YMMV / Evil Dead: The Game

• And You Thought It Would Fail: The game's initial reception was lukewarm at best, given its nature as a tie-in project and not-so-creative name, with its asymmetric multiplayer model being similar to several other such titles like Friday the 13th: The Game or Dead by Daylight, the former of which was shut down due to a legal dispute, and the latter being considered to be its strongest competitor. This got turned on its head when promotional media were released to herald its publishing, and the game itself received a lot of praise due to the sheer level of fan service it provides, and the surprisingly engaging gameplay that shocked many skeptics, which further boosts Evil Dead: The Game onto a pedestal due to the popularity of Dead by Daylight and its other competitors being on the downturn at the same time.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Survivors:
    • Given the rampant possession spam meta that came about shortly after the game's release, Hunter Ash has become an almost mandatory part of groups that don't want to be rushed down by possessed mobs as soon as the match began. As infernal energy is extremely vital for a Kandarian Demon to possess and maintain its units, being able to instantly deny a high-price unit would be a massive nuisance, especially after the nerfs to this kind of activity of the Army of Darkness update.
    • When it comes to Warriors, Henry the Red proves himself to be the best pick. His active skill allows him to engage bosses without much difficulty or revive fallen teammates, while his extremely long health and shield bars make him a powerful tank who is practically unkillable if fully buffed with Pink F.
    • Although initially considered to be a low-tier character, Ed Getley has also become a core member of many groups, due to his Treasure Hunter passive that causes more high-quality chests to appear simply by being in the match. His active skill has also been made much easier to effectively use in the months following the game's release, which can shut down many of the Demon's traps and render the infernal energy put into them wasted.
    • Annie Knowby quickly became a must-bring for largely the same reasons as Hunter Ash, since her Slugger and Haymaker passives are highly important for bringing down the Break Meter of enemy units, especially possessed ones.
    • To round out the group composition, Cheryl Williams is the best Support anyone could ask for due to her extremely strong healing capabilities despite having been nerfed a few times. As a result, it has become extremely common to see players insta-locking Cheryl as soon as they enter the lobby, to combat the high health drain potential of many Evil units.
  • Demons:
    • The Warlord was far and away the strongest pick for the Evil side, as described numerous times on this page alone. Prior to the Castle Kandar update, such was Henrietta's popularity and broken-ness that basically every match will see the Survivors being pitted against a Warlord, who will more often than not destroy them within the first few minutes of the game.
    • The Necromancer is the next best thing after the Warlord, mostly due to his Irreparable Damage upgrade that completely shuts down all healing on a targeted Survivor for a few seconds. After the many nerfs to possession that rendered the Warlord a bit weaker than at her prime, the Evil meta has somewhat transitioned to a Necromancer-dominated one.
    • The Puppeteer, who has been lagging behind the other demons, received a huge buff to his Possession mechanic that makes his Basic units unbelievable strong, and as such, he's become the most picked Demon ever since the September 2022 update.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The numerous Ashes have the first letter of their class imposed on their name to differentiate them. (Lash, Wash, Hash, and Sash for Leader, Warrior, Hunter, and Support respectively.)
  • Baal is often referred to either Bill or Billy by the community. If not, then it's usually Ozzy due to his resemblance to Ozzy Osbourne.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Army of Darkness Ash was widely regarded as one of the best survivors in the game at launch due to his strong, self-sufficient kit, to the point that people rage quit lobbies when someone else picked him first.
  • Cheryl is far and away the strongest Support in the game healing-wise despite the early nerfs to her kit. Not only does she have the most reliable group heal in the game that doesn't involve any kind of additional gimmick beyond standing in the green circle, a good Cheryl player is a walking cooler of Shemp's Cola that you can rely on for supply hauling, and when she herself drinks a can, everybody around her will get a massive chunk of their health back, on top of having their fear levels reduced.
  • Henrietta Knowby quickly became popular among Evil mains due to her Really Bad Influence aura and strong kit that benefits a playstyle involving possessed Deadites. While the standard Deadites themselves are already quite strong compared to the equivalents in Eligos and Evil Ash's armies, when possessed and under the effects of a max-level Really Bad Influence, a low-level trash mob becomes a rampaging juggernaut capable of stunlocking players to death, while completely shutting down all manners of retaliation for a few seconds with their vomit attack, while benefiting from a complete No-Sell of balance bar damage. With the right upgrades, a Warlord player can demolish entire groups of Survivors with a basic Deadite alone, and Warlords don't just settle for individual mooks, without even needing to spawn in Henrietta herself.
  • After the June 2022 update, a level 25 Ed Getley has become a staple of the game, basically becoming a Legendary Crate vending machine. Paired with the right upgrades, he can become a one-man army backed by powerful allies armed to the teeth with Legendary weapons.
• High-Tier Scrappy:
  • On the opposite end of the tier list, Henrietta Knowby is deeply loathed by many players due to how easy it is to turn her into a Game-Breaker. Whereas Evil Ash relies on brute force and Zerg Rushing to overwhelm Survivors, and Eligos has several gimmicks to utilize, Henrietta and her mooks just hit like a train, on top of their disturbingly high health and survivability due to a bevy of health gain abilities. The basic Deadite minion is deceptively the strongest unit in her employ with its nasty puke attack, which does high damage on top of staggering anyone it hits and disabling their core maneuverability skills for a few seconds, thus all but completely disallowing them to fight back. With the right upgrades, Deadite units boast extremely fast attack spamming that can stun-lock a victim to death, insanely high health pool that puts bosses to shame, and complete No-Sell of balance bar damage, allowing them to easily out-damage an entire group of Survivors hacking at them without breaking a sweat. Neither of the other demons can pull off the feat of wiping out a full group of kitted-out, max-level Survivors with a basic mook, just to show how broken she is. Throwing Henrietta herself into the mix just further ramps up the frustration. While the Army of Darkness patch did away with most of her early-game potential, namely by jacking up the costs for possessing units and level-gating that ability until around mid-game, she can still bulldoze the Survivor groups later on during the defensive stages (i.e. defending the Necronomicon, collecting the pages and the dagger) since they cannot physically run away to avoid her attacks.
