Ranking Dead by Daylight Killer Lore

I’ve been a fan and follower of the game Dead By Daylight since it was in beta and one of my favorite parts is the original lore they give their characters, in particular the killers. So I decided that I wanted to rank them by their lore specifically.

This ranking does contain spoilers for their lore, however it does not spoil the game itself.

As I said I am specifically ranking each original killer based on their lore only. I’m considering elements like creativity, uniqueness, and motive for murder. I am not including extra details from Tomes and solely going off the originally provided lore. And this is solely for the original characters, so not including Ghostface, Michael Myers, etc. Let’s get started.

16 The Deathslinger

Nothing in the Deathslinger’s lore makes me believe he’d really go as far as he did. Sure he was cheated and stolen from, but enough to make him a crazed serial killer? It’s a stretch and also not the most interesting of lores. I feel like they created the character and his abilities in game before the lore and had to just come up with something.

15 The Spirit

The Spirit’s lore is essentially just that she was in the middle of being murdered by her father and didn’t want to be. To me it isn’t very strong of a lore for why she would become a killer herself, especially of people other than her father. It’s likely they had to think of something to fit her appearance and that’s the extent of thought unfortunately.

14 The Wraith

The Wraith is another one where his quick descent into being a murderer is too drastic to be believable. There was no building pressure or negatives in his life prior to the incident that set him off, and the reaction is so incredibly drastic that it’s too far-fetched.

13 The Plague

Again, her fate leading her to murder doesn’t make sense. She gets more in her favor for a unique origin story of her ascent to priestess during a devastating plague, but then she just dies of the plague herself. Why that turns her into a killer, I don’t know.

12 The Trapper

Finally a killer that originates reasonably. Power and money make the desperate do a lot, and the Trapper is in the thick of that. Since he is the very first killer, his story is quite brief compared to later characters which is what keeps him down in the ranks.

11 The Doctor

Another man having gone mad with power. Since has more of a story than the Trapper he outranks, but his story isn’t that revolutionary or interesting.

10 The Nurse

The stories where these characters are really broken and snap are the more interesting to me, and make more sense overall. The Nurse, being an early addition to the game, has a brief lore which lowers her position in my ranking as it doesn’t carry the elaborative details of the others.

9 The Legion

While The Legion is technically four characters, the origins and story really lie on Frank specifically. He’s a troubled teen acting out, and as a group their damning act is really a sudden fit of protection. While that is more interesting than previous entries, it seems like such a one-time occurrence that sending them into the fog to be serial killers is drastic.

8 The Huntress

We’re getting into the deep trauma that leads to their downfall now. The Huntress’ trauma of her mother dying in such a brutal way is shocking. But the Huntress’ slow decent into her murdering is a bit weird since humans weren’t at fault for the demise of her mother. But the story becomes interesting with her desire to not murder little girls, instead having a carnal desire to protect them albeit brutally in the end. So there are interesting moments but how she became a murderer is a bit of a jump.

7 The Twins

The amount of trauma this pair went through is crazy, so their descent into murderous insanity makes complete sense. It’s not the most unique story as it focuses on witch hunting which has been used across so much media.

6 The Hillbilly

Of the three original killers in the game, the Hillbilly’s lore is the most tragic and his murdering makes sense since he was essentially tortured by his own parents purely for being born different. But like the other early killers, his lore is short so lacks detail.

5 The Hag

The Hag was the first lore that made me more interested in all of the killers’ stories because it was traumatic and heartbreaking. Initially I expected them all to just be unstable to the point of murder, but her being kidnapped by cannibals which traumatized her into being broken mentally beyond repair is much more compelling.

4 The Blight

The Blight has such a long and complex lore, which makes sense since the substance he uses has been a part of the game long before he was. He’s really born from the game as a whole and his descent into madness is so complex and deep it is intriguing.

3 The Clown

I’m surprised I found the Clown’s lore so interesting and compelling, but they really made a unique and twisted origin for him that translates into the game and his mechanics well. It does have the traumatic childhood backbone that isn’t very unique, but the details made it interesting.

2 The Oni

The Oni’s lore starts a little far-fetched with him committing mass murder right off the bat for the sake of samurai purity. But it really takes a turn when he ends up killing his own father, who he admired, and him fully snapping in the aftermath. It is definitely a much better Yamaoka lore than the Spirit’s.

1 The Trickster

When I first read the Trickster’s lore as I was utterly gobsmacked at how brutal and crazy it is. And compared to all the other killers, his is hands down the most outrageously unique but also makes sense how he just lost it.

• 

Are you a fan or player of Dead by Daylight? Tell me who your favorite character is in the comments below.

---