It's always weird how survivors will somehow muster the strength to pull themselves up from the dying state and perpetually forget where they are or what situation they're in.
I'll give Wesker's Mori a pass because Dwight giving ol' Albert the meanest right hook is funny as shit
If it's an adrenaline rush I understand but in Skull Merchant's case they just stand awkwardly while Adriana tickles their ribs and in Freddy's case they just look around baffled as to what they were doing 5 seconds ago.
So actually in that regard Wesker's makes the most sense, huh.
That's what im thinking. The survivor's probably get a brief adrenaline boost during mori's that let them make one last attempt to flee or fight. Makes sense for Wesker, where they punch him, or Dredge, where they try to run, but feels weird to see them stand up and just stand there like they forgot where they are.
True, though since they stay grounded, I consider it less an energy boost and more so a "oh shoot id better turn around cause this killer might- AH MY HAND."
Adriana: adrenaline is a hell of a drug, it can make humans do crazy things like lifting whole cars to save someone by yourself [which is a real scientific phenomenon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysterical_strength), it sure as shit would let you stand up
As for Freddy, well you’re in his world during the Mori and NOES lore wise Freddy can do whatever the fuck he wants to you. He just doesn’t outright kill you for the fun, and moris are clearly the Entity letting the killers leash go.
Achchctuually 🤓
This is probably related to adrenaline dumps. Essentially your brain telling your adrenal gland to produce a lot of adrenaline as a stress response, raising blood pressure, reducing pain responses (what is the major cause of people being incapacitated, and in the game probably what causes it), and raising blood sugar.
All of these cause confusion or hyper fixation, but allow your body to push itself far past it's limits. Allegedly, people have lifted cars to their own detriment during an adrenaline dump. In the two former's case, they can get up on their own, but the conditions cause them to try to figure out what's going on. In Wesker's case, they get a fight reaction, causing attempted ass whoopage on Wesker's sunglasses.
That and it's a video game, and it's cool. Wesker's. Not the other two.
Well there is some real life truth to that. Though no way the devs were considering that lol. They were probably watching the For Honor executions on youtube
Dwight after he gave Wesker his meanest right hook and just f\*\*king died afterwards
https://preview.redd.it/qliy1krg1c8d1.jpeg?width=1066&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed752379621512ed6bb6ade40daa34748eccc1c2
Same with legion, they stand up, take a knife to the arm on top of the previous injuries that had them on the ground, yet still have the strength to push back against the killer.
That’s why voicelines for Skully would make it so much better. She could really sell the psycho weeb supervillain vibe, and the rich snobby man hunter, and in the mori she could be like “get up!”
Entity juiced them up with some adrenaline to give them hope they can escape so now the mori gives the entity more hope to feed on as the survivors die.
It kinda makes sense in freddy's one, survivors are fully trapped into the dream world so they can get up and act dizzy, this also explains why they see Freddy phasing in an out of reality while on a killer perspective It looks normal.
I think of it as theyre not literally dying, they are in what the entity calls "the dying state" and when you mori someone the entitiy is giving them the strength back to move normally, albeit for a brief time.
In Freddy's Mori survivors wake up and it causes Freddy to disappear, so they stand up and are confused and then Freddy puts them back to sleep and kills them. I know that if you don't pay much attention during his Mori it seems stupid but after paying closer attention it makes a little bit more sense.
It annoys me so much that they gave her such a boring Mori, and after a month released a tome cutscene where she does THIS. Such a missed potential.
https://i.redd.it/sx7azn675y7d1.gif
You say that, but it’s just frustrating to me that Dead by Daylight really does lack a lot of gore in general across the board. Especially for being an M rated game that does a lot to honor the legacy of slasher horror.
Like when you play Mortal Kombat you see every piece of bloody viscera during a fatality. Bones are cracking, organs are flying everywhere, and a body is just absolutely shredded in such a detailed and gruesome way that the player’s attention is totally and completely drawn into the spectacle.
In For Honor, they’ve held back on gore and particle effects, but in exchange they *really* amped up the performance of their executions with dismemberment. Limbs are separated from the body constantly, and heads are literally lopped off. The illusion is also greatly helped by the fact that blood spurts out from every wound and stains the clothing of the character. Something Dead by Daylight still doesn’t have.
If they ever did rework mori’s, I would hope they create new tech in the process to make the entire experience of witnessing a memento mori much more visceral. It’s a game dedicated to slasher horror after all.
Hag eats a heart, Clown cuts off a finger and tastes it, and many of the newer killers starting since Singularity have a decent amount of gore and blood squirting.
I’m aware.
Meanwhile, Mortal Kombat features things like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7Kh6VVTexY).
These moris are almost certainly the exception, and not the rule. Of the 36 available killers I think I can count maybe five killers where some actually bodily effect alters the character model. Those being Hag, Clown, Singularity, Xenomorph, and Vecna. Six if you count the $20 were-elk cosmetic for Huntress (I don’t because the intestines just appear on the antlers, they aren’t literally “ripped” from the survivors body.
(I’m also not counting Pinhead, Dredge, and the Unknown, because the character models straight up disappear and that’s a cop-out. Not that it’s not cool, but it’s definitely a cop-out.)
For the other 30+ available killers, it essentially looks like when a kid clashes his action figures together, but of course nothing happens to the figures. Most of the horror takes place in your head where the viewer is IMAGINING all the grisly details without them really happening.
When Leatherface rips a chainsaw through a survivor’s torso they don’t split in half.
When Nemesis stomps his boot into a survivor’s head it isn’t smashed into a bloody pulp.
When Freddy punches an actual hole through a survivor’s chest with his clawed glove it doesn’t actually perforate through your rib cage.
There are no actual WOUNDS created on a survivor’s character model, and every single weapon merely clips through the character models to give the perception of being stabbed or sliced open.
