The Life and Times of Bill Overbeck | Dead by Daylight Lore Deep Dive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- You can find the Bill lore in full here: docs.google.co...
Welcome, friends and foes, Survivors and Killers. Today we'll be talking about a legendary Survivor from Behaviour's first game collaboration: Left 4 Dead's Bill Overbeck! We'll be talking about his role in DBD's history and discussing the ups and downs of his new Tome story, The Long Way Home.
Got any suggestions for things you want me to discuss? Leave a comment and I'll add it to my list!
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to be honest, the long way home's writing style is perfectly emblematic of bill's life.
fucking _rough_
This lore actually kinda hurts, cause Louis is my favorite L4D character.
Peeeeelz here!
@@richardfitzwell4618 Lmao I remember those old YTPs, actually what got me started on L4D!
@@richardfitzwell4618 grgrgrgrgrgrgabbing pills! I love Louis
Same
@@loganrose7781 In all honestly, I'm kinda pissed that Louis, Coach and Nick got the shaft in DBD. All 3 are some of my favorite of the L4D gang.
I mean: Adam is perfect for Louis' skins,
Felix is perfect for Nick's skin
and it's not like they can't rework Adam's body or just give him the clothing, cause it's not like Jake Park fits Francis' body type either (unlike David's, who'd have been a much better choice.)
As someone who really likes left 4 deads soundtrack I love that you added music from its soundtrack
Hey now that he’s in the entities realm and the zombies are there two from resident evil he could fight more zombies
gotta love the dobro.
"Babe wake up, pixel uploaded"
Literally did the same thing she fell back asleep after
You absolutely hit the nail on the head with this one.
As a huge Left 4 Dead fan, I was very excited to see Bill’s past, since that seemed to be the direction we were going in.
At first I really liked the callbacks to the game, but as the story went on (and the writing got weirder) it really took me out of it. ESPECIALLY Bill realizing that they were carriers this early on. Zoey kicking the bandit in the ands so hard that he died and turned was a great hint at them being carriers, but Bill shouldn’t have been able to put two and two together at that point.
I did think it was a nice touch for Bill to be so jaded about the military being able to help them all, considering his life experience; I only wish we had delved into that a little further with a tome taking place during his two tours.
And poor Louis gets the short end of the stick once again; BHVR, you should fix this by adding in a Louis, Coach and Nick cosmetics for new survivors post-haste ;)
Personally, it would make sense for Bill out of all four to realize it, himself; but yeah, not right away. Eventually, not right away.
Dude, I would pay so much money for a Coach cosmetic.
@@LochlanYT same, he is a one man cheeseburger apocalypse after all.
I love L4D bill I fucking hate DBD bill cause of that god DAMNED COUGHING DAMN YOU BEHAVIOR WHY DID YOU MAKE HIM COUGH SO MUCH HE MIGHT SMOKE A LOT BUT THAT MAN DOESN’T COUGH THAT HARD
as someone who used to be obssessed with left 4 dead, this entire story hurts my soul.
as someone equally invested in L4D, I couldn't agree more
as someone who grew up with L4D I also agree.
Why?
Yessir
Parents: dont stay up too late you have school in the morning
Me: mk
*uploads
Me:nevermind im not sleeping until midnight
Bill.. Look how they massacred my boy. I just think that they literally changed every idea and it started with changing Bill's cosmetic on the cover of archive. Then they tried to change everything as soon as they can and of course they ended very badly. Thanks for telling us all of this, thanks for making dbd more enjoyable.
Bill's quotes in DBD:
*The Oni*
"Oh, quit your cryin', ya big bitch!"
[To Survivors] "There's going to be hell to pay if you don't stop pissing him off!"
[Seeing the Survivor getting his/her just rewards for pissing off the Oni] "You are an idiot."
[When Yamaoka's Wrath is activated] "Oh shit, he's about to blow!"
[When Yamaoka's Wrath is activated] "Everybody move, he is mad as hell!"
[Upon beating the Oni] "Sayōnara, you big, ugly bastard!"
*The Clown*
"I hate clowns..."
[When the Clown throws a bottle] "INCOMING!"
[Upon getting hit by the Clown's bottle] "(coughing) GODDAMMIT! SON OF A BITCH!"
"Go to hell, you fat mother...!"
[To Survivors] "Look alive, Clown's snooping around here."
"Ah, hell, I'm being followed by some fat idiot in a clown outfit!"
[Getting chased by the Clown] "I got a god damn Clown on my ass! RUN!"
"Looks like the circus is in town."
[Upon defeating the Clown] "Eat shit, Bozo!"
