Ice Nine Kills drops ‘Play Dead’ with Dead By Daylight and Tony Hawk on June 26

Ice Nine Kills went all-in on cross-over culture on June 26, releasing “Play Dead,” their Dead By Daylight anthem starring Tony Hawk. The band did not just borrow the game’s vibe. They built a full video around it, with Final Destination actor Devon Sawa and Terrifier 3 star Krsy Fox also appearing, and they tied it to a special Ice Nine Kills collection available inside Dead By Daylight.

If you are tracking why some brands break out beyond their core fans, this is the blueprint. Dead By Daylight has a track record of collaborations that reads like a modern horror greatest-hits list: Stranger Things, Saw, and Alien, plus Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Even Iron Maiden and Slipknot have crossed over into the Dead By Daylight universe. So when Ice Nine Kills steps into that lane, the bet is that the audience already understands the language. The headline is basically the proof: “Play Dead” is a Dead By Daylight anthem, not a loose reference.

Here is what makes this partnership strategically interesting. Dead By Daylight is an online multiplayer survival horror game that launched in 2016, and by the time it celebrated its 10th anniversary earlier this month, it had become a cultural platform. Game developers Behaviour Interactive claimed the title was the “most-played horror game in history” and also said work had started on a movie adaptation. When a game reaches that kind of scale, it stops being a game-only asset and turns into a distribution channel for other media and brands that want to ride attention waves.

From Ice Nine Kills’ side, “Play Dead” is positioned as creative alignment, not just marketing. In a statement, the band’s vocalist Spencer Charnas described the track as “a collision of hooks, horror and total chaos,” and said collaborating with Dead By Daylight gave the chance to step into a world that feels “deeply aligned” with their creative instincts. He also emphasized that they wanted the song to feel like a real extension of the universe, “not just inspired by it, but genuinely part of it.” That distinction matters for execs watching partnership ROI: the more the integration feels native, the less it reads like a pay-to-play cameo.

There is also a production signal buried in the credits that execs should not ignore. The band worked closely with longtime Dead By Daylight composer Michel F. April on “Play Dead,” and they spent time with the game’s creative team as well as diehard fans. That is the kind of cross-functional work that reduces the risk of a mismatch between fan expectations and the final output. In fandom-heavy categories like horror gaming and metal adjacent scenes, “close enough” is not close enough.

And then there is the Tony Hawk factor, which Charnas framed as more than star power. He said having Tony Hawk appear with them felt essential because Hawk is “synonymous with the marriage of music, gaming, and subculture.” He added they bonded over the same offbeat pop-culture touchstones, from punk rock to irreverent ’80s comedies like The Naked Gun that shaped his brain as much as horror did. That matters because it links the partnership to shared cultural DNA rather than a generic celeb moment.

Ice Nine Kills is not new to this playbook. “Play Dead” follows their official Scream 7 collaboration “Twisting The Knife,” which featured actor and singer McKenna Grace. Earlier this month, the band performed at Download Festival, and they have confirmed details of a tour for early 2027 that will include their biggest ever headline gig at London’s O2 Arena on March 28. For leaders thinking about momentum, this suggests a strategy of stacking attention across formats: festivals and tours for depth, collaborations for discovery.

For decision-makers in adjacent media, the second-order lesson is about where value concentrates. When a game can host music collections, developer teams can support integrated creative work, and artists can bring mainstream crossover icons, distribution becomes multi-surface. Instead of only selling a track, the partnership also plugs into gameplay identity through a special collection inside Dead By Daylight. Meanwhile, Dead By Daylight’s stated film adaptation work and Behaviour Interactive’s claims about the game’s reach mean the ecosystem is not static. It is building toward more media touchpoints.

The strategic stakes for executives are straightforward: partnerships like this can compress the path from discovery to conversion by meeting fans inside the platforms they already inhabit. Ice Nine Kills and Dead By Daylight are effectively turning a single song release into an IP event, with Tony Hawk as the bridge between worlds. If you are building an audience strategy, the question is not whether crossovers work. It is whether you can integrate deeply enough to feel like part of the universe, and scale the rollout across the places fans actually spend time.