Characters / Dead By Daylight Killers

Dead by Daylight Characters

Main Character Index | Survivors (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) | Killers (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) | Non-Playable Characters

The list of Killers got so big they were split off into separate pages.

• Part 1^note The Trapper, The Wraith, The Hillbilly, The Nurse, The Shape, The Hag, The Doctor, The Huntress, The Cannibal, The Nightmare, The Pig, The Clown, The Spirit, The Legion
• Part 2^note The Plague, The Ghost Face, The Demogorgon, The Oni, The Deathslinger, The Executioner, The Blight, The Twins, The Trickster, The Nemesis, The Cenobite, The Artist, The Onryō, The Dredge, The Mastermind, The Knight
• Part 3 ^noteThe Skull Merchant, The Singularity, The Xenomorph ✝, The Good Guy ✝, The Unknown

Tropes about killers in general

• Ax-Crazy: All of them are quite content to endlessly kill people for their Entity, and their time before coming into its service was also violent.
• Badass Normal: Many of the killers are just normal humans (albeit unusually large and strong ones) who are just very good at pursuing and killing their target. Several, like the Trapper, Hillbilly, Huntress, Clown, Legion, Deathslinger, Trickster, and Skull Merchant, seem to hunt using innate skills they had during their human life rather than any supernatural powers granted by the Entity.
• Bio-Augmentation: All the killers have been granted various "enhancements" to grant them superior predatory skills. This comes in the form of Aura reading, the ability to detect survivors' whereabouts (Scratch marks), and heightened noise detection. All killers have also been made physically larger and granted unnatural strength to deny the survivors any chance of fighting back properly. The only downside to these upgrades appears to be an aversion to bright lights and some physical adjustments.
• Body Horror: A lot of them look hideous and horrifying, either because of their scars or natural deformations. And it’s not just about their faces either; some of them have other things that make them even more horrifying. For example:
  • The Hag, The Nightmare, and The Spirit’s bodies all have been damaged and mutilated beyond belief, to the point that they barely even look human anymore.
  • The Plague's disease has left various abscesses and deformities on her skin.
  • The Blight's jaw has almost melted away, the bottom half of his face nearly burst open like some sort of undead monster as a side-effect of his power.
  • The Hillbilly and The Twins have all suffered from genetic deformations since birth, with the younger Twin specifically lodging in a cavity in his sister's chest.
  • The Doctor’s mouth and eyes are constantly pried open by some kind of strange apparatus, denying him the ability to blink or hide his Slasher Smile.
  • The Deathslinger has visible facial mutilations, including a broken jaw.
  • The Wraith has horrible burn scars all over his body due to the event that happened in his adolescence.
  • The Artist had her forearms and front halves of her feet chopped off before being brought into the Realm and has been granted new limbs made of ink.
  • The Singularity's stolen flesh looks as if it's about to slough off at any moment, grafted haphazardly onto its metal frame.
  • The Unknown's general look is twisted and horrifying, as if it's wearing a person's skin as a malformed suit, with its left leg twisted backward, the unnaturally long neck and hollow eye sockets.
  • The Hallowed Blight skins for killers often feature glowing pustules emerging from their bodies, rampant growths, or other horrific features such as Nemesis being blindfolded by his own skin.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Entity seems to exert a form of mind control over the killers. This can be seen by how it exploits their psychopathy and bases the maps around their respective pasts. Judging by the lore of The Cannibal, The Entity influences at least some of the killers by instilling them with a fear of failure and with an enhanced predatory instinct. It seems to prefer serial killers or the mentally broken because they are far easier to influence and/or control than the likes of an ordinary person.
• Captain Ersatz: Many killers are obviously inspired by more famous horror characters. The Trapper echoes Jason Voorhees, the Nurse is based on the Silent Hill Nurses, the Skull Merchant is based on the Predator, the Legion is a pastiche of the Ghost Face Killer, the Spirit is a send-up to Sadako, and the Hillbilly resembles Leatherface (the latter three were eventually added later).
