Dead by Daylight, the popular horror game, stirred up a bit of sexual innuendo with its tongue-in-cheek April Fools’ joke announcement for 2024. The developers took to Twitter with a post reading: “We’ve heard your feedback and are happy to announce that for a limited time only, you can get stepped on in Dead by Daylight. You’re welcome.”
This announcement plays on a sexual fetish where individuals derive pleasure from being stepped on. Plenty of players and viewers got in on the joke immediately. Some critics could argue that its sensitive nature trivializes harmful behaviors, sexualizes a game known for violence, and risks normalizing such fetishes, potentially impacting younger audiences negatively. However, it’s clearly a joke, and the proposed fake mode is really just stepping and neutralizing survivors with a huge killer.
In the video attached to the tweet, the killer is about three sizes larger than they normally are. The survivors are running around and trying to hide. At one point, the killer finds the survivor and begins to step on them. It’s a wild degree away from the suggestiveness of the joke.
Obviously, this isn’t a real event and was posted on April Fools, so we shouldn’t be getting ready for a “getting stepped on” feature. I think it sounds really light-hearted and plays on the requested feature. I’ve seen the feature asked for in the Twitter comments before, so I know the developers are tired of reading it themselves. This may be a way to play in on the joke of the requests.
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