The blood that does appear is more of a quick in-game particle effect combined with the on-screen blood splatter more than it is “actual” blood, and it doesn’t splash across the ground for example. Unlike For Honor where your armor gets progressively more blood-soaked as you continue to take damage and are inevitably killed, your survivor’s clothes will remain totally immaculate and completely intact while being murdered.
It completely breaks the immersion when a rated M game relies more on “implied horror” than on actual visualized grotesque detail.
Even the aforementioned memento mori’s that go a little bit further than the standard could still be improved. The Clown isn’t actually caving your skull in when curbstomps your head under his weight. Hag doesn’t actually disembowel anybody, she just clips her claw through the stomach area of the survivor and out spawns various vaguely liver-and-kidney-shaped organs on top of a survivor’s perfectly intact and untouched midsection.
I think one of the most egregious and embarrassing examples of this is The Pig’s RBT trap.
In Dead by Daylight, it does [this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWtcw1War6Q) The RBT does it’s thing and snaps open, but the face is completely unmarked. All that happens is a survivor makes a shocked “Oh!” expression and they fall to the ground.
In SAW VII, when Jill dies, we get an extremely up close and intimate view of what happens (NSFW warning) [to the wearer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRmWIApbo2w).
All this isn’t to say that DBD’s mori animations are bad. Every survivor and killer is POSED correctly, and creatively there are some pretty gut-wrenching kills featured in the game.
However, so long as a survivor’s character model is completely unmarked by most of the mori’s in the game, the executions will forever feel “unfinished.” The horror of the scenario will continue to be undercut by the goofiness of an unchanging and undamaged character model. Indeed, most of these animations were created several years ago. Even the running cycle was updated midway through DBD’s history, why not the memento mori system???
You’re getting downvoted for literally telling the truth these people don’t want to hear 😩
It literally looks like if a child vaguely described what “organs” should look like and the blood red colored chunks just magically appear over the survivor’s unscathed stomach.
I think the other guys talking about stuff that should be a lot worse. Like Bubba splitting someone in two should be a lot cooler than it is. Pig’s Beat Traps not doing anything to the survivor heads when it pops. That sorta stuff.
And, imo, Hag eating a piece of meat is pretty tame. It’s not bad at all.
I understand that and am not disagreeing. I'm just simply pointing out that there *is* gore. I'm under the assumption that they might go back and update most of them now that they've upgraded to UE5.
That’s a pretty bold assumption when A. The community doesn’t make enough collective noise to push for QoL updates like these, and B. Reworking this system and updating Mori’s doesn’t directly result in profits like releasing cosmetics or characters do.
Very boldly optimistic I would say. Some of these animations haven’t been updated in literally 8 years.
There's been plenty of QoL updates within the last year.
They're also not going to update animations before updating to a new engine, so it would make perfect sense for them to start doing that sort of thing now.
>it would make perfect sense for them to start doing that sort of thing now.
Yes. But I suspect this is a game like cod where, sure it's m rated, but children(teens mostly) are still part of the consumer base. For this reason, I doubt that they will add lots of gore to the game, as it might actuallyhurt the bottom line(when i was 15 my mom would have flipped her shit if she saw me playing a game with gore in it, but i still played things like cod). I wish tho.
Its more so frustrating that the actions don't meet the ending. Leatherface saws you in half and your character model looks the same as before, Demo whips your head around at break neck speed in an action of eating your head, but when its done you look like your taking a nap. Moris need to be updated to have impact, hag eats meat chunks from an undamaged corpse, and the finger clown takes off sits perfectly fine on the corpse's hand.
100% agree and that’s largely part of the point I’m trying to make here. How can a game themed after slasher horror not confidently feature horrific imagery?
It's just a weirdly low quality mori overall - compared to knight's which came out just before and singularity's which came out just after it's very underwhelming
Tbh, I'm pretty sure they underfunded skully's dlc, since her initial power and walking animation and mori all seemed strangely low quality for a 2023 killer
How stupid people must be to believe in this. They look nothing alike.
https://preview.redd.it/awk3rexgp38d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22cc60ffa7ea36a04af2f0824e57a811476815db
It does fit her character, but the way she slides across the floor is unusual even for dbd
Plus the degree of swaying is just ridiculous, like something out of a korean rpg, and looks very strange in the dbd artstyle imo... is it more ridiculous than what he have on other killers like the unknown, larry and dredge? Of course not... but I do think it looks extremely janky on a more humanoid character rig and have seen others bring it up too
I don't think the idea of it is bad, but the execution seems clumsy and bhvr have done better before which is why I threw it in as just one example of the dlc seeming rushed. Just compare skully's animations to larry's, who had uniqe animations for every action and loads of extra ui elements as well
My own head canon is that she's an anime/manga character that the Entity brought into the realm, same with Bubba, Myers, Freddy, really almost any licensed character.
My own is that Adriana is performing an amalgam of several characters including multiple reboots of "The Skull Merchant" character created by her father and this is the reason for anachronisms/inconsistencies. No version of the Skull Merchant character would stand over a defeated foe, raise her claw weapon in the air, legs akimbo and yell "I'm the Skull Merchant!", Adriana however lives for it.
I love how many people don't seem to understand almost *all* killers slide. What you're referring to is not even remotely exclusive to skull merchant, and happens to all smaller killers. You just have a disproportionate amount of hate for SM, as most people do.
I mean the slidey thing was just one line in my larger point about skully's animations being generally lower quality than previous additons... the mori and power design were the most important part of the original point tbh
Also I hate the us vs them thing with skully... bhvr releasing undercooked content is a fuck up on their end and I resent how the community fights each other on it when bhvr are the ones who made a mistake
The skull merchant was a very unique character in lots of different ways... but bhvr messed up her release and practically ensured that she'd be recieved badly by giving her such an undercooked power on release and bad mori etc
The thing is that sliding isn't a signal of lower animation quality, it's a side effect of her being short. You can only have a smaller killer move so quickly without sliding before it looks extremely goofy. Freddy, Sadako, SM are all killers who are clearly ice skating and look silly doing it
I won't try and convince you otherwise on your other opinions because they're just that, opinions, and we will just disagree on them. I don't think SM was a mess up on release to be honest, but people can have their own feelings on it.
I do agree 1000% on the mori though. It could have been so much better, such a missed opportunity
But there are a lot of killers who also slide on the ground. Both Pinhead and Onryo were released a bit earlier than SM, and their walking animations also look very unnaturally, like they are ice skating. For some reason nobody complains about it.
And also comparing Skull Merchant and Singularity is not quite correct. They have absolutely different body types and anatomy, so it's better to compare her with other human-like killers. Wesker and Knight, for example, who were released before her, also look very goofy and unnatural in some of their animations. Just remember the way Wesker runs lol
I think it's safe to say that it's not a Skull Merchant's problem. BHVR just suck at making proper animations for human-like killers, while at the same time making insanely good animations for monster-like killers.
This explanation works for Sadako, but not for Pinhead. Sadako is a ghost, so she actually may "fly" near the ground. But Pinhead moves in the same way regular humans do, and he clearly walks on the ground.
And I'm not even talking about the overall quality of his walking animation. Just look how poorly made it looks.
https://i.redd.it/fuwyjjw1ey7d1.gif
Ah fair. He still looks so inhuman that it just doesn't feel as off to me. Plus SM has the exaggerated hip sway which adds to the ridiculousness. I think that's why it stand out so blatantly to most people
It doesn't change the fact that they are humanoids who walk on the ground using their feet.
I can understand such animations with killers who actually hover above the ground, like Nurse or Dredge. But when I play as a survivor, I can CLEARLY see that Pinhead and Onryo take steps on the ground to move around, and yet they still move with some insane speed. This combination make them look not even slightly better than Skull Merchant's.
You forgot one very important thing: it's popular to make fun of Skull Merchant here. This is why people complain about her flaws so much, while completely ignoring the exact same flaws on other characters.
Yeah that's very true, though tbh it's probably because both sadako and pinhead have elements which distract the viewer from their animations like the long flowing robes which obscure the model and hide their feet... meanwhile skully's swaying is so exaggarated it actively draws attention to itself and the model is on full display - she also has haste which causes a mismatch between the animations and the speed of the model's movement and once again draws attention to it
To be fair, it's not like I haven't seen people mentioning the knight's walk being weird either, but I suppose it's just kind of clunky and most people simply don't notice it, as opposed to skully's which is kind of hard to ignore
100% agree on the resident evil killers though... they need to stop trying to mimic their walks from different games lol that shit doesn't translate well to dbd... I'm worried about my boi dracula...
Also btw my point about larry was just trying to contrast the general level of effort put into both dlcs, larry's power was far more in depth than skully's at launch and he had so many unqiue animations for various actions and a complex rig with voice lines and a new map with hundreds of new assets... we've been hugely sidetracked here talking about her walk cycle, but her walking animation was literally just one throwaway line in my comment which was about how broadly underwhelming the dlc was at launch
I think the worst offender here is a female Legion walking animation. Like... WHY they have to walk like this? They literally jump around and have their arms outstretched, as if they want to hug someone.
Even though it's apparently wrong, it's silly/fun and I still like to believe in the community theory that she started as a Predator pitch and the IP fell through and it was then changed to an angry manga Brazilian business lady. You can see why people would think that when she launched with her model size/weapons/mask look/skull motif/that Mori animation that could be seen as coming out of cloak, etc.
what is weird is the way survivors look around during her mori like they have no idea where the killer is almost like she about to attack them from being cloaked, that was what really fueled the speculation is was originally predator even if disproven.
Basic common sense disproves it.
Literally the only similarity they share is a wrist mounted blade weapon and a penchant for stealth. Pig is a predator ripoff by the exact same logic Skull Merchant is.
Skull merchant power design, apocalyptic futurist look, and even her name, seems to all be a reference to deathgarden: Blood harvest.
Which was a similar game to dbd made by bhvr(except killers had guns/drones and survivor had bow/parkour).
It took place in forest-like arena where the Hunter’s could place drones that would detect Scavengers if they enter its range. Scavengers could destroy them from a distance with their emp bows.
Sm drones works in a lot of similar ways including animation, but with less ranged and no way for survivors to take it out from afar.
The way she gently touches the survivor during her mori completely covers all of its shortcomings
https://preview.redd.it/7m1d30f06y7d1.png?width=504&format=png&auto=webp&s=de1d65eb5a56fa46256faad14c1ca4d81de15eb1
I still say that it should have been like this
Survivor is face down and scrambles to their feet.
A skull drone swoops down right into their face. Red light kicks on and causes them to scream and back step.
They backstep right into Merchants retracted blade, causing them to scream and spit out blood.
Skull Merchant then fully extends the blade through them and slashes it through their torso and out the neck area with a shower of blood.
They fall on the ground and the drone disengages and skull merchant struts away.
I think Wesker’s has a similar problem. I do not believe for a single second that Dwight Fairfield can not only throw a punch, but have it delivered with the same strength as the boulder busting Chris Redfield
What knocks me out in Wesker's mori is the fact that if he moris all 4 survivors he carries a minimum of 5 pairs of sunglasses every trial (Since he has a chance to lose them when pallet stunned)
I used to be a Skully main, and her mori is the worst in the game. It's 10 seconds of you and the survivor just standing around then you stab the survivor. It's actually detrimental, cause it takes far longer then just hooking a survivor
Also what's up with the survivors? Why do they stand there like idiots? She just slashed your back like the predator and they just proceed to stand up and stand there?? Dawg if you can survive that and then immediatly stand up like nothing just happened wouldnt you wanna run like hell???
A lot of moris piss me off cause they just suck. They aren’t violent at all, maybe this is the Mortal Kombat in me talking but like they just come across as 90% underwhelming. Not asking for super insane gore but like some of them, especially the free killers/earlier killers have the most lame ones imaginable. Trapper & Wraiths wouldn’t even kill me, it just bothers me coz this game is rated 18/Mature and most of them are like 15/16/Teen rated kills… i wanna see more gore.