• Creepy Asymmetry: Many of the killers are designed with asymmetrical elements, be it Body Horror or some kind of construction flaw, that make them feel unbalanced and more inhuman.
• Dark Action Girl: All the female killers.
• The Dragon: While the Entity has a firm grip on most of the Killers, there are some that seem to bend or outright defy the Entity's rules in one way or another, indicating that they can't be controlled as easily.
  • With certain addons, Michael Myers can kill survivors without the need to burn a Mori and regardless of the survivor's hook state.
  • Pyramid Head does not need to hook a survivor and can instead trap them in a Cage of Atonement if they're tormented at the time. If they're tormented on their final hook stage, he can kill them outright.
  • Pinhead's Mori has him teleport his victims to his dimension. While where they're going isn't any better, Pinhead is the only killer who can take survivors out of the Entity's realm and can seemingly leave whenever he pleases as well.
  • Through her curse, Sadako can kill survivors regardless of their hook state if they're fully condemned when she knocks them down.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Most of the killers were human before they came to the realm; once they arrived in the realm, many of them received varying powers, examples being The Nurse, The Wraith, The Doctor, and the Twins.
• Evil Is Bigger: Most of the killers tower over the survivors, though there are a few that are roughly the same size. There are also a couple of inverted examples: Victor (one half of The Twins) and Chucky/Tiffany are both significantly shorter than the survivor characters.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief:
  • The original three Killers can be seen as this:
    • The Trapper is the Thief. He can set bear traps that injure and immobilize survivors.
    • The Wraith is the Mage. His magic bell gives him the power of invisibility. Additionally, insofar as a scary Implacable Man can be considered squishy, the Wraith is more vulnerable to blinding than the other killers.
    • The Hillbilly is the Fighter. His chainsaw can down a survivor at full health and bust through wooden obstacles. Further emphasized by the fact that of those few things that can inconvenience the killers, the Hillbilly has more perks focused on resisting stunning/blinding or recovering more quickly from the same.
  • The first 3 add-on killers taken alone also follow this pattern:
    • The Shape at tier 3 can 1-shot survivors and can thus be considered the Fighter. Particularly since (while it's easier to achieve by sneaking) you can stare down survivors to achieve this power-up.
    • The Hag is the Thief. She can place traps, like the Trapper. Additionally, much like D&D Rogues, she uses unreliable magical items by way of the breakable totems.
    • The Nurse is the Mage. As a ghost who floats, destroys barricades via telekinesis and can teleport, she's the most traditionally wizard-like of the add-on killers. Back when the Nurse was the only add-on killer, she (by virtue of being a former nurse) actually rounded out the starting trio of killers by adding a cleric to the party!
  • One could argue that the next 3 add-on killers after that also follow this pattern to some degree:
    • The Doctor is the mage. His shock therapy power gives him Psycho Electro abilities that allow him to mess with the survivors' perception of reality by driving them insane from a long distance. His add-ons also give him the ability to instill hallucinations and other side-effects to further screw with the survivors. Also, while he may be insane, he’s also one of the smartest killers in the game, which fits well with the mage archetype since the mage is usually the wisest and most intelligent in the fighter/mage/thief group.
    • The Huntress is the thief. Like a lot of old-school thief archetypes like Robin Hood, the Huntress is adept with long-range weaponry, has excellent hunting/tracking skills, and is associated with nature, the woods, and the forest. In fact, if played right, a skilled Huntress can snipe a survivor outside of her terror radius, or even from across the map, with just one well-placed hatchet. Also, her backstory says that she sometimes raided villages and travelling parties to steal some stuff… and their little girls too.
    • The Cannibal is the fighter. Like The Hillbilly, his chainsaw can also shred through pallets and can one-shot survivors, which helps him a lot in a chase. Also, his “Franklin’s Demise” perk is good against survivors equipped with flashlights or firecrackers since it makes survivors drop their items on the ground and damage them for good measure.
