Hellraiser Is Coming to Dead by Daylight
During the 5th Anniversary livestream, Mathieu Côté, the game director of Dead by Daylight, called DBD the horror hall of fame. The game has wonderful original characters and excellent horror writing to create this universe where so many different styles of horror can live side by side. The most well known characters in the game are the licensed characters.
So far, Dead by Daylight has secured licensing deals to bring Michael Myers and Laurie Strode (Halloween); Leatherface (The Texas Chain-Saw Massacre); Amanda Young and Detective Tapp (Saw); Freddy Krueger and Quentin Smith (A Nightmare on Elm Street); Ash Williams (specifically from Ash vs. The Evil Dead); Bill Overbeck (Left 4 Dead); the Demogorgon, Nancy Wheeler, and Steven Harrington (Stranger Things, but they will no longer be available to purchase after 17 November), Pyramidhead and Cheryl Mason (Silent Hill), Nemesis, Jill Valentine, and Leon Scott Kennedy from Resident Evil; and the iconic Ghostface mask (as seen in Scream, but not the Ghostface character from the films). Other characters from Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Stranger Things can be unlocked with full body character cosmetics.
It’s exciting when these characters get added in. Dead by Daylight is a horror game for horror fans. You get to play in the world of a slasher film with your friends or strangers as you either take on the role of the killer or a survivor fighting for life and death. Being able to play characters like Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger is a huge deal for horror fans and gamers. Not everyone is going to be super happy for each new character, but you can see from streamers and other content creators the pure joy that having your favorite character enter Dead by Daylight can bring.
My time has finally come.
Yesterday, Behaviour Interactive officially confirmed the upcoming Hellraiser chapter in Dead by Daylight. Pinhead will be joining the game soonTM as The Cenobite. His powers center around chains that inhibit survivor movement and can only be stopped by solving the Lament Configuration.
Every so often, Behaviour sends out a survey to players asking them about certain game features. Since they’ve included open response questions in these surveys, I have done two things: addressed specific criticisms not touched on in the surveys themselves (usually related to accessibility, but I also hype them up for their hard work and for creating the game), and asked for any Clive Barker character to be added. I’m not picky. If it’s the horror hall of fame, Clive Barker deserves a spot.
Clive Barker is a horror icon for a number of reasons. He is an openly gay writer, director, artist, and producer who carved out a niche for himself in pretty much every media you can imagine starting in the 1970s. He had his own toy collaboration with McFarlane, produced video games, and worked for years as a playwright. He’s best known for his horror fiction and films, which is where we get big name titles like Hellraiser, Candyman, and Nightbreed (among many others).
Hellraiser is his most successful property, spanning 10 films, a novella (The Hellbound Heart), a novel (The Scarlet Gospels), multiple comic series, and a few references here and there in his other short stories. The series is peak Clive Barker in the best way possible. Barker’s horror writing isn’t necessarily body horror all the time, but it often stems from physicality and physical intimacy.
In The Hellbound Heart (adapted to the Hellraiser film by Barker himself), it all starts with the Lament Configuration. This puzzle box promises to open up a world of unimaginable pleasure. The Cenobites, these incredibly disturbing monsters appearing in brutally tortured forms, exist only for sensation. Pleasure and pain are the same in their world, so anyone foolish enough to solve the puzzle is agreeing to be tortured for all eternity so they feel something.
Pinhead is the breakout horror icon from the film, portrayed by Doug Bradley, and it’s easy to see how he stood out from the pack. All the Cenobites look terrifying in the film, with torn up flesh and metal where metal shouldn’t be. Pinhead’s appearance is calm and ordered by comparison. The perfect grid of scored flesh and nails is human enough to recognize, but strange enough to fear. He also gets the dialogue for the Cenobites in the first film, including the iconic line, “The box. You opened it. We came.” And yes, knowing Barker’s work as a writer, you can and should read every meaning and innuendo you want out of that line to understand the depth of the Hellraiser series.
I specifically mention that line because, in the current Public Test Build on PC, The Cenobite says a modified version when using one of his powers. If a survivor tries to solve the Lament Configuration, the Cenobite can teleport to their current location. As he travels, he says “The box. You opened it. I came.” I’ve been watching Twitch chats just lose it over “I came” being in the game and streamers trying to brush it off or roll with it. I’m here to say you should embrace it. The entire Hellraiser series is filled with queer, sadomasochistic, kink, and sexually-driven content. It’s not a bonus, but a core feature of the series.
There is no release date yet for the Hellraiser chapter in Dead by Daylight. Based on publishing patterns, it should be out in September. If you’re playing on Steam, you can go into your game settings and opt into the PTB and try out The Cenobite and his perks, plus some other much needed quality of life updates. The random stuttering is gone on the PTB, which makes it a much nicer playing experience right now.