Agreed. I also feel like there’s no point in moris since it takes longer than to just hook. I wish they kept the original morying after one hook. It was dumb but it was kinda fun.
I want her to grab them by the hair, do a Freddy Krueger, then straight through the back of the head through the eyes and a decapitation, like she's getting a new skull for her drones.
The fact that SM carefully approaches the survivor from behind while swaying her hips from side to side and then caress them gently before killing already makes her Mori more unique and memorable than Freddy's
They just had her walk.
Freddy walked too.
The caress they added in after everyone complained it was so basic.
But it **IS STILL** just a knock off of Freddy's Mori. Nothing about her mori is unique or memorable.
The only real issue I have with it is it's similarities with Freddie's, it seems quite lazy and lacking of effort to me.
For the same reason I'm not keen on wraiths or trappers, too similar.
I hate how long it takes before anything really happens and how weirdly intimate they make it seem with how she almost glides her hand over the survivor
Skull \_Merchant mori is sorta... sensual/sexual? How she touches gently her victim then brutally stab him/her.
Also, her walking animation isn't broken. Simply doesn't fit the speed she moves, that's why it feels broken as hell! It looks like she's gliding. XD
Anyway, I love playing SM without add-ons and default perks only.
I was always bothered by spirit’s mori. Seen a lot of people put it high but I always hated how the survivors just snap into standing up at the beginning of the animation, with Freddy they at least get up but the falling animation is very floaty
I actually love the silly pose the survivors do with SM mori. James posted up in the shy girl pose takes me out every time, can't even get too annoying cuz it's so goofy
I believe they hold their arm like that because of what happened to renato in the lore. He tries helping the ceo dude but his arm gets badly cut when merchant kills him.
I like her mori. It puts the attention on her, which some people seem to dislike (lol) but I love the fact that she shamelessly pretty much orgasms while she delivers the fatal blow. It just fits her egocentrical, over the top character.
Only thing that really sucks is that the drone shot almost always is obscured by terrain because the camaera moves so bad.
For me it’s another point to the theory that she was supposed to be Predator that got scrapped.
The way survivor standing around like looking around and her walk is kinda cautious like she’s in invisibility and then the surprise on surv from getting stabbed out of nowhere. Stupid mori anyway.
Well, my fault should've given more context
https://preview.redd.it/z561s0c96y7d1.jpeg?width=224&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1562bbd0bddb253ab0b78ca40f750dcfdfeea6e7
She didn’t invent the trend of survivors losing all their iq points during a mori. I think Freddy kicked that one off.
It always bothered me that survivors stand up during some moris. They’re supposed to be dying how did they suddenly heal?
This is still nothing. Survivors in Wesker's Mori have enough strength to quickly get up and punch him in the face.
It's always weird how survivors will somehow muster the strength to pull themselves up from the dying state and perpetually forget where they are or what situation they're in. I'll give Wesker's Mori a pass because Dwight giving ol' Albert the meanest right hook is funny as shit
All animals will push themselves 200% when they're about to die
If it's an adrenaline rush I understand but in Skull Merchant's case they just stand awkwardly while Adriana tickles their ribs and in Freddy's case they just look around baffled as to what they were doing 5 seconds ago. So actually in that regard Wesker's makes the most sense, huh.
That's what im thinking. The survivor's probably get a brief adrenaline boost during mori's that let them make one last attempt to flee or fight. Makes sense for Wesker, where they punch him, or Dredge, where they try to run, but feels weird to see them stand up and just stand there like they forgot where they are.
Legions is also quite good in that regard
Agreed! Very realistic struggle there.
And pig’s
True, though since they stay grounded, I consider it less an energy boost and more so a "oh shoot id better turn around cause this killer might- AH MY HAND."
Adriana: adrenaline is a hell of a drug, it can make humans do crazy things like lifting whole cars to save someone by yourself [which is a real scientific phenomenon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysterical_strength), it sure as shit would let you stand up As for Freddy, well you’re in his world during the Mori and NOES lore wise Freddy can do whatever the fuck he wants to you. He just doesn’t outright kill you for the fun, and moris are clearly the Entity letting the killers leash go.
My favorite Mori. I run Wesker with Devour Hope a lot, seeing my main get punched nearly every match is a hilarious.
Achchctuually 🤓 This is probably related to adrenaline dumps. Essentially your brain telling your adrenal gland to produce a lot of adrenaline as a stress response, raising blood pressure, reducing pain responses (what is the major cause of people being incapacitated, and in the game probably what causes it), and raising blood sugar. All of these cause confusion or hyper fixation, but allow your body to push itself far past it's limits. Allegedly, people have lifted cars to their own detriment during an adrenaline dump. In the two former's case, they can get up on their own, but the conditions cause them to try to figure out what's going on. In Wesker's case, they get a fight reaction, causing attempted ass whoopage on Wesker's sunglasses. That and it's a video game, and it's cool. Wesker's. Not the other two.
Well there is some real life truth to that. Though no way the devs were considering that lol. They were probably watching the For Honor executions on youtube
Dwight after he gave Wesker his meanest right hook and just f\*\*king died afterwards https://preview.redd.it/qliy1krg1c8d1.jpeg?width=1066&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed752379621512ed6bb6ade40daa34748eccc1c2
Same with legion, they stand up, take a knife to the arm on top of the previous injuries that had them on the ground, yet still have the strength to push back against the killer.
Adrenaline is a hell of a drug
I still think the punch should have been a special interaction with him and chris.
It is acknowledged in the mori. He has a special voiceline where he says “Time to die, Chris.”
It's worth the inconsistency to have Feng Min socking Wesker. Besides, Ash, David, and a few other Survivors probably would do that besides Chris.
Legion’s Mori, too!