  • It could be said that the next three add-on killers after those also follow the pattern:
    • The Nightmare is the Mage. Leaving aside the fact that he's one of the most supernatural killers in the game due to being a demonic ghost who has dream powers, his powers and add-ons grant him various abilities that allow him great versatility. He can place snares on the ground, he can drag people into the dream world, and he can teleport to generators.
    • The Pig is the Thief. Leaving aside her ability to crouch and conceal her terror radius to sneak attack survivors, she can also use traps like the Trapper and the Hag (different kinds of traps, but still). Her perks also allow her to somewhat survey the hooked survivors and generators when she’s not around and to play dirty by enforcing sadistic choices upon the survivors to screw with them.
    • The Clown is the Fighter. His Afterpiece Tonic is supposed to help him land hits easier on the survivors by hindering them, and his perks are almost all directly focused on chasing down survivors and helping him hurt them more (Bamboozle allows the Clown to vault windows faster and to block them out to the survivors, while Coulrophobia makes survivors heal much slower), while his last perk, Pop Goes The Weasel, makes him able to break and damage generators much easier, hurting the survivors and hindering their progress. Also, befitting of an evil fighter archetype, his Memento Mori is one of the most brutal Moris in the game. It involves him stomping on the survivor’s head several times to break their face and fracture their skull; then The Clown cuts off one of their fingers to add it to his collection.
  • Same goes for the next three killers:
    • The Spirit is the thief. Her ability allows her to play mind games with the survivors and sneak up on them by turning invisible and going really fast. She can also leave decoys of herself behind while she uses her power to trick the survivors.
    • The Legion is the fighter. Their power is exclusively focused on offense (and it requires the player to be very aggressive while using that power) and allows them to vault windows and pallets like the survivors.
    • The Plague is the mage. She can affect survivors and objects outside of her terror radius by infecting them with the vile purge. Her perks also allow her to affect people and objects by calling upon the supernatural power of the Entity.
  • And the next three too:
    • The Ghost Face is the thief. Like The Pig, he can also crouch and hide his terror radius. His perks also put emphasis on tracking survivors and sneaking up on them. Plus, like The Legion, his weapon is also a small knife, which is a weapon commonly associated with the thief archetype.
    • The Demogorgon is the mage. It can Create Portals that allow it to warp to other portals across the map. Also, unlike most of the other killers, who are human or at least used to be human, The Demogorgon is an eldritch alien creature from another dimension with strange powers which are shown in its power and its perks.
    • The Oni is the Fighter. Like The Hillbilly and The Cannibal, its perks and power are focused on chasing survivors, can instantly destroy pallets, and knockdown survivors in one hit. Also, according to his backstory, back when he was alive, The Oni was an evil samurai who went around murdering other warriors and peasants, so unlike most of the other killers, he knows martial arts and was actually trained to be a fighter, most likely from a young age.
  • And so on:
    • The Deathslinger is the thief. Gameplay-wise, he’s a long-range killer and basically a sniper. His harpoon gun can even shoot outside of his terror radius, making him able to surprise attack the survivors if played right. Like The Huntress, he can even shoot past windows and pallets, making him more agile in a chase than your average killer.
    • The Executioner is the mage. Aside from his supernatural origins, his powers are probably amongst the more eldritch powers in the game.
    • The Blight is the fighter. Like Hillbilly, Legion, Clown, and Leatherface, he’s basically a vanilla killer with just one power that allows him to charge really fast at survivors. And like those other aforementioned killers, this makes his style of gameplay pretty basic in that it’s almost entirely focused on offense.
  • And so forth:
    • The Twins are collectively the Mage. The way Victor works is effectively a mage's familiar, pinning down Survivors he pounces on and detecting other Survivors while you're controlling Charlotte.
