Halloween: The Game vs Dead by Daylight: Michael Myers already left DBD

By DayOneFix Editorial · August 24, 2026

The premise behind this comparison expired in January. Michael Myers was a licensed killer in Dead by Daylight for nine years, but Behaviour Interactive removed the Halloween Chapter from every platform store at 11am ET on 19 January 2026. If you do not already own The Shape, you cannot buy him in Dead by Daylight today.

So “why would I play Halloween: The Game when Michael is already in DBD?” has a factual answer before it has an opinion: for new players, he is not.

What follows compares verifiable structure only — lobby size, objective loop, roster, single-player, price. Which one is better is not something a spec table decides, and one of the two is not out yet.

Head to head

What actually happened to Michael in Dead by Daylight

Behaviour announced the departure on its own site, and the wording is unambiguous:

“Dead by Daylight: Halloween, featuring Michael Myers, Laurie Strode, and Haddonfield, is leaving The Fog. Halloween came to Dead by Daylight in October 2016, marking the first legendary horror film to be added to the game as a license.”

The chapter’s Steam page — Dead by Daylight - The Halloween® Chapter, dated 25 October 2016 — now carries the notice “is no longer available on the Steam store.” Behaviour’s support FAQ puts the cutoff in one sentence: “The Halloween DLC will be removed from all Platform Stores at 11am ET 19th January 2026 and the characters will no longer be unlockable in-game at that time.”

The knock-on effects, all from that same FAQ, are worth knowing because they tell you how thoroughly the licence is gone:

• Existing owners keep everything. Anything unlocked before the cutoff stays playable, levellable and prestigeable. No refunds were issued, on the stated grounds that owned content did not change.
• The perks were renamed and made generic for everyone who did not own the characters. The Shape’s Save The Best For Last became Keep Them Waiting, Play With Your Food became See How They Run, Dying Light became Cull The Weak.
• The Haddonfield map left the rotation, and the Strode Realty Key was retired from the Bloodweb.
• The character-specific achievements were converted to generic ones.

Behaviour’s public character roster is the simplest confirmation: it lists 93 characters — 41 killers and 52 survivors — and neither The Shape nor Laurie Strode is among them.

One more fact that makes the timing tidy: Dead by Daylight: Jason arrived on 16 June 2026 at 4.99 USD, with the killer listed on the roster as The Slasher. Within six months, DBD lost the Halloween licence and gained the Friday the 13th one. If you came here from our Friday the 13th comparison, that is the mirror image of what happened to IllFonic’s back catalogue.

The row that is identical

Both games are 1v4 with five players in a match. Halloween’s Steam listing describes “1v4 asymmetrical multiplayer matches”; DBD’s own description on both Steam and deadbydaylight.com reads “four determined Survivors face a bloodthirsty Killer.”

This matters because lobby size is where asymmetrical horror games usually differ from each other — Friday the 13th ran 1v7 and Texas Chain Saw Massacre runs 3v4. Halloween and Dead by Daylight land on exactly the same number. Whatever separates them, it is not the size of the room. Full breakdown on our player count page.

The objective loop is where they diverge

This is the real difference, and both sides are on the record about it.

Dead by Daylight is a repair-and-leave loop. Behaviour’s own gameplay basics page states it plainly: “To power up the Exit Gates and escape, Survivors must repair 5 of the 7 generators located throughout the map.” Skill checks appear while you work; failing one alerts the killer and rolls back progress; multiple survivors on one generator repair faster. The killer’s brief is the inverse — “Pick Survivors off one-by-one and sacrifice them to The Entity” — and the recommended patrol target is those same generators.

Halloween is a persuade-and-escort loop. The heroes do not repair anything. They have to find NPC residents of Haddonfield, convince them the danger is real, and then escort them to randomised escape points under a timer. Calling the police brings more patrols. NPCs can be given orders and handed weapons. Michael’s win condition is eliminating the civilians and specific targets.

The consequence is a different kind of pressure. DBD’s objective is a set of fixed, findable points on a map that you make progress against by standing still. Halloween’s objective is mobile, argumentative and relocatable — an escort mission with a slasher in it. Neither is harder on paper; they are just not the same activity.

One killer against a roster

Halloween ships with exactly one killer: Michael Myers. No second killer has ever been announced. Every match, from every angle, is the same antagonist with the same toolkit — Killer Sense, Shape Jump, Shape Dash, environmental blackouts.

Dead by Daylight’s roster currently lists 41 killers, 17 of them licensed from other franchises — Leatherface, Freddy Krueger, Pyramid Head, Chucky, the Xenomorph, Dracula, Vecna and more. A ten-year-old live-service game and a launch-day game are not comparable on content volume and we are not going to pretend the numbers mean the same thing. What the numbers do tell you is the shape of the two designs: DBD sells you variety in who is chasing you, Halloween is built entirely around one specific person chasing you.

Single-player

Halloween’s Steam listing carries the Single-player category alongside its multiplayer ones. Dead by Daylight’s does not — its category list runs Multi-player, PvP, Online PvP, Co-op, Online Co-op with no single-player entry.

