As a lifelong fan of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser mythos, I’m cautiously enthusiastic about its first “true” game adaptation, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival, after spending an hour hands-on with the game. Saber Interactive’s new first-person shooter horror game feels a bit like BioShock Lite that’s been slathered in the leather, latex, blood, sex, and gore the Hellraiser franchise is infamous for.
It will not be for the faint of heart: Speaking to Hellraiser: Revival‘s developers, even they seemed surprised the game received an M-rating instead of something stronger.
It can be tough being a Hellraiser fan. The majority of the Hellraiser movies are awful, with the notable exceptions being the two movies named Hellraiser released 35 years apart (first in 1987, then another in 2022). But as a fan of Barker’s early work, I once steeped myself in the first three films and Marvel’s initial run of Hellraiser anthology comics, where artists were free to play with the sadomasochistic demons imagined by the author in his 1986 novella, The Hellbound Heart.
Hellraiser: Revival captures the essence of many Hellraiser stories, many of which involve people seeking intense new forms of pleasure, only to be cursed and violently tortured by the Cenobites, extra-dimensional servants of the mysterious entity Leviathan. In Revival, players take on the role of Aidan, a man whose troubled girlfriend Sunny has been captured by Pinhead and the Cenobites. Armed with a new form of the franchise’s famous puzzle box, the Genesis Configuration, Aidan battles a horrific cult devoted to the Cenobites.
In a section of the game I played, this involved exploring an underground S&M club and battling leather- and latex-clad cult members. Without much context, and really only seeking a way to survive and escape, I played this section of Hellraiser: Revival like any other first-person shooter. Some of this felt rote; I exchanged gunfire against handfuls of human enemies — some of whom hilariously sprang forth from iron maidens — and beat others to death with melee weapons. I listened to cassette recordings and absorbed some story details from photos and diaries. I found keys to unlock doors and scrounged for scarce ammo.
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