    • The Trickster is the Thief. Aside from his knife affinity, the Trickster's lithe build and quick movement give him the usual aspects of a Thief.
    • The Nemesis is the Fighter. His power is effectively a long-range strike that benefits him for striking Survivors by further extending his range, and his brute strength is in full display in a lot of his animations.
  • Let's keep it going:
    • Though he seems like the Mage, the Cenobite is ultimately the Fighter. His Chain Hunts make his playstyle especially aggressive, and through the power of the Lament Configuration, can appear at a Survivor's position and continue aggressively pursuing them.
    • The Artist is the Mage, capable of summoning Crows to attack Survivors and use them to detect her opponent's position prior.
    • The Onryō is the Thief. Her Mechanically Unusual Fighter status leans heavily into the psychological as opposed to the more slasher-based killers of the past, and the fact that she can affect Survivors even when they're nowhere near her, much like the Cenobite, combined with her ability to basically "flicker" while in a Survivor's range gives her an unconventional level of stealth.
  • Oh, there's more!:
    • The Dredge is nothing short of the Thief, using the darkness and its power to hide in lockers and surprise its prey.
    • The Mastermind is the Fighter. His Power and Perks make him near-unstoppable and give him the means to speed toward Survivors in a short amount of time.
    • The Knight is the Mage, calling upon his companions from the Guardia Compagnia to patrol areas and multitask between hooking survivors and damaging generators.
  • Subverted with the next trio of the Skull Merchant, Singularity, and Xenomorph:
    • All three use some form of passive observation and stealth much like a Thief would; the Merchant’s drones and Singularity’s biopods act almost like Familiars or beasts that a Mage or Thief would use.
    • The Xenomorph is closest to the Fighter; while it has to sneak around the map to avoid flame turrets, it can easily go on the offensive to destroy these turrets, and it’s Perks are based around finding and running down Survivors.
    • The Skull Merchant is the Thief, using her drones to find the location of Survivors and stealthily sneak up on them.
    • Singularity is the Mage; it’s Biopods are in effect a ranged attack that don’t do damage when they land, but allow the Singularity to immediately teleport to their location and begin a chase.
• Hell Is That Noise: Several Killers have distinctive sound effects that can give away which Killer is currently being played:
  • The Wraith rings his bell whenever he cloaks or uncloaks.
  • The Hillbilly and Cannibal can't hide the sounds of their chainsaws.
  • The Huntress never stops humming, which almost functions as a larger terror radius.
  • The Nurse using her Blink ability causes her to scream.
  • The Doctor's electroshock ability gives off a very distinctive pulse whenever it's used.
  • The Oni lets out a bestial roar when activating the Blood Fury ability.
  • The Shape and Nightmare both gain themes from their franchises that play at different times: The Shape plays the Halloween theme when he levels up his Evil Within ability, while the Nightmare has the "1, 2, Freddy's coming for you" lullaby being hummed by children which acts as a terror radius.
  • The Spirit has several; either her heavy breathing, the sound of glass as she walks, or the scream that plays when she attacks.
  • The Oni and Demogorgon both have loud footsteps that the survivors can hear from far away. The Demogorgon also has a tendency to roar.
  • The Deathslinger's gun firing can be heard from across the entire map.
  • The Executioner has the signature scrape of his great knife along the ground as he leaves trails.
  • The Twins make sound effects of signaling when the player switches between them.
  • The Trickster emits electronic music as his secondary Terror Radius.
  • The Cenobite has bells from his franchise that sound at the start of the match and when he teleports.
  • The Artist emits gargling sounds from her throat.
  • The Dredge has wet shuffling sounds as its body moves, when Nightfall is happening, the noises are drowned out by a cacophony of screaming voices that increases in volume the longer it lasts. Also, because of the Dredge's power, survivors are going to be very scared of the sounds of lockers opening near them.
