see the trouble.

EDIT: The wonkiness of time dilation or whatever you want to call it is embedded in DBD's lore anyway. There is simply no other way to explain how killers from Ancient Mesopotamia, World War 1, the wild west (late 19th century), and feudal Japan can all exist in the same place otherwise. You can't exactly simplify something that intrinsically involves dimensional travel, and some weirdness about timelines, and an ancient primordial entity that has existed longer than human consciousness. That's what makes Dead by Daylight cosmic horror, and not just a standard slasher flick going through the motions, there's something more there and that's what makes it interesting.

It's just a personal preference, i love the cosmic horror aspects of dbd but multiples of the same character is one of the only things i don't like, when i think about dbd in a story perspective i prefer to focus on the survivors daily lifes, how they operate in trials, their relationship with each other a d how they operate as a team.

About the time the way i see it , from the Entities perspective It's linear when you are inside and a mess outside, time does pass inside but parallel to outside and since nothing ever changes it gives the impression that it doesn't, the entity doesn't understand how our time works and just picks people from whenever it wants.

I guess it really is preference, much as I'd like to try and convince otherwise. I really think DBD is an amazing opportunity for some truly unique storytelling that hasn't been done before (to my knowledge) as both an homage to the slasher genre, which also innovates on it in new and creative ways rather than sticking with more traditional and expected forms of playing the lore out. At this point I'll start to sound like a broken record though, so I'll cap myself here.

But yeah, the lore remains cool either way I suppose, and the writers have done a well enough job at making it entertaining nonetheless. To each their own.