Dead by Daylight community rejoices over new Killer with literal skin as skins

Since making its PTB debut, The Unknown has delighted Dead by Daylight players with its grotesque appearance, horrific voice lines, and interesting mechanics. However, the Killer’s regular ole axe seemed weirdly ordinary for such a monster, and now some players believe that the axe is just the tip of the murderous iceberg.

Starting today, Dead by Daylight‘s March 2024 roadmap promises something new every week for the entire month. We already knew The Unknown Killer, Sable Ward Survivor, and Greenville Square map would arrive on March 12 with the All Things Wicked Chapter. What we didn’t know, though, was that The Unknown, not to be confused with the Willy Wonka Experience Glasgow’s AI-generated villain, may wield different weapons with the various skins players unlock or purchase for it.

The image sparking a community-wide discussion on how The Unknown’s skins and weapons could work on the Dead by Daylight subreddit is the cover for the All Things Wicked Collection. It shows The Unknown wearing an old woman’s skin and holding garden shears, instead of the axe weapon in previous promotional images and on the PTB version of the Killer. While it doesn’t sound like much, character skins — as in actual cosmetics — don’t change a Killer’s actual weapon.

Axe murderer or garden-shear-wielding, skin-wearing terror? Image via Behaviour Interactive Most Dead by Daylight Killers are stuck with a set weapon, such as The Twins’ sickle or The Huntress’ axe. While weapon skins can be unlocked and purchased. As an intrinsic part of each Killer’s mechanics, they don’t change. This image shows The Unknown’s core weapon is its putrid spit, used to debuff Survivors and teleport across the map. While it almost certainly just swings whatever weapon it’s holding, the fact that the weapon changes indicates a new direction for The Unknown’s design more terrifying than first imagined.

To explain the monster’s sudden skin swap, players floated ideas like Commercial_Cook_1814’s comment, “It’s an amalgamation of many different urban legends. It takes the form of whatever people imagine it to be, including the type of weapon it uses.” But this theory is at odds with a personal favorite I find even more creepy and, therefore, am desperate to be true from DrunkeNinja. “I had a feeling this would be the case. The Unknown takes over different people and probably uses whatever that person had near them as a weapon.”

For now, we don’t know exactly how each skin will alter The Unknown’s animations or design. However, another idea from GhostOfMuttonPast opens up what would be a completely unique and seemingly lore-appropriate change. “I wonder, provided it is an old lady’s skin, if they’ll swap the voices around so the fem voice is louder than the masc voice.” Having The Unknown’s already sweetly sickening, stuttered tones alter with every skin would make it the most heinous monster to grace Dead by Daylight. Perfect for an original Killer.

With The Unknown, Behaviour Interactive seems to be giving itself room to breathe and build upon future collaborations, such as the recent Iron Maiden crossover, by adding a Killer that’s built to literally wear new skin every time you encounter it. My favorite suggestion has to be the giant alien cockroach disguised as a man in the first Men in Black movie. Pure nightmare fuel.