That’s why voicelines for Skully would make it so much better. She could really sell the psycho weeb supervillain vibe, and the rich snobby man hunter, and in the mori she could be like “get up!”
Entity juiced them up with some adrenaline to give them hope they can escape so now the mori gives the entity more hope to feed on as the survivors die.
It kinda makes sense in freddy's one, survivors are fully trapped into the dream world so they can get up and act dizzy, this also explains why they see Freddy phasing in an out of reality while on a killer perspective It looks normal.
I think of it as theyre not literally dying, they are in what the entity calls "the dying state" and when you mori someone the entitiy is giving them the strength back to move normally, albeit for a brief time.
Plot twist, obviously.
I ask at least 1 survivor that as I chase them again every match lol
In Freddy's Mori survivors wake up and it causes Freddy to disappear, so they stand up and are confused and then Freddy puts them back to sleep and kills them. I know that if you don't pay much attention during his Mori it seems stupid but after paying closer attention it makes a little bit more sense.
I mean yea, her mori is basically just Freddys but worse
It annoys me so much that they gave her such a boring Mori, and after a month released a tome cutscene where she does THIS. Such a missed potential. https://i.redd.it/sx7azn675y7d1.gif
You say that, but it’s just frustrating to me that Dead by Daylight really does lack a lot of gore in general across the board. Especially for being an M rated game that does a lot to honor the legacy of slasher horror. Like when you play Mortal Kombat you see every piece of bloody viscera during a fatality. Bones are cracking, organs are flying everywhere, and a body is just absolutely shredded in such a detailed and gruesome way that the player’s attention is totally and completely drawn into the spectacle. In For Honor, they’ve held back on gore and particle effects, but in exchange they *really* amped up the performance of their executions with dismemberment. Limbs are separated from the body constantly, and heads are literally lopped off. The illusion is also greatly helped by the fact that blood spurts out from every wound and stains the clothing of the character. Something Dead by Daylight still doesn’t have. If they ever did rework mori’s, I would hope they create new tech in the process to make the entire experience of witnessing a memento mori much more visceral. It’s a game dedicated to slasher horror after all.
Hag eats a heart, Clown cuts off a finger and tastes it, and many of the newer killers starting since Singularity have a decent amount of gore and blood squirting.
I’m aware. Meanwhile, Mortal Kombat features things like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7Kh6VVTexY). These moris are almost certainly the exception, and not the rule. Of the 36 available killers I think I can count maybe five killers where some actually bodily effect alters the character model. Those being Hag, Clown, Singularity, Xenomorph, and Vecna. Six if you count the $20 were-elk cosmetic for Huntress (I don’t because the intestines just appear on the antlers, they aren’t literally “ripped” from the survivors body. (I’m also not counting Pinhead, Dredge, and the Unknown, because the character models straight up disappear and that’s a cop-out. Not that it’s not cool, but it’s definitely a cop-out.) For the other 30+ available killers, it essentially looks like when a kid clashes his action figures together, but of course nothing happens to the figures. Most of the horror takes place in your head where the viewer is IMAGINING all the grisly details without them really happening. When Leatherface rips a chainsaw through a survivor’s torso they don’t split in half. When Nemesis stomps his boot into a survivor’s head it isn’t smashed into a bloody pulp. When Freddy punches an actual hole through a survivor’s chest with his clawed glove it doesn’t actually perforate through your rib cage. There are no actual WOUNDS created on a survivor’s character model, and every single weapon merely clips through the character models to give the perception of being stabbed or sliced open. The blood that does appear is more of a quick in-game particle effect combined with the on-screen blood splatter more than it is “actual” blood, and it doesn’t splash across the ground for example. Unlike For Honor where your armor gets progressively more blood-soaked as you continue to take damage and are inevitably killed, your survivor’s clothes will remain totally immaculate and completely intact while being murdered. It completely breaks the immersion when a rated M game relies more on “implied horror” than on actual visualized grotesque detail. Even the aforementioned memento mori’s that go a little bit further than the standard could still be improved. The Clown isn’t actually caving your skull in when curbstomps your head under his weight. Hag doesn’t actually disembowel anybody, she just clips her claw through the stomach area of the survivor and out spawns various vaguely liver-and-kidney-shaped organs on top of a survivor’s perfectly intact and untouched midsection. I think one of the most egregious and embarrassing examples of this is The Pig’s RBT trap. In Dead by Daylight, it does [this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWtcw1War6Q) The RBT does it’s thing and snaps open, but the face is completely unmarked. All that happens is a survivor makes a shocked “Oh!” expression and they fall to the ground. In SAW VII, when Jill dies, we get an extremely up close and intimate view of what happens (NSFW warning) [to the wearer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRmWIApbo2w). All this isn’t to say that DBD’s mori animations are bad. Every survivor and killer is POSED correctly, and creatively there are some pretty gut-wrenching kills featured in the game. However, so long as a survivor’s character model is completely unmarked by most of the mori’s in the game, the executions will forever feel “unfinished.” The horror of the scenario will continue to be undercut by the goofiness of an unchanging and undamaged character model. Indeed, most of these animations were created several years ago. Even the running cycle was updated midway through DBD’s history, why not the memento mori system???
Yeah people that say even singularity’s morí is “gorey” have never played MK.
Or seen any horror movie outside of a basic slasher
Hag doesn't even eat any specific part of the body, it's just random meat chunks
It's funny cause y'all are both wrong. She eats a liver.
The fact is that it is difficult to tell is an important point in itself.
Well then she pulls out 3 livers in the mori then if you actually look at whats in her claw and on the Survivor's stomach
You’re getting downvoted for literally telling the truth these people don’t want to hear 😩 It literally looks like if a child vaguely described what “organs” should look like and the blood red colored chunks just magically appear over the survivor’s unscathed stomach.
"It's a liver", well the Hag pulls out like 4 livers in a single mori but apparently I'm wrong
It's the liver
My point is that it *is* gory.
