The foot fetish trend of Dead By Daylight’s new Killer Ends game

The newest Dead by daylight Not only is Killer making a killing in the tech industry, she’s also murdering the show’s track record because its original female characters bared their toes.

A few days ago, Behavior Interactive announced its newest original killer, Adriana Imai AKA the Skull Trader. Introduced as the 31st killer under DBDAdriana stands out from the crowd with the techno-infused vibe she has as she stalks and murders her victims. As you’ll see in her announcement trailer below, the “homemade” evil tech billionaire uses drones with engineered skulls on them to locate her prey before slicing them up with her Wolverine-esque robotic claws. She even has a diamond encrusted half mask for added elegance.

Continue reading: 13 killer strategies for Dead by daylight

What was it about DBD‘s foot fetish stuff?

Now what you have been waiting for: the Dead by daylight foot fetish stuff. When I was talking to a friend about Adriana’s announcement, they brought me up to the bizarre little thing that Skull Merchant isn’t special just because she’s an evil CEO. Adriana is also the first original woman DBD character not to show their feet in their standard skin. And no, this isn’t one of those “I say a friend of mine told me, but I really mean myself” situations. Players have been noticing this trend for some time. After cackling at the ceiling I did some digging and in fact Skull Merchant is the first original DBD character to put away their bare claws.

After doing a bit of journalistic research, I discovered this from DBD‘s 31 killers, eight of the default skins of the game’s original female characters, have exposed their little piggies to the world. These characters, for the curious, are The nurse, The hunter, The witch, The ghost, The plague, The Twins, The artistAnd The Onryō.

Until now, with killer players fiddling with gear in the meantime DBD Playing, they are subjected to first-person animation of their characters breaking wooden pallets and generators with their bare little feet.

Even guest characters like it resident Evil‘s Ada Wong are not free from the embrace DBD‘s foot fetish-leaning gameplay mechanics. The portrait for one of Ada Wong’s survival assets “Low Profile‘ promisingly features an icon of a woman, presumably Miss Wong herself, stepping out of her heels and walking barefoot on the grass.

“An artist who has joined BHVR in the past few months has a serious foot fetish.” Reddit user TigerXtrm wrote in response to a post about Ada’s Perk titled “behavior we really need to talk about the feet thing.”

kotaku can’t confirm there is such a staff member, but we share the quote to note that the trend has been so pronounced that everyday gamers were wondering if something was up.

“Okay, but that perk icon is sooo cool/clever.” wrote Reddit user Scoobie101, is clearly playing devil’s advocate. “Just as heels are associated with being classy and high-profile, so taking them off is both a way to go ‘low profile’ and a way to ‘get serious’ (because you’re not keeping your heels on to face a killer running away ) just makes this badass in a way that suits Ada’s character so well.”

“While we sense that something is afoot here, we can confirm that a character’s design choices align with their universe, backstory, and personality. We’ll leave it up to our players to debate whether the Skull Trader’s footwear affects their performance as a killer.” Behavior Interactive representative told kotaku by email.

It should be noted that Adriana broke in the process DBD‘s exposed toes, she still has a unique advantage that literally “game in progress‘, so she just barely clears the bar for not being yet another character who smacks of the horror game’s obvious, thinly veiled foot fetish.

Ariana is part of Dead by daylight‘ tools of torment Expansion coming to PC and consoles on March 7th.

Updated 2/17/2023 3:55pm ET: Behavior Interactive has commented on this kotaku around Dead by daylightFoot Fetish Allegations.