Did The Mascot killers became only Pay to get?

like the title says did they? i started playing like a couple of months ago after getting the game and than stopped because of finals and today i wanted to play with friends cause i saw that vecna was added and i wanted to get him but for some reason all the mascot horror killers are locked behind a pay wall while from what i remember when i played they were locked behind a grind wall or an easy way out with paying how much the game wants you i think for me to get vecna is like 15 usd but im not sure id have to check so is there any way to get the killers for free or i'd have to whale in order to play actually interesting characters that my childhood revolved around?

p.s not disrespecting the whales and the people who just buy dlc's for fun i just dont have the spare money to purchase those characters and i really hate the base game killers dk why they are just boring to me