*The Deathslinger*
[Getting chased by the Deathslinger] "Move! move! move!"
[Upon being hit by the Deathslinger's Redeemer] NO! NO! NO! Noooooooo!"
[To Survivors] "Watch your ass!"
[Being chased by the Deathslinger] "Ah shit, he's after me!"
"Cowboy's right around here someplace!"
[Upon defeating the Deathslinger] "You have a nice day."
Dialogue:
Nea: "You think one day it's all just gonna go back to normal?"
Bill: "I'll see peace back on earth if I gotta murder every one of these bastards with my bare goddamn hands."
Nea: "Hell yeah. That's what I'm talkin' about."
Bill: "Damn straight."
David: "What if your beard starts to come alive and try to kill us? Can I stab that?"
Bill: "You know who's gonna survive this mess, David? It ain't the fellow makin' jokes."
I’d love if BHVR hires you to write the lore. You clearly have talent in analysis and passion to really give these characters well thought out arcs!
This is probably what came down:
Valve: We're doing nothing with Bill right now, you guys can do whatever as long as you don't monetize him for profit.
BHVR: Okay. * proceeds to write an interesting lore about his days in Vietnam *
Valve: HOW DARE YOU TRY TO MAKE HIM MORE INTERESTING THAN WE DO!!! STOP THIS NOW AND WRITE SOMETHING THAT'S FROM HIS TIME IN LEFT 4 DEAD!!! Also... KEEP HIM OLD WITH THE COSMETIC!!!
BHVR: Oh man....
I just realized the name of the left for dead franchise is (only because I’ve never seen the first game.) what the 2nd games whole entire story is about.
4 people left 4 dead.
"Some licences seem to be very generous with what they let Behaviour do, such as Stranger Things"
This aged about as well as milk.
Yo never been this early love this stuff, you’re the best lore guy around
If any tome lore was written by someone outside of BHVR it's probably Bills...
Imagine scrolling down through the comments and seeing mine
Imagine
Not possible
Impossible
It's a shame, since there is a lot of potential with the Vietnam setting for a character (as most survivors are roughly the same age, having one from that era is rare). I would understand why Valve wouldn't want it, but they really shouldn't advertise that if they won't deliver.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought his writing lacked. I do hope that maybe before it goes live there will be a tweak or two, but... I have my doubts. Bill deserved better after what a damn hero he's always been.
I think Bill should get his own map and killer one day even if it takes a couple more years
Same
imagine it's No Mercy apartments but with The Hunter or idk, The Tank or heck maybe even have the special infected be like costumes for the other killers
If I remember correctly Louis worked as an IT guy, after work would go to the shooting range and knows how to make pipe bombs. I might be wrong though.
Louis was the one who showed them how to create the pipebombs in the first place so you're completely accurate
I've been waiting for this ever since your Plague vid
Kinda wished they added beta bill's outfit as a cosmetic and his own menu theme. Justice for Bill
Isnt merry christmas supposed to be about how all soldiers expect to be home by christmas but alas, christmas has come and the war is not over, so after gunning down an enemy on christmas, you wish them a ‘merry Christmas’
I think the theory that the tome was edited last-minute is extremely likely to be the case. Even fans of Left for Dead can recognize that this is little more than lazy pandering and fanfiction, and it's such a shame to see Bill done so dirty. If I had to guess, I'd say that Valve most likely wanted to keep the backstory of Bill and other characters open for possible future content (as unlikely as L4D3 is at this point), and thus axed the advertised Vietnam story.
That being said, I wouldn't take this as an indication of the quality of future licenced tomes or use this as evidence that BHVR can't write stories for existing characters. If they were forced to change their plans, they can hardly be blamed for the story turning out trash.
Keep doing what you're doing my dude, I absolutely love your videos.
Imagine young Bill running around
Believe it or not, I think Louis is definitely more equipped than everyone besides Bill. He's very liberal in his beliefs but loves his guns... making him an easy target to bully before the outbreak. He actually showed the group how to make pipe bombs and such and went to the gun range very often. I love the video but just wanted to insert that little bit of info.
As someone who mains Louis in l4d and l4d2 I was pissed off when they didn't do shit with him or maybe not I havent finish Bill's story
It really feels like the chain of production that goes into Archives wasn't directed by somebody who cared about, maybe not even someone who's ever played Left 4 Dead, and they just skimmed The Sacrifice once and went on to try and make something about it.
I mean, the Archive cutscene depicts the Infected like traditional Romero zombies, and has a Tank go down to a couple of melee swings to the back. It feels like a foreign bootleg of Left 4 Dead that got access to the official license.
