Dead by Daylight: Hellraiser Releases Today
By the time you read this, the newest DLC for Dead by Daylight will be available to purchase in-game and on all consoles. The new chapter is Hellraiser, but it’s different from anything we’ve seen in a couple years.
Hellraiser only comes with one killer. Behaviour Interactive have only ever released four other DLCs containing one character each. These were Bill Overbeck from Left 4 Dead (Chapter 3.5), The Cannibal from Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Chapter 5.5), Ash Williams from Ash vs. Evil Dead (Chapter 11.5), and The Ghost Face inspired by the Halloween mask featured in the Scream series (Chapter XII: Ghostface). Bill’s paragraph was free; the other three were paid DLCs. They all cost $4.99 instead of the usual $6.99 for a killer/single survivor chapter.
Chapter XXI: Hellraiser is adapted from the Clive Barker series of the same name. The new DLC features The Cenobite, inspired by the iconic Pinhead. His power is multifaceted like Demogorgon, Ghostface, and The Pig.
The Cenobite can open a gateway to see further into the map. From there, he can release a chain that quickly flies through the environment. If you hit a survivor, they become trapped by three chains that slow them down until they break through.
The Lament Configuration is also randomly dropped off on the map. Holding the Lament Configuration causes chains to randomly grab the survivor. Solving the puzzle box allows The Cenobite to teleport to that survivor’s location.
If a survivor does not pick up the Lament Configuration in time, the Chain Hunt begins. Chains randomly spawn throughout the map, slowing down survivors and stopping them from healing, doing gens, cleansing totems, etc. until the Lament Configuration is picked up. This is where The Cenobite can dominate a match, so much so that Behaviour already changed some elements to make this power fairer for survivors.
There is a sad change. The voice line “The box. You opened it. I came,” has been removed from the game. The patch notes say, “The Cenobite's voice over lines have been removed due to complications with the audio files,” but comments from Behaviour employees on Twitter and in their official forums suggest the sound will never return. To quote Frank in the original film, “Jesus wept.”
There are two cosmetic sets available for The Cenobite in store already. One turns Pinhead into The Chatterer, a fan favorite Cenobite with his mouth and teeth fully exposed by metal wire; this is a linked cosmetic that cannot be separated. The other is called the Hell Priest, which puts Pinhead in a red and black spiked outfit that would’ve fit right into a goth club in the 90s. The Chatterer costs 1485 Auric Cells and goth daddy costs 720 Auric Cells. They are both 10% off right now.
I’ve been waiting for Clive Barker’s characters to enter Dead by Daylight since 2016 and I’m not disappointed. Pinhead and the Cenobites are characters driven by sensation. Pleasure and pain are the same to them, hence the heavily modified bodies and BDSM-themed attacks upon anyone who solves one of the puzzle boxes to summon them. They’re a perfect match for The Entity, the mysterious presence that controls the Realm and torments survivors until they lose all hope. The killers are meant to enjoy their role in The Entity’s games and Cenobites have canonically attacked people with chains and strung them up by hooks. It’s, frankly, one of the cleanest integrations of licensed DLCs in term of lore and style.
Dead by Daylight: Chapter XXI: Hellraiser is available for $4.99 on Steam or for 500 Auric Cells in the in-game story. The DLC is currently available on all platforms, including PC, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch.