The Unknown's Lore Explored | Dead By Daylight Lore Deep Dive

The Unknown is Dead by Daylight's newest Killer, straight from the found footage horrors of the new millennium and right into the Fog. He's big, he's bad and he'll make Survivors mad, but that doesn't answer the question: who the hell is the Unknown anyway???

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00:00 Introduction
01:17 What's the Story?
03:48 Analog Horror and Found Footage
08:51 Histories and Mysteries
12:06 My Theory
14:45 The Black Vale's Involvement
17:13 A Myth Realised
20:06 Closing the Case

[sgt.zaitsev]

The Entity happening across the Unknown must have been a kid finding a cool bug and putting it in a jar and taking it home

[jinx]

I find it especially interesting that the Entity had to forcibly drag the Unknown into the fog, one of the few times the killers fight back.

[irontarkus]

A lot of people have stated that the UVX doesn't make any sense thematically. But I'm going to say that each aspect of the power satisfies one of the rumors of what it is. The UVX satisfies the alien theory. The hallucinations and staring at it satisfies the government experiment angle. And the mimicking of a human voice satisfies the run of mill serial killer(which I know it isn't, but is stated in the lore so) because killers have all kinds of ways of luring their victims in. All of this adds to the uncertainty of what it is which to me is a thematic slam dunk.

[SpaceHov]

A killer hasn't filled me with such a sense of dread since I was introduced to the game with the Doctor.
I did wish that the Unknown would crawl around like a spider marionette thing as its power (its animations during the trailer, on the main menu, and during its mori) as that to me is what ultimately truly distorts its shape distinctly away from its attempted human visage and truly reveals its Predatory and unnatural self

[klaykid]

Also one thing a lot of people don't seem to realize is that The Unknown's default skin looks like Dwight. So we might get future skins that steal the features of other DBD characters.

[spookyface]

I find it awesome that he is one of the few killers that is not manipulated while also not being their by choice. In fact a lot of the dialog he says doesnt seem to be him mimicing and instead what he actually wants to say. Prime example is "I the nameless legend"

[GhostHunter-lmtv]

So glad that BHVR finally added the most terrifying killer concept of all: The Discord Mod

[kimberlyterasaki]

Here's my explanation for the OSS timeline issue: this chapter secretly takes place in the world of Spy Kids, where the OSS is still a functioning organization into at least the 2010s.

[BasementDweller_]

I love how the killer is inspired by Urban Legends, Carpenters remake version of The Thing, and a Fleshgait.

[imscared]

14:40 I guess you could say that if Olivia was to publish her findings the Unknown would be...
*Dead by Daylight.*

[ttomatic]

I think the timeline discrepancy with the OSS was an intentional choice to show the fictional nature of the Unknown. Lots of real life urban legends have timeline discrepancies because they’re made up events and thus can’t get all of the details right. For example, details about the Polybius urban legend typically mention its subliminal messaging effects came through splicing in frames so fast that they wouldn’t be noticeable to the human eye, despite frame rates like that being impossible with 1981 technology. The OSS story, in universe, could be explained by someone just trying to make it sound spooky and old without really considering the full historical implications of what they’re saying. Or Behaviour could have just fucked up the dates lol

[ThePoisonLotus]

Also, the term "Analog Horror" was coined by Local58, iirc.

Their Channel Intro had the phrase "analog horror in 58hz", and since Local58 was kinda the grandfather of the new wave of what we now know as Analog Horror, it's kinda credited to them.

[julietheghost]

My favorite detail about Mr Nolan is that the weakened status effect it gives you is more representative of mentally weakening you rather than physically. This is signified by the voice it mimics becoming much clearer to survivors when weakened rather than the reality of its mimicry being shaky at best. When you fear it and your mind is weak, that's when it will truly have its way with you.

[hypenoir]

The fact that this coincides with that terrible Willy Wonka “experience” in Glasgow having its villain be The Unknown is so funny and strange to me…

[KennyCarter]

RIP to Zoey Alexandria (The Unknown's VA) she did such an amazing and terrifying job voicing The Unknown.

She passed too early as the chapter has only been out for a few months, but she'll be "The Nameless Legend" of both Male and Female voices for The Unknown.

1994-2024, Only 29.

RIP Queen 👑 😪🫡🥺

[tavinprice]

The idea of The Unknown being what inspired the creation of The Dredge is the coolest theory I've ever heard for this game

[slush]

I KNEW THIS STORY WAS LINKED TO THE DREDGE! I was literally just ranting last night to a friend of mine about how I theorized that The Dredge and The Unknown were probably linked in some way through the Trinitarian/Overlaps in some way. Their stories were treated the exact way, right down to being told through the eyes of someone else and only being revealed at the end as something that isn't just a story: It's something realer than just fiction. I just knew they had to be connected in some way and I'm really happy to hear you think it's similar.

[thdimensionthsense]

I would say the UVX while it doesn't match the theme does kinda match what it directly is in its current form imo. From its odd jointless movements, to the way its skin seems to be almost too much for what's actually in there with so many loose flaps of skin, to the mori alot seems to point to the Unknown being a collection of fleshy tendrils wearing a human skin suit. The UVX is just one of the tendrils launching a projectile. While it probably is still a fear entity it could be that it's more specifically the tendrils as a fear entity itself but the skin suit is just whatever it's victim pictured it as. It's literally putting on the shape of whatever you understand it to be

[nowlot]

I found some very intereresting lore theories on the dbd subreddit: They talked about the unknown being created and also shaped by the fears of the people. The unknown is imagined as a human and it takes the shape of a human, etc. And because of all this shaping the unknown suffers and therefore kills those that created it, the humans. That also plays in drawing = manifesting. I think it is very interesting to see the intention, why it kills and it is an explanation to its origin. The theory is very similar to yours, but I think this shaping and turining a neutral looming thing into a monster throught their imagination is amazing.

[nocturn]

I really hope that the tome for the unknown is just a bunch of SCP/FBC style documents about the Unknown from the perspective of the OSS