As one of the only five Jake mains who exist, Lets hope BHVR doesn't mess up like they did here and screw us over.
Trust me, I still see Jakes out there. Hardly any Ash players though as I learned the hard way that Killers seem to go for Ash first.
When L4D came out, I was instantly drawn to Bill or Zoey. They have great charisma and also the chemistry works with them. And when Bill died in THAT one chapter it dragged me down. Man is a goddamn savage for going to work on that last gen so that his people can get away. Not to mention that he battled through zombies while being basically drugged for a surgery, lol. How can you not love Bill?
I kinda also wished that they would have continued with the franchise. Valve apparently cannot count to three, lol.
Team Fortress 3, L4D3, Portal 3, Half-Life 3. . .Valve can’t count to three. And how far they’ve fallen, you remember the Orange Box? Probably the most legendary drop in video game history, containing Portal, one of the most popular puzzle games, Half-Life 2, an amazing game, and Valve’s crown jewel, TF2, the best FPS game ever made.
It should have been a story that flashes back to build surviving being left behind in Vietnam to really show that he's not just a soldier but he's a survivor through and through and he flashes back to it as he's fighting off zombies. There could be a cool scene where he comes across a village that's been burned and he tries his hardest to help and maybe a section where he has to crawl through Viet Cong tunnels very horror like.
My main finally got some love ^^
As a huge fan of L4D, I can definitely agree with quite a few of your criticisms with this tome. I agree the writing (in terms of grammar) is below average, and the references Bill makes to being immune retcons this being found out in The Sacrifice comic instead, but I didn't really see a problem with the origin of the "Merry Christmas" line and Louis' lack of involvement. They're both very true to the original games and as Bill says in Entry 2
"This isn't about a line. It's about who's in charge"
Bill and Francis constantly fight each other throughout L4D1, and it's stupid stuff like that that the fans love.
Lastly, I highly doubt that the story was rewritten and was originally gonna be a Vietnam story. Yes, the trailer shows that, but think about other trailers. Tome 2 showed it was gonna be about Spirit's Dad being abusive to her and her mother, and Tome 3 looked like it was going to be about Huntress as a child with her mother. Neither of these things happen in their tomes.
Therefore, I believe this was always the plan for Tome 7. We learn in the last entry for Bill that he doesn't trust the government because of his time in Vietnam, which we saw in the trailer. Yeah, a war story would've been cool, but this is good too IMO.
I'd give this story a 7.5-8/10
I always look forward to your new lore videos. Whenever I see it uploaded I make sure I have nothing else happening so I can put my full attention towards soaking in your thoughts :D
As flawed as the tome lore may be, reading it was still one of the only things in a long time to make me feel a decade younger and it was nice to be on a small nostalgia trip
Now I'm addicted to your videos, this ones was a really interesting one. Love it!
P.D: That background music gave chills, I'm genuinely scared rn lol
That title sums up pretty much the entire reason why I play Bill.
Honestly looking currently dbd now, we need either the old l4ds to have a redo and be made into lengendary skins with there own unique voices.
And honestly i would love to see nick as a unique survivor and add coach and louis skins
Man I can't believe they stuck Louis out ta dry like that. His mention of videogames doesn't come up all too much, and I'm sure the person who wrote it doesn't know Louis was a dedicated worker who went to the gun range after work or on weekends
imagine other licenced archives, idk they could do original "what if" stories for some of em maybe we could get something like a young ash williams skin.
Ash's character is owned by multiple studios and the version was got for DBD is the TV Series version of him. They would need go get the okay from whoever currently owns the original Army of Darkness/Evil Dead license to do anything with Young Ash. They might be able to get some sort of crossover promotion for that new Evil Dead game coming out this year.
@@caldw615 a guy can dream right?
Ya know the killers were sweating when bill was announced
I'm betting valve axed the original tome so they had the chance to expand the backstory themselves whenever gabe figures out how to count to 3
I think they were afraid to touch a lot on the L4D lore because it’s such a beloved franchise.