  • The Knight's armor emits clanking sounds when he moves.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: The killers are hunting the survivors to sacrifice to the Entity. The backstory of Kate Benson shows that the Entity picks out the survivors at random and takes them to its realm for another hunt.
• Invincible Boogeymen: Nothing can actually hurt the killers, save for Victor. The best you can hope for is to stun and disorient them with blinding light or momentarily slow them. All of them offer a different variation on the trope through their skills.
• Jumped at the Call: The lore for the Shape, the Ghost Face, the Clown, the Trickster, and the Knight implies that The Entity invites some of the killers to its realm, and they've had no trouble with adjusting to it.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: Since a lot of them suffer from Body Horror and have been granted their powers by The Entity, it’s not surprising that some of them would be able to weaponize their deformations into useful abilities. For example, the Plague is able to use the festering rot and disease in her body to vomit on the survivors.
• Malevolent Masked Man:
  • The Trapper wears some kind of wooden mask with a maw of pointy teeth.
  • Michael Myers wears his iconic latex mask.
  • The Nurse is a female version, her head covered in white cloth.
  • The Huntress is another female version, wearing a worn-out bunny mask that covers the upper portion of her head.
  • Leatherface wears the face of some unfortunate soul.
  • Amanda Young wears one of the series iconic pig masks that they use to kidnap victims.
  • All four members of Legion wear white cloth masks with crudely drawn faces on them.
  • The Ghost Face uses the famous mask of the same name.
  • The Oni wears a mask of… an oni.
  • In a variation, Sadako's long black hair obscures her entire face from view at all times, with the exception of her two kill animations, during which she glares down at the Survivor she's murdering with a single, iconic hate-filled eye.
  • The Knight himself wears a helmet, but all his companions wear masks.
  • The Skull Merchant has a glittery respirator with one of her eyes being covered by an enhanced lens.
• Malevolent Mutilation: Many of the killers sport various physical maladies and injuries due to the violent circumstances that lead to their abduction by the Entity. A few (namely The Trapper, The Doctor, The Blight, and The Nurse) appear to have been directly transformed by the Entity after they entered its realm as part of sadomasochistic fulfillment or coercion.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Some of the pricier alternative cosmetics are regal suits or dresses that make the killer look very sophisticated, such as the Wraith's Phantom of the Opera-inspired outfit.
• Morton's Fork: When the Entity chooses a killer to act on its behalf, sometimes the killer is unwilling to do the Entity's bidding. In that case, there are two options given: endure increasingly-severe torture, or submit to its will and hunt survivors. Notably, the more scarred and maimed a killer is (except for the Cenobite), the more likely they were tortured into that role; otherwise, the killers that do not submit or are otherwise considered a failure are thrown into the Void.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Every killer (except Sadako, Victor, and Chucky) no matter their height or build, can hunt down, lift, and carry the Survivors using only one arm with ease. In Chucky's case, while the doll itself is unable to lift survivors, his spirit still does so just as easily.
• Status Effects: While some killers have debuffs that are completely unique to them, there's a lot ways to cripple survivors that are available to every killer via either perks or unique addons.
  • Mangled slows survivor's speed of healing, wasting their precious time if they want to get back up and healthy.
  • Hemorrhage makes survivors bleed profusely when injured, causing any healing progress that's been done to them to start rapidly regressing. It originally had a different effect ^note  leaving a much better, more trackable blood trail. It also made it so that survivors bleed even when healthy until the debuff goes away, meaning healing back to full health still left a trail but was changed because it was generally seen as pointless and underwhelming.
  • Hindered reduces the survivor's movement speed - which most killers already move faster than survivors means that outrunning the killers suddenly becomes much harder.
  • Broken completely blocks off survivors from healing to full health state - while they can be picked up if left bleeding out on the floor, they can't go any further than that.
  • Blindness disables a survivor's ability to see auras, meaning perks that give them information or attempts to find downed or hooked teammates becomes significantly harder.
