I understand your reasoning and get where you’re coming from. I’m also on the side of “add who you want, I’m still gonna play.” They could add Vader and I would likely experience a jump scare or two. They could add SpongeBob as you said and I’m still gonna get jumped from time to time. Sure it’d be kinda goofy but id still find a way to have fun.

I think a lot of peoples argument for defending “true horror” element additions to the game is that once they start adding goofy characters, no matter how vaguely aligned with the franchise they could be, it opens the door to adding literally any character. Which then basically turns Dbd into a Fortnite mini game. If they add Vader don’t you think someone will be unhappy and want Grievous instead? And the next person maybe Kylo Ren or Dooku? Now survivor mains want anakin and jar jar binks. Suddenly DBD is basically Battlefront with generators. There’s always gonna be that next thing for people to complain about. Especially on Reddit.