Bill being able to walk off anesthesia and fight his way back to his house, grab his rifle and later get his group to safety only to get killed by a horde but take a lot with him shows how powerful he is
Also Bill should've had his Tome be in Vietnam or at least show how he got his knee injury in Vietnam
This just in: Old man yells at zombies
Just a quick thought, what if the “lt feels like fighting a crazy surgeon in the fog” is a jab at the idea that Bill may have ptsd or something along the lines and he mistook that moment in the comics where he went for an operation as another time that he was in Nam? Just a thought
always the best channel to see a good deep dive lore:)) thanks for the hard work
Poor Amanda getting the shit beat out of her by bill, David, and ash at the same time
I was very surprised bill's archive wasn't about his time in nam...
you know... would francis take a line from bill just to try and get in his head? yes. but why would bill care so much? I really don't get that part...
i feel like licensed archives should focus on how the survivor acts in the entity's realm not explain their backstory as we already know it from their own shows/games
i wanna know like how the pig designs her traps or how she acts in a trial because despite trials being a important part of the gameplay
we know not that much about how they work lore wise and i would love to see them explore how the killers and survivors act in the trials by them using licensed characters to explore that
like Cheryl archive could be her, kate, adam, and meg vs trapper or hag or any non licensed killer so they could show how all of these non licensed characters plus how the licensed character acts during a trial
I do think Bill’s story could’ve used a bit more substance but I disagree that it was awful. I was a huge L4D and L4D2 fan back around the time of their respective releases. I felt I few minor changes could’ve been added to enhance it but I thought it was still ok. For instance, the “beaucoup funny, beaucoup fierce” line. On the surface, it may seem a bit out of place. Like, Why tf is Bill speaking French? Well it’s because he learned French during his time in ‘Nam as it use to be a French colony. Sort of alluding to the fact that though he me be in Pennsylvania at the moment, part of him will always be back in Vietnam. It is a bit ham-handed I’ll give you that, but it does both cement that idea I had of Bill back in 08 as well as add on to why he’s so protective of Zoey. But Francis shoulda hit Bill with an “I hate Christmas” before stealing the line. _That_ would of made the tome at least 200% better tbf. That fact that Francis never says “ I hate “ anything honestly is what pulled me out of it because Francis hates everything. Waiting to read that iconic line and never getting it was frustrating.
I genuinely feel like the tome had decent intentions, but just such a poor execution. The original art of the new cosmetics showed him as a younger self, yet… he’s still old? He should’ve gotten an outfit of his proper younger self of the photo he had when serving in Nam. As for the story? It’s rough and all over the place and is kinda offensive in my opinion. I love Bill, I love that old bastard to death but it’s just such a disservice. The outfit he got wasn’t even what the Vietnam soldier wore at the time, and he didn’t even have that much facial hair at the time, like what the actual hell. I want another tome for bill because this first one was so god damn rough and out of touch with VALVe’s character.
I think Bubba also has some potential for a tome. Behavior was approached for him after all and it would be neat to see them tackle something like the 10 years between Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1 and 2, maybe his outfit for the tome could even be the 2 Tuxedo. Though if I could pick any cosmetics for Leatherface it would probably be his three outfit. For some reason that leg brace looks really cool to me. Never even seen 3, probably never will.
I’ve been waiting for a clown story for so long so I hope it’s good
I realize this is a 3 year old video, but Bill saying beaucoup makes sense. It became popular army slang during vietnam due to the countries history of french colonization. My great uncle served in vietnam, and he would always use beaucoup when he meant something was big or there was a lot of something. I've been active duty for about 6 years now and i sometimes run into older NCOs that still say it because their leaders, when they were at my level, had been older vietnam vets.
Wait I caught this in the hour it posted? Cool!
Bill and Ash and even Laurie are too kickass for the game.
Looking at the Moon at the beginning, it makes me wonder if the devs change it from white to blue on nights of blue Moons
why does his outfit look desert storm esc and not Vietnam esc? Could they have not just searched up an actual Vietnam green beret uniform for reference on google?
I might be biased because I main Danny but I really think his story will be the best liscenced tome. He’s the only one that doesn’t have a prerequisite for what needs to be in the story, the team have absolute creative freedom over him
Plus I hope they give him a journalist or reporter skin
@Stevean2 Ghostface
Yes !
I love playing as bill !
I'm interested in all future content! I also hope that Behavior does better writing the licensed characters. They deserve that level of respect! I have to admire how much of a badass Bill is as well. Like, wow! Drugged, wounded, and only using a bonesaw, he cut through the infected like nothing! Dude is amazing, and Sally would be proud lol.
never played any of the games, even I saw how stilted the prose was. It felt like a constant stopping and starting of flow. Even though the tomes are segmented into pieces, it always felt like one naturally follows the other like a literary River. This one is really jolting all over, even in the middle of the sections. I’m going with the theory that they were going to do a story in ‘nam, showing a more darker side of Bill than just “cool zombie apocalypse grandpa” into the logical conclusion of a man shaped and built for war, for battle, someone who simply isn’t content in a peaceful life. We made jokes on the server that the Bill time was gonna be “The wacky misadventures of Bill committing war crimes” but judging by this, I think they actually had something like that written but had to scrap it bc Valve did not approve of the more grim perspective on their own character. Sadge.
