Dead By Daylight’s recent trailer to tease the upcoming Chapter 21 has left many fans with lots of questions and guesses about what the next DLC will entail. The popular 4v1 horror game has been around since 2016 and expanded to a wide list of platforms, with crossplay being implemented about a year ago. The franchise has always been known for its Killers and Survivors, with crossovers with well-known horror franchises being immensely popular. Dead By Daylight has also had its own original Killer and Survivor characters, but the new trailer seems to suggest another horror crossover.
The most recent Dead By Daylight crossover was with Resident Evil, just in time for Dead By Daylight’s fifth anniversary. Other notable horror franchise crossovers have included Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Silent Hill, and even Netflix's Stranger Things. The new teaser seems to have fans divided on if Dead By Daylight will feature notable characters from horror cult-classic Hellraiser or the well-known Five Nights at Freddy’s games. However, some important information makes Hellraiser the most likely upcoming crossover and Five Nights at Freddy’s pretty improbable.
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Fans who watched the minute-long Chapter 21 teaser were quick to point out the clues they thought indicated the upcoming DLC reveal. Some fans saw many Hellraiser easter eggs, while others thought a reflection in the television looked like Springtrap from Five Nights at Freddy’s. A Hellraiser collaboration seems much more likely than a Five Nights at Freddy’s crossover.
The teaser itself shows a dated television set with a static-filled screen and the numbers 19:87 in the upper right-hand corner. Through the static, viewers are able to see a blooming red flower which is very similar to, if not the same as, the scene from the Hellraiser movie. Additionally, the original movie came out in 1987, the same year as the numbers displayed on-screen, and a bell sound plays at the end of the teaser that’s very reminiscent of the same sound in Hellraiser that indicates the Cenobites are coming.
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While a collaboration between Dead By Daylight and FNaF would have been interesting, odds are something like that won’t be happening in the future. Dead By Daylight has a well-noted and well-supported LGBTQ+ player base, so a collaboration with Five Nights at Freddy’s wouldn’t be well-received by players. Recently, Scott Cawthon, creator of FNaF, had his political donations come to light, the majority of which were incredibly right-leaning and harmful to marginalized communities.
Essentially, Cawthon actively donated money toward those who seek to stop the protection of marginalized communities, which didn’t sit right with some Five Nights at Freddy’s players. Cawthon’s political affiliation and donations alienated a lot of his marginalized player base, like his LGBTQ+ fans. While some FNaF players came out in support of the creator, others vowed to never pick up a Five Nights at Freddy’s game again.
Dead By Daylight has been incredibly receptive to its LGBTQ+ fans from the start, even having a Pride month celebration during June that added a Rainbow Flag Charm to the game. Behaviour Interactive, the developer of Dead By Daylight, is also currently working with GaymerX, an organization that works to uplift LGBTQ+ voices in the gaming industry, to add LGBTQ+ characters into the game. Having this sort of representation is important in the games industry, and many studios don’t go to the lengths Behaviour is to make sure the representation is done correctly.
With Dead By Daylight’s dedication to its LGBTQ+ fans in mind, a collaboration with Five Nights at Freddy’s would be shocking and ultimately hypocritical of the precedent the asymmetrical horror game has put in place. Dead By Daylight, unlike Cawthon’s Five Nights at Freddy’s, has always celebrated its LGBTQ+ players, so a crossover with FNaF would alienate a large part of its player base. Hellraiser, on the other hand, is a classic horror IP that would add interesting gameplay to Dead By Daylight, making it the obvious upcoming collaboration choice for Chapter 21.
Dead By Daylight is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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