The easiest way to tell if a chapter is licensed or not.
Is simply by their teaser trailer. Nowadays, licensed chapters do not get teaser trailers. The Pig was the last licensed character to get a teaser, as we had a full year before we got our next licensed killer, Ghost Face, who did not get a teaser. He just got a full-blown trailer.
First, I should probably specify what I mean. Teasers are the ones that don't give us any info at all. They're normally no more than twenty seconds. Ever since the Pig, the licensed chapters after, Ghost Face, Stranger Things, and Silent Hill, did not get teasers. Just straight-up trailers- Normally with hints coming from the license holders themselves, besides Konami, but the anniversary logo was a pretty big hint within itself.
Secondly, back when licensed killers got teasers, the statement "All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners." appeared in the copyright section at the end. Every since Oni, however, the teasers do not have this section. Before, they did, I can admit that.
The last licensed teaser
The last original teaser with the statement "All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners." Which was Spirits teaser. If you can't see it, it's right under the red bar. It's very tiny, I know.
The next killer to receive an actual teaser was Oni, three full chapters later. Neither Demise of the Faithful or Darkness Among Us got actual teasers, rather pictures posted to their Twitter (if I remember right). The other killer was Ghostface, who didn't get a teaser. In Oni's teaser, the statement "All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners." is absent. (On a side note, this teaser also has time going in reverse, so maybe the new trailer doesn't mean anything with the whole "rewinding" thing.)
It has been like this ever since. No original chapter has had the line referring to the "other properties" ever since. Not Deathslinger, not Blight, not the Twins'. I didn't want to take them all, so I only took the middle one, Blights.
To further prove this, the actual trailers all have the copyright of whatever character they are licensing. To save myself the trouble of posting them all, I will show the copyright of the Stranger Things chapter. But rest assured, they all do.
All the trailer chapters for the original chapters are now exactly the same as their teasers. They hold only BHVR's copyright and don't hold the statement about other properties. I will again show Oni's and Blight's.
It is under the red bar. Again, I apologize for it being so tiny.
This leads me to believe that they no longer have to state about the other properties in their trailers. Perhaps things changed, which meant they couldn't make teasers anymore. This all leads to the teaser for the newest chapter. It holds no copyright, other than for BHVR themselves.
So, if my theory holds true, the next chapter will be original (like most people thought) and the way to tell if it's original is if it gets a teaser, as licensed chapters just don't get teasers anymore. Of course, this could all go out the window if the next chapter is indeed licensed or if the next licensed chapter gets a teaser. But for now, my theory seems to work. I applied it to the last chapter with the Twins', and I ended up being right.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk, I wasted way too much time on this.
Comments
Yeah they kinda teased PH with the number 4 on the anniversary logo but no actual trailers
I prefer non licensed anyway so I’m fine with this
I was actually someone who didn't pay a lot of attention to the anniversary at the time, but looking back on it, it seemed pretty obvious.
I prefer original too, I just noticed this pattern when everybody was talking about the last chapter teaser, with the Twins' and everyone thinking Until Dawn. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed this, just the first to make a post about it. And I could be totally wrong, but this has worked out for me so far.