I Despise This Killer So Much I Made An Account Just to ######### About It.
The Judgment is one of the lamest killers Dead by Daylight has ever added, and my problem with it goes way beyond balance or mechanics. The entire thing feels tonally wrong. It doesn’t scare me. It doesn’t even feel like horror. It looks like somebody dragged a mid-tier celestial boss out of Diablo III, gave it a crab walk, covered it in glowing blue filigree, and then dropped it into DBD because apparently “large supernatural thing” automatically means intimidating.
It doesn’t. The Pig is one third its size and a hundred times scarier. Myers is scary. Nemesis is scary. The Alien is scary. They feel predatory. They feel like things I do not want finding me in a dark place. The Judgment looks like I’m supposed to admire its character design while a boss-health-bar animation plays. Half the time the stupid thing almost looks cute scuttling around on its ridiculous legs.
And the lore somehow makes it worse. Everything is presented with this tremendous, self-important cosmic gravitas, but I don’t buy any of it. Instead of feeling ominous, it starts approaching Troll 2 territory, except Troll 2 is funny because I voluntarily sat down to watch a terrible movie. The Judgment keeps showing up in a game I actually like and replacing horror with what feels like a goddamn theme-park attraction.
What drives me crazy is that the basic concept could have been excellent. If you want a divine being that “passes judgment,” then lean into that. Make it beautiful. Serene. Almost comforting despite the unsettling focus of its gaze as it approaches you methodically. Give it a calm, compassionate voice. Let it speak about forgiveness and mercy. Make the player almost want to trust it.
Then, when it actually attacks, rip the mask off.
Make the beautiful facade conceal something absolutely revolting. The instant it reaches you, the wings contort, the body opens, the voice breaks, and for a few seconds you see the thing underneath. The effect should be like pulling back your bedsheets and discovering a giant spider six inches from your face. Suddenly all that celestial beauty becomes disturbing because you know it is camouflage.
The same applies to its stupid alternate-realm mechanic. If this thing is literally judging people, why am I being sent into what feels like a funhouse minigame? Send me to damnation. Drop me into an almost completely black void with dim coals underfoot, ash in the air, horrible distant sounds, and only occasional warped windows opening back onto the real map so I can glimpse whether another Survivor is coming to rescue me. Replace hooks with shrines, statues, or whatever fits the mythology. Make it feel like I have actually been condemned and somebody is trying to drag me back out of hell.
You could keep virtually the same gameplay and it would immediately fit DBD better.
That’s what annoys me most. The Judgment didn’t have to be this lame. The ingredients were sitting right there: divine horror, false beauty, condemnation, damnation, cosmic cruelty. Instead we got an overdecorated angel-crab firing special effects at people and sending them to the carnival dimension.
It isn’t horrifying. It’s embarrassing.
Comments
Here I was thinking nobody had the same thoughts as me.
I want to love this thing, but they took the least inspired route while designing it. It the lore was that the Judgment was corrupted by its own power and that's why it looked horrific, then everything would fit together and feel like it actually belongs. Yet that's not what they did, so it feels inconsistent. Oh boy, ANOTHER "divine" being that's a violent monstrous thing rather than a gorgeous ethereal being emotionlessly (or even affectionately) doling out cosmic punishment, how original.
Honestly I'd be satisfied if the base look just didn't have all the excess flesh and screaming faces. I love body horror, but it doesn't match the rest of the aesthetic.
Mr. Waternoose's wife from Monsters Inc lmaoooo and I love her for it, sorry