Let’s go I’ve been waiting for this video to drop
Although I can definitely thoroughly agree with the point that we weren't shown what was actually presented in the reveal trailer versus in game, I do think that the reveal trailers have always been a little divergent of the actual content of that tome. I think gleaming examples include Tome 2, depicting a family conflict in Spirit's story. It would've been nice if they'd atleast tell us we'd get the apocalypse story rather than show us his war days but I can somewhat see where they have done this in the past before, just not so blatantly.
Honestly I'm super down for something with Cheryl or pyramid head and maybe down the line Amanda
One character I thought would have gone perfectly with Bill would be Nick.
He could be like a legendary skin for Bill to switch to Nick. Not only would he talk, but he would have his voice sampled from Left 4 dead 2. I would like it because Nick was always my favorite character in Left 4 dead. I kinda wish we got more of Left 4 dead in Dead by daylight.
What a bummer for fans of Bill
it might be fan fiction but seeing as how bill in the games story is dead and so is his voice actor and on top of valve no longer making games period ill take this fan fiction over every thing else but i do agree i would have liked the younger bill skin and Vietnam story more also just discovered your channel and loving it so far
I feel weird because I say "Merry Christmas" to people all the time like if they are surprised by something unexpected or gets some unexpected news. I kind of use it sarcastically. Like I accidently lead the killer to where my friend was and they were down and all I said was "Merry Christmas". I don't know if that's what the context is but that's what it made me think of.
Friends: Hey :D
Foes: Oh you acknowledge me?
Friends: *SHUT YOUR MOUTH*
Ok because of this vid. I want the next license lore to be Demogorgon. Imagine this involves The Demogorgon interacting in the entity's realm a possibly fighting one of the killers like Trapper or Hillbilly.
As a Jonathan main, I am sorry :(
I cried at bills death
Now he can yell at zombies when nemi is the killer
See i like left for dead as a person who played it as a kid and didnt care at all about the story. But bill is my favorite character glad to see his content in dbd even if it kinda blows
Honestly the developers should add witch as a killer and a map is the sacrifice map that would be totally amazing and minus adding more left 4 dead cosmetics as Ace = Nick Louis= Adam Coach = Vasquez
Charlotte and Victor together would be like facing a Charger and a Jockey together
Armed Bill could pull it off but it’s unlikely
Oh hay 1 year later and guess what? We have a ghostface tomb!
You could say they didn’t deliver on what they....BILLED up 😎
Duel wielding bone Saws 😂 damn I know the Nurse had to be wet after hearing about this lol
"Some licenses like Stranger Things have been very generous with BHVR."
OOOF. That aged like a moonlight offering.
MADE MY DAY
a new update idea: what if they give bill a pistol or the m16
Beaucoup fierce, is bill french now?
Oh buddy. You need to watch full metal jacket =)) (vietnam war movie)
Parts of vietnam were indeed under french control at some point ^^
I am super happy that Bill is in Dead by Daylight, but i would have absolutely loved Ellis.
Listening him tell stories about his friend Keith to survivors while repairing generators, or while being hooked by a killer would be funny as shit.
yeah im not gonna lie when i first saw the trailer for tome 7 i thought the exact same thing like “holy shit bill in nam thats gonna be awesome” and then its in the apocalypse
yeah i was disappointed and even the fact that the story itself didn’t add anything new made it even worse
14:15 aged well.
wonder if someone would make a killer based off alex mercer hes interesting
Yesssss Billiam lore
I was hoping the skin for bill would age him down like the trailer
I played Bill when I started, but stopped because I got annoyed at how different his voice was
Bill is king it took 3 tanks and a horde to kill him and he still lit them on fire plus i bet he could beat ash and prob would treat Cheryl like Zoey he is a good man just how he is you in his group he will die for you if your not he will leave u.
2:58 Uhhh, could you repeat that please?
He died restarting a generator now he’s fixing more generators
Bill should be able to outright kill nemesis zombies with like a guitar
No, a Frying Pan.
Nemesis can tank RPGs tho.
The man that can smoke forever 🚬
My complaint: I wish Grandpa Bill had more outfits. That is all.
I'm still waiting on them to be released again, I didn't play during his Tome so the only alternative I have is the ugly Christmas sweater.
@@MarioKaiba I LOVE his ugly Christmas sweater but yeah that is the only thing I have too and I've been playing the game since about when it came out I think.
French bit could lean he lives so far north by Canda or so southern by-U boy
Dead doing gens, waking up doing gens again
i wished they released a legendary hunter skin for legion or demogorgon