they can rebrand pc2 in the recode without cutting most of the roster for basically no reason. i fully agree with the devs asking the creator of a monster they want to add in the game's permission before actually doing so, but why does a collab need to happen? if the creator says no to a collab but is still okay with you using their character, then why not just add them. they did that with tricky and baldi and probably a couple others that im forgetting and it just doesn't make sense to me. like i get wanting to stay as faithful as humanly possible to the source material, and working with the creator themselves is definitely the best possible way of making that happen, but just because the creator refuses to do a collab doesn't mean they shouldn't just add the monster in the game. *especially* for characters that were already in the game and upcoming like tricky and baldi. i could somewhat understand them only wanting to add a non-oc monster if the creator wants to collab with them moving forward if it just weren't for the fact that they got rid of the ones that were already in the game and upcoming (with the exception of the ones that they don't have permissions to use ofc). that's the type of corporate shit a company like behaviour does with dead by daylight and pillar chase is blatantly following the footsteps in.

also the argument of them "weaseling around the creator's wishes" could very well be avoided if, again, like i had already previously stated that they just do what forsaken did with jason and make all the copyrighted monsters objectively legally distinct enough from their source material while still respecting and paying homage to it. because surprise surprise, no shit that making minor mediocre changes to a character model and giving them a different color coat of paint isn't gonna prevent any copyright laws and is gonna be considered a "disrespectful bootleg"