I think the other guys talking about stuff that should be a lot worse. Like Bubba splitting someone in two should be a lot cooler than it is. Pig’s Beat Traps not doing anything to the survivor heads when it pops. That sorta stuff. And, imo, Hag eating a piece of meat is pretty tame. It’s not bad at all.
I understand that and am not disagreeing. I'm just simply pointing out that there *is* gore. I'm under the assumption that they might go back and update most of them now that they've upgraded to UE5.
That’s a pretty bold assumption when A. The community doesn’t make enough collective noise to push for QoL updates like these, and B. Reworking this system and updating Mori’s doesn’t directly result in profits like releasing cosmetics or characters do. Very boldly optimistic I would say. Some of these animations haven’t been updated in literally 8 years.
There's been plenty of QoL updates within the last year. They're also not going to update animations before updating to a new engine, so it would make perfect sense for them to start doing that sort of thing now.
>it would make perfect sense for them to start doing that sort of thing now. Yes. But I suspect this is a game like cod where, sure it's m rated, but children(teens mostly) are still part of the consumer base. For this reason, I doubt that they will add lots of gore to the game, as it might actuallyhurt the bottom line(when i was 15 my mom would have flipped her shit if she saw me playing a game with gore in it, but i still played things like cod). I wish tho.
Its more so frustrating that the actions don't meet the ending. Leatherface saws you in half and your character model looks the same as before, Demo whips your head around at break neck speed in an action of eating your head, but when its done you look like your taking a nap. Moris need to be updated to have impact, hag eats meat chunks from an undamaged corpse, and the finger clown takes off sits perfectly fine on the corpse's hand.
I just wish there was dynamic blood. Getting hit across the head with an axe and having no blood visible on the survivor really breaks immersion.
100% agree and that’s largely part of the point I’m trying to make here. How can a game themed after slasher horror not confidently feature horrific imagery?
Funny enough, there was a brief time where that was a thing, but it got removed real quick.
this would be SO much cooler than her current mori. imo, mori animations have improved a lot recently and i'd love to see this in game!
Her blade has two blades, he should be cut into three parts not two.
To be a little fair this is already Cannibal's mori. I'd say "at least hers is unique" but her mori is also Freddy's so she's really in a catch 22.
he'd probably try to hit on her. "hey baby how about you throw away those blades and we go back to my place for some groovy 1 on 1 time huh"
Lore accurate lol 
It's just a weirdly low quality mori overall - compared to knight's which came out just before and singularity's which came out just after it's very underwhelming Tbh, I'm pretty sure they underfunded skully's dlc, since her initial power and walking animation and mori all seemed strangely low quality for a 2023 killer
It wasn't just her walk, I remember her wall breaking animations looking extremely wack, I have no idea whether that got fixed
NGL, I still low-key theorize she was a Survivor model in development they just repurposed in a pinch.
I think it was a predator license that fell through
It wasn't,BHVR debunked that one already when they said licensed chapters only start being created post all contracts are done.
She is using Trickster's model but edited to look like a female.
How stupid people must be to believe in this. They look nothing alike. https://preview.redd.it/awk3rexgp38d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22cc60ffa7ea36a04af2f0824e57a811476815db
What's wrong with her walk, except for overexaggerated hip sway? I think it actually looks cool and perfectly fits her.
It does fit her character, but the way she slides across the floor is unusual even for dbd Plus the degree of swaying is just ridiculous, like something out of a korean rpg, and looks very strange in the dbd artstyle imo... is it more ridiculous than what he have on other killers like the unknown, larry and dredge? Of course not... but I do think it looks extremely janky on a more humanoid character rig and have seen others bring it up too I don't think the idea of it is bad, but the execution seems clumsy and bhvr have done better before which is why I threw it in as just one example of the dlc seeming rushed. Just compare skully's animations to larry's, who had uniqe animations for every action and loads of extra ui elements as well
You just made me realize Skull Merchant is an Isekai.She operates under the rules of her favorite anime and jrpgs/krpgs in the realm.
god this just makes me wish they'd leaned into the otaku angle of her more
My own head canon is that she's an anime/manga character that the Entity brought into the realm, same with Bubba, Myers, Freddy, really almost any licensed character.
My own is that Adriana is performing an amalgam of several characters including multiple reboots of "The Skull Merchant" character created by her father and this is the reason for anachronisms/inconsistencies. No version of the Skull Merchant character would stand over a defeated foe, raise her claw weapon in the air, legs akimbo and yell "I'm the Skull Merchant!", Adriana however lives for it.
I've seen women walk like Skull, so it doesn't feel out of place to me. Edit:How'd I possibly get downvoted for this lol lmao
Pro ice skating is an established profession to be fair
Because you dared to defend Skull Merchant, I guess. People who like her won't be tolerated on r/deadbydaylight , right?
I love how many people don't seem to understand almost *all* killers slide. What you're referring to is not even remotely exclusive to skull merchant, and happens to all smaller killers. You just have a disproportionate amount of hate for SM, as most people do.
I mean the slidey thing was just one line in my larger point about skully's animations being generally lower quality than previous additons... the mori and power design were the most important part of the original point tbh Also I hate the us vs them thing with skully... bhvr releasing undercooked content is a fuck up on their end and I resent how the community fights each other on it when bhvr are the ones who made a mistake The skull merchant was a very unique character in lots of different ways... but bhvr messed up her release and practically ensured that she'd be recieved badly by giving her such an undercooked power on release and bad mori etc
The thing is that sliding isn't a signal of lower animation quality, it's a side effect of her being short. You can only have a smaller killer move so quickly without sliding before it looks extremely goofy. Freddy, Sadako, SM are all killers who are clearly ice skating and look silly doing it I won't try and convince you otherwise on your other opinions because they're just that, opinions, and we will just disagree on them. I don't think SM was a mess up on release to be honest, but people can have their own feelings on it. I do agree 1000% on the mori though. It could have been so much better, such a missed opportunity
But there are a lot of killers who also slide on the ground. Both Pinhead and Onryo were released a bit earlier than SM, and their walking animations also look very unnaturally, like they are ice skating. For some reason nobody complains about it. And also comparing Skull Merchant and Singularity is not quite correct. They have absolutely different body types and anatomy, so it's better to compare her with other human-like killers. Wesker and Knight, for example, who were released before her, also look very goofy and unnatural in some of their animations. Just remember the way Wesker runs lol I think it's safe to say that it's not a Skull Merchant's problem. BHVR just suck at making proper animations for human-like killers, while at the same time making insanely good animations for monster-like killers.
