The Skull Merchant is the next Killer arriving in Dead by Daylight in the upcoming Tools of Torment Chapter. However, players can’t help but notice more than a few similarities between this Killer and the Predator franchise. Now, some fans believe a franchise deal is on the cards with either a future Killer or skin coming to the game this year.
Tools of Torment’s Killer, The Skull Merchant, is brutal. By day she cuts up companies to sell for profit. By night she stalks innocent people in her own hunting grounds for sport. She hunts using drones with skulls on them, modeled after her past victims. Her weapon of choice is a set of claws that pop out of a wrist mount. It doesn’t take much to see the links with the Predator here. The similarities don’t end there, though.
Prominent Dead by Daylight community site Leaks by Daylight has posted a detailed analysis of why it believes Predator will be the next to come to the game. It shows the above obvious similarities as well as triangular symbols on The Skull Merchant’s files that could be a reference to the alien’s triangular aiming reticule. All these references are made more interesting when you take into account the Scream franchise tie-in.
When The Legion, a set of Killers that wears masks and stalks Survivors, was added to Dead by Daylight, fans reacted by asking why Ghostface wasn’t simply added instead. The Ghostface Chapter was released sometime later, which is what players wanted from The Legion’s Chapter. Leaks by Daylight and many fans claim that developer Behaviour Interactive works on three Chapters at a time, so one Chapter inspired by Predator may release ahead of an actual franchise tie-in if a deal has been struck. This is what fans believe happened with The Legion and Ghostface, which is why they now also believe Predator will come to Dead by Daylight at some point this year.
Predator has appeared in games before, most recently as a skin in Fortnite. It’s definitely not out of the question that the creature could come to Dead by Daylight either as a fully-fledged Killer or a skin for The Skull Merchant. The key here is that fans have requested tie-ins with franchises like Resident Evil and Silent Hill in the past, and they’ve happened. Between the similarities seen to Predator in The Skull Merchant and the fact that Predator is a highly-requested Killer for Dead by Daylight, a future crossover seems likely.
