On August 8th 2023, when the Alien ptb went live it was revealed that the survivor would be Ellen Ripley. Unfortunately, she did not have the likeness of Sigourney Weaver. As a massive Alien and Sigourney fan, this felt terrible. My dream survivor was in my favorite game yet they messed her up terribly. Her face is very low quality and her proportions of her body were WAY off. I am someone who usually loves everything that bhvr makes, and I genuinely mean it. The art team there is comprised by some of the most creative people in the business, but I can't even defend this. Not only did Dead by Daylight mess up the most iconic final girl, but they destroyed the chance of having an incredible female representation in the cast of survivors. Sigourney Weaver is a huge feminist icon but her character Ripley takes it to the next level. Ripley is a Strong, independent woman who doesn't take shit from anyone. Ripley is more then a Final girl, or just a female lead, in fact she changed both of those roles forever. Ripley at the time was one of the first fit and taller woman to be in a horror and sci-fi movie, and all of this was helped by  the presence of Sigourney Weaver. She is brave but not fearless, a strong person, but not a heartless one. We could have had all of this represented in dead by daylight, instead we got some random woman dressed in Ripley's clothing. Something that the developers failed to understand is that Sigourney Weaver is Ripley, she was the spark to ignite the flame. Without her, there would be no Ellen Ripley. Another element to consider is how often does a player even see someone play as Ripley in game? I bet that Ripley is easily one of the least played survivors in the entire game. I hate to say it but a huge reason for this is because she looks generic and not like Sigourney. People don't want to play the generic Ripley we got, they want the badass Sigourney Weaver, she took this character from a script to life.

Since we are done with the "heart to heart" part, lets talk about the reason why I am creating this. If you ask most people what their least favorite part of the alien chapter is, or at least what they fumbled, they will say Ripley not having a proper likeness. My main goal for this petition is to change that. If you want me to be completely honest, there is probably a 5% chance this will actually do something but I don't care. 5% is good enough to have my favorite game fix my favorite fictional character.

Of course lets get to the legal aspect. We will most likely never know why we don't have Sigourney Weaver's likeness, so we can only guess. The main two reasons I would guess are; 1. they straight up didn't ask, or 2. it was too much money. I personally find it very hard to believe that Sigourney would say no to this, especially since her likeness is in Fortnite. I would love to remind everyone that Sigourney weaver supports gun control AND has said in a interview she is fine with violent video games. Lets get back to the two reasons. I think it's good to bring up that that bhvr has a past of not asking permission for likeness, such as Laurie, Quentin, Tapp, Amanda Young, and possibly the parents from the Ringu. Plus she doesn't seem to be as close to Alien compared to Brad Dourif or Jennifer Tilly, which is why they were able to voice Chucky and Tiffany in the game. It is also worth to mention that ghost Charles Lee Ray does not look that much like Brad Dourif. The only reason why Ash, Steve, Nancy, and Alan Wake have a correct likeness is because they work closely with their franchise and probably have their likeness in a contract. For the second reason, they have two options for the character, think of it as X and Y. X is the rights to the character and Y is the rights to the likeness. Both are not cheap, so it looks like bhvr just went with option X. Please remember that doing both is possible, but perhaps Fortnite is a bigger company, they got her likeness. Bhvr may not be as big as Epic Games yet they certainly are nowhere near small. So something like this should be possible to pull off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally since I should make this clear, I don't care if this blows up or not. It could get 1000 signs or even 10. I am very passionate about Ripley and I want to change how Dead by Daylight is portrayed. My plan is a week before Alien day (April 26th), I will email this petition to Bhvr, Disney, and Sigourney Weaver, no matter how many signs this petition gets. Also I do NOT condone any harassment of the Dead by Daylight developers, Disney, or Sigourney Weaver. Have a wonderful day everyone and thank you for even just bothering to read this.