Halloween’s campaign is The Night He Came Home, played as Michael, reported at six chapters with difficulty tiers and per-chapter grades. IllFonic’s chief creative officer named it as the deliberate genre differentiator. Details, and what is official versus relayed, on our single-player page.

Two cautions, because storefront metadata is not a design document: the Single-player tag does not tell you whether the campaign runs offline — nobody has stated that — and the absence of a Single-player tag on DBD’s listing is a fact about its Steam categories, not a claim about every mode in the game.

Price

Halloween is 39.99 USD standard or 59.99 USD deluxe, with the physical collector’s edition at 149.99 USD on 6 October. Full breakdown on our release date and editions page.

Dead by Daylight’s base game is 19.99 USD on Steam, with 38 add-ons listed against it on Steam. That is the structural difference in one line: Halloween asks more up front for one killer and a campaign; DBD asks less up front and sells the roster separately. Halloween’s Steam page does carry an In-Game Purchases notice, and PlayStation flags its in-game purchases as optional, but no roadmap, season pass or DLC has been announced — so there is no way to compare the long-run spend.

What this comparison cannot tell you

• Whether it is any good. Nobody outside IllFonic has played Halloween: The Game. It is unreleased. Everything above is structure read off storefronts and official pages, and structure has never predicted whether a match feels tense.
• Match length. Halloween has never published one, so there is no like-for-like row.
• Server model. No source says whether Halloween uses dedicated servers or peer-to-peer.
• Post-launch support. No roadmap, season pass or DLC exists for Halloween. Comparing content pipelines against a game with ten years of chapters behind it is not possible yet.
• Whether a second killer ever arrives. Never announced. We are not going to treat “a live-service asymmetrical game will probably add killers” as a fact.
• Population. Neither game’s concurrent player numbers are something we checked, and Halloween has none to check.

Quick answers

FAQ

Is Michael Myers still in Dead by Daylight? Only for players who already own him. Behaviour removed the Halloween Chapter from all platform stores at 11am ET on 19 January 2026, and the characters can no longer be unlocked in-game. Owned content remains playable.

Is Halloween: The Game just Dead by Daylight with Michael? They share the 1v4, five-player structure and nothing else about the loop. Dead by Daylight survivors repair 5 of 7 generators to power the exit gates. Halloween’s heroes find NPC residents, persuade them, and escort them to randomised escape points under a timer.

How many killers does Halloween: The Game have? One — Michael Myers. A second killer has never been announced. Dead by Daylight’s roster currently lists 41.

Does Dead by Daylight have a single-player campaign? Its Steam listing does not carry the Single-player category; Halloween’s does. Halloween ships a separate campaign, The Night He Came Home, played as Michael.

Which is cheaper? Dead by Daylight’s base game is 19.99 USD on Steam against Halloween’s 39.99 USD standard edition, but DBD’s roster is sold as paid add-ons and Halloween has announced no DLC at all, so long-run cost is not comparable.

Related

• Halloween: The Game vs Friday the 13th and Texas Chain Saw Massacre
• How many players per match, and how the 1v4 actually works
• Release date, editions and the advance access window
• The single-player campaign: what is official and what is only relayed

Sources

Everything here was checked on 24 August 2026.

The Dead by Daylight column comes from primary sources only. The release date of 14 June 2016, the 19.99 USD price, the 303 achievements, the category list without a Single-player entry, and the description “four determined Survivors face a bloodthirsty Killer” are all from the Steam listing and Valve’s public appdetails endpoint for that app. The generator objective is quoted from Behaviour’s own gameplay page, which states that survivors “must repair 5 of the 7 generators located throughout the map” and that killers “Pick Survivors off one-by-one and sacrifice them to The Entity.” The roster count of 41 killers and 52 survivors, and the absence of The Shape and Laurie Strode from it, is read from Behaviour’s character roster.

The removal of the Halloween licence is from Behaviour’s own announcement, Halloween Is Leaving Dead by Daylight, and the operational detail — the 11am ET 19 January 2026 cutoff, owners keeping their content, the perk renames, the Haddonfield map leaving rotation, the achievement conversion and the no-refunds position — from Behaviour’s support article FAQ: The Halloween Content. The chapter’s own Steam page confirms both its 25 October 2016 date and the current notice that it is no longer available on the Steam store. The Dead by Daylight: Jason date of 16 June 2026 and its 4.99 USD price are from its Steam listing; “The Slasher” is how Behaviour’s roster names the killer.

The Halloween: The Game column is from IllFonic’s official site, specifically the multiplayer gameplay overview and single and multiplayer post, plus the Steam listing for the 8 September 2026 date, the 39.99 USD price, the twelve store categories including Single-player and Steam Achievements, and the absence of a Cross-Platform Multiplayer category. The campaign’s six-chapter structure is relayed by Horror Geek Life’s developer Q&A rather than stated officially, and is labelled that way wherever it appears here.

Match length, server model, post-launch plans and any second killer for Halloween have no source and are therefore absent rather than estimated.