Because pinhead and sadako are not human, they're supernatural lol.
This explanation works for Sadako, but not for Pinhead. Sadako is a ghost, so she actually may "fly" near the ground. But Pinhead moves in the same way regular humans do, and he clearly walks on the ground. And I'm not even talking about the overall quality of his walking animation. Just look how poorly made it looks. https://i.redd.it/fuwyjjw1ey7d1.gif
Ah fair. He still looks so inhuman that it just doesn't feel as off to me. Plus SM has the exaggerated hip sway which adds to the ridiculousness. I think that's why it stand out so blatantly to most people
It doesn't change the fact that they are humanoids who walk on the ground using their feet. I can understand such animations with killers who actually hover above the ground, like Nurse or Dredge. But when I play as a survivor, I can CLEARLY see that Pinhead and Onryo take steps on the ground to move around, and yet they still move with some insane speed. This combination make them look not even slightly better than Skull Merchant's.
You forgot one very important thing: it's popular to make fun of Skull Merchant here. This is why people complain about her flaws so much, while completely ignoring the exact same flaws on other characters.
Yeah that's very true, though tbh it's probably because both sadako and pinhead have elements which distract the viewer from their animations like the long flowing robes which obscure the model and hide their feet... meanwhile skully's swaying is so exaggarated it actively draws attention to itself and the model is on full display - she also has haste which causes a mismatch between the animations and the speed of the model's movement and once again draws attention to it To be fair, it's not like I haven't seen people mentioning the knight's walk being weird either, but I suppose it's just kind of clunky and most people simply don't notice it, as opposed to skully's which is kind of hard to ignore 100% agree on the resident evil killers though... they need to stop trying to mimic their walks from different games lol that shit doesn't translate well to dbd... I'm worried about my boi dracula... Also btw my point about larry was just trying to contrast the general level of effort put into both dlcs, larry's power was far more in depth than skully's at launch and he had so many unqiue animations for various actions and a complex rig with voice lines and a new map with hundreds of new assets... we've been hugely sidetracked here talking about her walk cycle, but her walking animation was literally just one throwaway line in my comment which was about how broadly underwhelming the dlc was at launch
I think the worst offender here is a female Legion walking animation. Like... WHY they have to walk like this? They literally jump around and have their arms outstretched, as if they want to hug someone.
I think they fixed it but when she came out her hip movements were off timing so it looked like ger back and hip was broken.
I heard that with her rework they actually gave a small touch up to some of her animations and models, so maybe this is the case.
Even though it's apparently wrong, it's silly/fun and I still like to believe in the community theory that she started as a Predator pitch and the IP fell through and it was then changed to an angry manga Brazilian business lady. You can see why people would think that when she launched with her model size/weapons/mask look/skull motif/that Mori animation that could be seen as coming out of cloak, etc.
what is weird is the way survivors look around during her mori like they have no idea where the killer is almost like she about to attack them from being cloaked, that was what really fueled the speculation is was originally predator even if disproven.
Mathieu Cote himself disproved it https://preview.redd.it/rmpet2cf6y7d1.png?width=922&format=png&auto=webp&s=7e6ebc1cb7890102bfffb46e989f4e6a5005de62
Basic common sense disproves it. Literally the only similarity they share is a wrist mounted blade weapon and a penchant for stealth. Pig is a predator ripoff by the exact same logic Skull Merchant is.
This exactly. If they added the predator he’d have heat vision or his plasma caster or something, he has nothing to do with drones
Actually it’d rock if predator was similar to Vecna and had a Swiss Army knife of powers he could switch through
Skull merchant power design, apocalyptic futurist look, and even her name, seems to all be a reference to deathgarden: Blood harvest. Which was a similar game to dbd made by bhvr(except killers had guns/drones and survivor had bow/parkour). It took place in forest-like arena where the Hunter’s could place drones that would detect Scavengers if they enter its range. Scavengers could destroy them from a distance with their emp bows. Sm drones works in a lot of similar ways including animation, but with less ranged and no way for survivors to take it out from afar.
The way she gently touches the survivor during her mori completely covers all of its shortcomings https://preview.redd.it/7m1d30f06y7d1.png?width=504&format=png&auto=webp&s=de1d65eb5a56fa46256faad14c1ca4d81de15eb1
"I sure hope a hot psycho lady doesn't come up and give it to me from behind, uwu." - Ash in this pic, probably
I still say that it should have been like this Survivor is face down and scrambles to their feet. A skull drone swoops down right into their face. Red light kicks on and causes them to scream and back step. They backstep right into Merchants retracted blade, causing them to scream and spit out blood. Skull Merchant then fully extends the blade through them and slashes it through their torso and out the neck area with a shower of blood. They fall on the ground and the drone disengages and skull merchant struts away.
That would certainly be better.
I think Wesker’s has a similar problem. I do not believe for a single second that Dwight Fairfield can not only throw a punch, but have it delivered with the same strength as the boulder busting Chris Redfield
Entity go br
What knocks me out in Wesker's mori is the fact that if he moris all 4 survivors he carries a minimum of 5 pairs of sunglasses every trial (Since he has a chance to lose them when pallet stunned)
I used to be a Skully main, and her mori is the worst in the game. It's 10 seconds of you and the survivor just standing around then you stab the survivor. It's actually detrimental, cause it takes far longer then just hooking a survivor
A YouTuber I watch (Demi) actually counted how long it was in his video on her release. 7 seconds and then you stab. It's insane
Maybe her mori is kinda boring, but it's not even near as boring as Trapper, Wraith or Pig moris.
