Can a Killer in Dead by Daylight be racist? Yes, some streamers think so – and they make themselves a laughing stock in the community.
Dead by Daylight clearly belongs to the games where there are often rather strange discussions. Just the talks about the actually harmless Pride flag show how different people’s perceptions can be. A new case has now emerged, where four survivors accused a killer of racism – simply because he wore a cosmetic item.
What was the problem? The Cannibal, often referred to as “Bubba,” is one of the many killers from Dead by Daylight. He is the killer from the famous “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” movie. As a sinister cannibal, he not only eats the flesh of humans, but also makes masks from their skin, which he tears from their bodies – as one would expect from a proper horror killer.
In Dead by Daylight, the developers implemented a small feature several years ago. If the Cannibal kills the original 4 survivors (Dwight, Meg, Jake, and Claudette) often enough, Leatherface unlocks the “faces” of these survivors. He can then literally wear the skin of these survivors as a skin.
This can also be done with Claudette’s skin, who has black skin. Accordingly, Bubba can also wear the black skin of Claudette as a mask.
Streamers ragequitting over “Racist Bubba”: Some survivors apparently find this racist, as it would be a form of “blackface.” A particularly prominent example of four friends who were streaming their match against a Leatherface with Claudette’s face circulated yesterday in the Dead by Daylight subreddit. As soon as the players recognized that the killer was using Claudette’s black skin, they left the game. Subsequently, they insulted the killer in the endgame chat as “deliberately and consciously racist” and reported him using the report feature.
The full chat dialog from the endgame chat was also recorded. You can read it on Imgur .
Community mocks – “And now imagine auto-ban”: For several days, the topic of “auto-ban” has been hotly debated in the Dead by Daylight subreddit. After all, the developers want an automatic sanction mechanism that bans players after a certain number of reports. Examples like this are food for thought for those who firmly believe that such an auto-ban feature in DbD is massively exploited by groups to unjustly punish individual players.
As a result, many memes surfaced based on the story.
Cortyn says: You can’t make this up.
I believe I have a fair amount of understanding regarding what hurts feelings, racism, and sexism. But in this case, I find it just ridiculous. A skin (in the literal sense) that consists of four others simply cannot be racist.
From my perspective, Bubba is even a wonderful example of equality in practice. He eats, skins, and kills everyone equally, without regard for skin color or gender. These are probably concepts that this character wouldn’t understand at all.
What is your opinion on this topic? Are the survivors acting pretty stupid here? Or do they have valid reasons?
