Dead by Deadlight is waving goodbye to a horror icon. Developer Behaviour Interactive has announced Pinhead – and his Hellraiser Chapter DLC – is being yanked from sale on 4th April.
Pinhead joined the Dead by Daylight roster back in September 2021, following in the footsteps of other legends of horror including Halloween’s Michael Myers, Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface.
As Hellraiser might have it though, where there’s pleasure, there’s also pain, and Pinhead – AKA The Cenobite – is shuffling back to his corner of Hell early next month, taking his fancy box of torment with him. As explained in Behaviour’s announcement, however, he’s only retreating from digital store fronts – existing owners can continue playing with old needle-bonce after 4th April, but no new purchases of the Hellraiser Chapter DLC will be possible.
If that news has suddenly spurred you into a last-minute FOMO purchase, it’s additionally worth noting the Hellraiser DLC is being removed from first-party digital stores from today, 4th March (with the exception of Switch’s eShop, which says goodbye to Pinhead on 18th March), but it’ll still be available to purchase via Dead by Daylight‘s in-game store until 4pm GMT on 4th April. And to encourage a few final purchases ahead of the Hellraiser Chapter’s removal, Behaviour is discounting The Cenobite and his Cosmetics by 50 precent in Dead by Daylight’s store.
Behaviour hasn’t explained why the DLC is being removed from sale (its official FAQ goes with the line, “As with all Live-Service Games frequent updates and additions are to be expected”), but the answer is almost certainly licensing-related. Dead by Daylights’s Stranger Things DLC was similarly withdrawn in 2019, although that did eventually return, implying Pinhead could also be back – if only Behaviour’s legal team can solve that pesky Lament Configuration.