  • While not very often played early on during the game's initial months, Annie Knowby has steadily been climbing up the tier list mainly due to her Slugger and Haymaker talents alone. As Evil units tend to boast higher Break Meter resistances the longer the game goes on, and Demon players usually invest a lot of points into making their units even sturdier that way while not focusing on pure health nearly as much, having a Survivor who is essentially a walking Damage-Increasing Debuff dispenser who does her job by just being there is a massive boon to groups. Slugger and Haymaker are universally useful regardless of whether you're a melee-wielding Warrior or a gun-toting Hunter, and with Annie on your team, Evil units will become much more vulnerable to executions, and boss units to stuns because of how the balance bar works. As a knock-on effect, Demon players will almost always try to rush Annie down first if they can, to alleviate the pressure she will potentially have on them.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • The Crossbow is generally considered to be a very lackluster weapon despite its high stopping power. For one, it's a projectile weapon unlike the other firearms which are hitscan, meaning that the bolts have a noticeable travel time and thus can be easily dodged, further made worse if you happen to have high latency. For two, it's a single-shot weapon with a long reload that's easily interruptible, so missed shots will be even more punishing than with other firearms, and using it in a scuffle can be very frustrating if the enemies are relentless with their attacks. It's not at all uncommon to see players picking lower-tier guns while ignoring even Legendary crossbows completely in matches for these reasons. Ed is really the only person that can benefit from them, but even then his weapon mastery applies to explosive and repeater crossbows, leaving very little reason to pick the vanilla option if either of the other two are available.
  • Of the four Ash variants, Support Ash isn't very popular among players due to the wonky gimmicks of his skills compared to Cheryl, David and Pablo's Simple, yet Awesome kits. His over-reliance on damage for healing was ostensibly meant to encourage an Attack! Attack! Attack! play style among his group, but his abilities are split down the middle in terms of buffing either melee or ranged classes for rather little, instead of focusing strongly on one aspect, making his non-Shemp heals very lackluster regardless of group composition. Worse still is that his Marked Target passives only work if the other people in your group can reliably nail headshots. He received some helpful buffs that allowed his healing to be more consistent and versatile, but The Blacksmith has become the go-to melee support thanks to his weapon mastery skills. As a result, Support Ash has been left as something of a master-of-none.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Burn 'Em Down", the song that plays in the "Out of Tricks" mission, sounds very similar to Stone Temple Pilots' "Sex Type Thing".
• That One Attack:
  • Survivors:
    • Kelly's Slipshot can be a major nuisance to Demon players who don't know how to deal with it, due to the ability giving her practically infinite dodges for a few seconds, and every gun shot causes a lot of bleed damage, which can quickly melt Boss units if she is allowed to keep up the pressure.
    • Hunter Ash's Exorcist skill is also a large frustration factor for Evil players who like to Possess a lot, due to its ability to instantly knock them out of that state and wipe away a huge chunk of their infernal energy at the same time. The only silver lining to this is its rather long cooldown time, which prevents the Ash player from simply spamming it on any Possessed thing they see.
  • Evil:
    • The Warlord's basic Deadites has access to the deceptively strong puke attack, which deals both insane amounts of damage to both health and shield, can also cause the victim's Fear to skyrocket and also disabling their ability to fight back for a few seconds. Worse still, the vomit can hit and affect several Survivors at once if they happen to be close to each other, leaving them vulnerable to attacks from other sources, and there's nothing stopping the Demon player from simply hopping between many of these units and keep puking at their targets until they go down.
    • The Necromancer's attacks aren't anything impressive, but his sword slashes become this with the Irreparable Damage upgrade, which completely denies healing on the afflicted target(s) for a short while, allowing him to simply power through entire groups like a scythe through wheat when accompanied by his units.
    • Possession and Demon Dash are available to every demon and are incredibly annoying to deal with under certain circumstances. Both of these happening to a survivor interrupts what they're doing, interrupting important actions like healing or rescuing another survivor. Possession also effectively makes even basic units absolute tanks even at low-level. The Puppeteer specializes in possessions, and so a single basic Deadite Berserker can almost solo the entire survivor team if they find them early enough in the match.
• That One Level: Where the singleplayer missions are concerned, Homecoming King is definitely this. Due to the scarcity of supplies like Shemp's Cola and Amulets, as well as the awkward weapons that are made available to you (the Crossbow and various melee weaponry, though there are several hidden firearms in the map that aren't very well sign-posted), it becomes an exercise in frustration as you trudge your way across the huge map to collect the required items to proceed, and the infinite mook spawns on top of the many scripted fights will bleed you dry of healing supplies if you're not careful due to enemies dealing deceptively high damage. This is not even considering the wall of death that's constantly closing in, putting a time limit on the mission and forcing you to manage all of the above on top of rushing to complete the objectives before you run out of time. As the cherry on top, Homecoming King has three whopping boss fights to contend with, two of which take place back-to-back, so if you're out of supplies and are on low health by the time you reach the Pit Deadite, you might as well restart. If you're going to unlock Lord Arthur, who is considered to be one of the stronger Survivors in the release roster, you'll have to contend with this mission whether you like it or not.

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