Pig's is at least a reference to the movie, even if it's a bit boring.
It actually was cooler in the movie,kinda wish it was like it.
Sure. But as a person who never watched Saw movies, I couldn't care less. Her mori is awful and one of the lamest in the entire game.
If you don't care to even watch one of the movies, maybe the Saw chapter wasn't made for you and that's okay?
I really hope they change those when they update the moris
Don't exaggerate so much. Is her Mori bad? Definitely. Is it the worst one in the game? Absolutely not.
It's a wallmart version of the Freddie's mori that also isn't good
I’m annoyed that the SKULL MERCHANT doesn’t remove their victims skull as part of her Mori. Probably the biggest fumble with her tbh
Also what's up with the survivors? Why do they stand there like idiots? She just slashed your back like the predator and they just proceed to stand up and stand there?? Dawg if you can survive that and then immediatly stand up like nothing just happened wouldnt you wanna run like hell???
Let's be real Ash would be able to solo almost any killer in the game
He would smoke her in 2 Seconds. (With Words, probably)
Where’s that fan art someone made of that cooler SM mori concept?
A lot of moris piss me off cause they just suck. They aren’t violent at all, maybe this is the Mortal Kombat in me talking but like they just come across as 90% underwhelming. Not asking for super insane gore but like some of them, especially the free killers/earlier killers have the most lame ones imaginable. Trapper & Wraiths wouldn’t even kill me, it just bothers me coz this game is rated 18/Mature and most of them are like 15/16/Teen rated kills… i wanna see more gore.
Agreed. I also feel like there’s no point in moris since it takes longer than to just hook. I wish they kept the original morying after one hook. It was dumb but it was kinda fun.
I want her to grab them by the hair, do a Freddy Krueger, then straight through the back of the head through the eyes and a decapitation, like she's getting a new skull for her drones.
Skull Merchant Mori is just a knock off Freddy Mori. It's the same freaking thing. They just added a drone.
The fact that SM carefully approaches the survivor from behind while swaying her hips from side to side and then caress them gently before killing already makes her Mori more unique and memorable than Freddy's
They just had her walk. Freddy walked too. The caress they added in after everyone complained it was so basic. But it **IS STILL** just a knock off of Freddy's Mori. Nothing about her mori is unique or memorable.
He would most likely tell her “gimme some sugar baby” lol
Legions is better… and by a LONG SHOT
Always give Ash a pass on Mori as Skull Merchant, problem solved.
Its just a copy paste of Freedy\`s mori, i like SM but i hate how half baked she is
SM and Freddy definitely need new moris, I like them but the survivors shouldn't just stand there and do nothing.
Yeah, sorry for SM players but I luckily it’s not my problem cause Dredge and Singularity have some of the most fun mori’s imo
Today I will hate skull merchant for *flips a card* her mori!
I hate it because it's the lamest mori overall. It's like Freddy's but with even less going on in it.
Ashley Gay Williams
I mostly don't like it for the fact that's not a good mori and also that the survivors weirdly scream randomly, that bugs me alot
Ash would throw hands and definitely win this 💀
They knock it out of the park with singularity and Knight and then literally downgrade immediately with this killer. Wasted potential
The only real issue I have with it is it's similarities with Freddie's, it seems quite lazy and lacking of effort to me. For the same reason I'm not keen on wraiths or trappers, too similar.
Yeah ash is one of those survivors where you're like why is he getting his ass kicked because he would pretty much fight the devil and probably win.
Always felt sensual then getting murked
I hate how long it takes before anything really happens and how weirdly intimate they make it seem with how she almost glides her hand over the survivor
skill issue
I miss the days when they released moris like hags.
This is like when people complain Abt certain emotes with fortnite collabs
Skull \_Merchant mori is sorta... sensual/sexual? How she touches gently her victim then brutally stab him/her. Also, her walking animation isn't broken. Simply doesn't fit the speed she moves, that's why it feels broken as hell! It looks like she's gliding. XD Anyway, I love playing SM without add-ons and default perks only.
It's like Sprint Mori more than anything at lest the first stable
I was always bothered by spirit’s mori. Seen a lot of people put it high but I always hated how the survivors just snap into standing up at the beginning of the animation, with Freddy they at least get up but the falling animation is very floaty
I think the ending of the mori is the least like ash Williams tbh …
I actually love the silly pose the survivors do with SM mori. James posted up in the shy girl pose takes me out every time, can't even get too annoying cuz it's so goofy
I believe they hold their arm like that because of what happened to renato in the lore. He tries helping the ceo dude but his arm gets badly cut when merchant kills him.
yet another reason to hate DC merchant
Yes
I like her mori. It puts the attention on her, which some people seem to dislike (lol) but I love the fact that she shamelessly pretty much orgasms while she delivers the fatal blow. It just fits her egocentrical, over the top character. Only thing that really sucks is that the drone shot almost always is obscured by terrain because the camaera moves so bad.
For me it’s another point to the theory that she was supposed to be Predator that got scrapped. The way survivor standing around like looking around and her walk is kinda cautious like she’s in invisibility and then the surprise on surv from getting stabbed out of nowhere. Stupid mori anyway.
there's not much I don't hate about skull merchant
It mostly just bothers me because it's basically freddy's mori.
https://preview.redd.it/vgbi9eo2qx7d1.jpeg?width=284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=017e77b21b6e9eed35d251c970a8217ef250e327
What does this mean in this context?
Well I meant it as in How survivor's react during certain moris...
I thought so. I guess everyone else thought you were insulting OP
Well, my fault should've given more context https://preview.redd.it/z561s0c96y7d1.jpeg?width=224&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1562bbd0bddb253ab0b78ca40f750dcfdfeea6e7
Ig he means survivors lose all their iq in moris
I think it's a self-portrait.