  • Exhausted prevents survivors from using powerful escape perks like Dead Hard, Sprint Burst and Lithe until it goes away. While more likely to be caused by the survivors themselves using said perks, killers can also afflict the survivor with it to prevent them from activating the perks to begin with.
  • Exposed is arguably one of the strongest debuffs - enemies afflicted with Exposed are instantly downed to any attack, even if they were at full health state, drastically shortening chases.
  • Incapacitated roots the survivor in place or severely disrupts their movement while inhibiting their ability to do any action that requires a progress meter. Additionally The Twins, Pinhead's and Wesker's version applied by Victor, Summons of Pain and Virulent Bound will prevent a survivor from leaving through the exit gate for long enough to secure a knockdown and pick them up.
  • Oblivious silences the killer's terror radius (their heartbeat), meaning a survivor will have no idea how close a killer is or if they're still chasing them after applying it.
  • Deep Wound inflicts the survivor with a yellow bar that ticks down over time. This bar forces survivors to stop and waste time mending themselves to stop the effect - if they don't within 20 seconds they go down. However, this timer doesn't tick down if the survivor is in a chase with a killer to prevent the killer just chasing them until they drop.
• Stripperific: The Hag and The Spirit wear very little to no clothes, but this isn't done to the appease the players. It's to show their horrific injuries and deformities.
• Time Abyss: Benedict's entries on the original three killers is dated 1896. As more killers were added to the roster, it showed that the Entity had been recruiting killers from various points in humanity's history, with the earliest hailing from the Babylonian Empire, and even as far forward as 2122 and 2313.
• Tragic Monster: A non-dismissable number of the killers were victims just as much as the survivors, be it through being forced to kill, killing unknowingly, having no other choice, or just simply catching the Entity's eye and having it decide it wants them for one reason or another.
  • The Trapper was his father's strongman and was simply abused into following his orders out of fear, which lead to a massacre by sealing miners in a collapsing cave, after which he murdered his father in retaliation. Notably, it's outright stated he didn't want to participate in the Entity's game, only to be tortured into compliance.
  • The Hillbilly was, from the moment of his birth, abused and treated as a monster for his deformities by his parents who locked him up so he could never be seen and was never acknowledged besides more abuse, so when he broke out and got his hands on something to kill people with, the only possible outcome was to be the monster his parents always said he was.
  • The Wraith was a refugee from war-torn parts of Africa who thought his bloody past was behind him, only to find out in the worst way possible his boss had made him an unknowing executioner of an untold number of people.
  • The Hag was a completely innocent woman who was slowly being torn apart and eaten by a Cannibal Clan, and decided instead of dying a victim, she would have vengeance even at the cost of her humanity.
  • The Spirit was also completely innocent and was originally intended to be the victim that her father would kill to earn his way into the fog, only for the Entity to be far more interested in the dying Rin's much more powerful hatred.
  • The members of the Legion besides Frank were just teens in over their head who were made complicit in Frank's first kill regardless. Susie especially, as she had to be physically forced by the others to stab their first victim to share the blame.
  • The Plague was a pious and just woman who had done what she could to soothe plague victims who suffered a moment of weakness as she was dying and gave herself to the Entity, serving it loyally because it offered her salvation.
  • The Twins' only crime was being born in an age where understanding of deformities and Siamese twins weren't well-developed and were seen as satanic monsters which had their mother burned at stake, had them capture by an Entity cult, and generally made their every waking moment suffering, leaving them with a justifiable axe to grind with the world.
  • The Artist was a political reactionary painter that was horrifically tortured by the Black Vale cult and forcefully turned into a Killer by having extreme physical trauma inflicted upon her like having her hands and tongue cut out.
• Was Once a Man: Almost every killer was a human before becoming what they are now. The exceptions are the Demogorgon, the Executioner, Nemesis, the Dredge, the Singularity, the Xenomorph and the Unknown.

---