Horror often has a hard time reaching mainstream audiences as not everyone enjoys being scared. That's why the 2019 crossover between two of the most popular names in the genre, Stranger Things for TV and Dead By Daylight for gaming was so exciting. Stranger Things' Demogorgon fit right in with the rest of the killers included in the game and both of the show's DLC survivors, Nancy Wheeler and Steve Harrington, were dream additions to the roster.
Unfortunately, today it was announced that all Stranger Things content would be leaving the popular asymmetric horror multiplayer game Dead By Daylight on November 17, 2021. While the game uses plenty of established horror IPs, perhaps none of them are bigger than the hit Netflix show Stranger Things. After all, Netflix reports that just a week after the show's third season aired, over 40 million Netflix accounts had watched it. Questions regarding why the DLC content is leaving the DBD store have been making the internet rounds and, while there hasn't been any official confirmation as to what's going on behind the scenes, there are some signs that point to the most likely culprit: expiring licenses.
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As stated above, there's been no official confirmation about why Dead By Daylight is removing the Stranger Things cast from its online storefront. That said, it seems like the characters are leaving because Dead By Daylight's license to use them is expiring meaning that they can no longer sell content related to the Netflix series. This is a problem that many games that use licensed content run into after their licenses run out.
Before live service games like Dead By Daylight existed, if a game were to license content, it would need to continue renewing the license to keep selling the game. This is why titles such as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game and Alan Wake needed to be taken off of online storefronts for a time until they could renew their licenses. Because all of the Stranger Things content in Dead By Daylight is DLC and not accessible without a purchase in the main game, Dead By Daylight itself doesn't need to go anywhere, it can just simply stop selling the content.
Fans of Stranger Things who don't yet own any of the DBD content still have time to grab it before it leaves the game's store forever. The three characters, the Demogorgon, Steve, and Nancy, as well as the Hawkins National Laboratory map, will be leaving on November 17, but fans can still purchase them until then. From now until they're gone, all Stranger Things content will be half off in the store which includes all three characters as well as their alternative outfits.
Fortunately, anyone who's purchased characters and outfits will be able to keep them after they leave the store in November, however, the Stranger Things map will be leaving the rotation entirely and likely not ever coming back. The achievements and trophies that have been made for the DLC characters will be repurposed and made generic so that anyone can unlock them without having to purchase the content. Anyone who's already unlocked them won't lose the trophy or gamerscore, but it will be repurposed for everyone else. In a similar vein, all Stranger Things specific character perks will be given a similar treatment and thrown into the pool for anyone to grab once everything gets delisted.
Dead by Daylight is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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