I’ve been a fan of the Hellraiser movies ever since I snuck a VHS rental (yeah, remember those?) of the original 1987 movie as a teenager. I didn’t watch a few sequels that followed but I remember being genuinely enthralled by the first movie’s unapologetic visceral body horror and strong mature themes. Over the years, the franchise took a backseat in my mind until 2022’s underrated reboot brought it back to my attention. With Saber Interactive’s Hellraiser: Revival, the studio attempts to recapture that spark with a video game rendition of Clive Barker’s haunting vision that truly pushes boundaries in all the wrong and right ways while delivering a satisfying, if unnerving and frustrating, survival horror experience.



If you know the Hellraiser franchise, you know that there’s no way to sugarcoat its contents. The game is extremely faithful in that regard, and it’s hard to discuss without also talking about its broader mature themes and sexual content, so be warned from this point.



The story follows couple Aidan and his girlfriend Sunny who one night partake in some sadomasochistic activities in bed with the Genesis Configuration, the iconic puzzle box that inadvertently summons the Cenobites who seemingly kill Sunny. Aidan awakens in the Scarlet Church, a prisoner of a depraved sex cult that worships the Cenobites as divine angels. Here he learns that Sunny may not be dead after all, and so he ventures into the Labyrinth in an effort to save her while confronting the Cenobites and the horrors that await.

If very extreme violence, nudity, hedonism, and gore disturb you, this may not be the game for you.

As my earlier warning implied, Hellraiser: Revival is perhaps the most unflinchingly grotesque and visceral horror game released in the last five, maybe ten years. If very extreme violence, nudity, hedonism, and gore disturb you, this may not be the game for you. On that note, it remains extremely faithful to the presentation and themes established in the Hellraiser movies, unwavering in its approach to gruesome body horror that made me pause plenty of times to reflect on what I had just seen. Saber Interactive honestly deserves applause for sticking so close to that controversial source material and it’s for the better, because Hellraiser: Revival is at its strongest when it doesn’t hold back any punches.



The most impressive parts of Hellraiser: Revival are its incredible art direction, world design and presentation. The Labyrinth is an ever-shifting, ever-changing nightmare to navigate, constantly pulling players into surreal, dreamlike locations before hitting them over the head with hellish imagery. All the while, Cenobites and a particularly chattery fellow, for lack of a better term, pursue you through trippy hallways, moving corridors and impossible geometric staircases that would make M.C. Escher blush. There’s one section ripped straight out of Hideo Kojima’s P.T. that, whether intentional as a homage or not, put the biggest smile on my face.

Saber Interactive clearly had a lot of fun coming up with these creative levels and scenarios and it shows. Using the supernaturally-charged essence of the source material, the team had so much headroom to make imaginative, unsettling worlds to get absorbed in and they absolutely nailed it while being a near-perfect encapsulation of Hellraiser’s shock factor. When the game leans into these elements, it’s at its best. It’s an absolute must-play for fans of the Hellraiser franchise because, apart from numerous Easter eggs and references, you’re also getting a pretty solid single-player game adaptation of a classic horror IP and that’s a dime a dozen these days when most go down the assymetric multiplayer route.



Unfortunately, Hellraiser: Revival doesn’t always pair its excellent presentation and imagery with the most compelling gameplay. The game is experienced from a first-person perspective, clearly borrowing elements from the aforementioned P.T. and newer Resident Evil titles. Weapons are scarce and ammunition for said weapons is even scarcer. I play a lot of survival horror games and admittedly, Hellraiser: Revival really pushed ammo conservation to its limit at tims. You’re constantly pinching ammo and there are a handful of tense combat sections where the game simply does not give you enough resources to make it by. Plenty of times, I had to resort to using a little shiv to cut up enemies, and this only deals minor damage. Instead of the combat feeling intense, it slowly morphed into frustrating, especially in the early and mid game when the game throws you a few bullets and expects you to take on a large boss.



Thankfully this issue is fixed by the later portions of the game when it becomes a bit more combat-heavy and the amount of ammo given is more forgiving, but it still doesn’t really change the fact that 70% of the game feels like a battle of attrition that strongly emphasizes the “survival” part of survival horror, although some daring players might actually see this as a win. Some armour-plated enemies are a little tougher to deal with than other skinny blood-drenched foes - and with the Cenobite encounters, your best strategy to just run and pray your sense of direction overcomes the shifting corridors of the Labyrinth.

When you run out of ammo (which is a lot), Hellraiser: Revival does give you another offensive option than just a little knife. The Genesis Configuration can absorb projectiles and hurl them at enemies, or pick up objects to throw around. The damage output still isn’t great and most hellspawns are perfectly adjusted to being set on fire (who knew?), but as a last resort utility tool, it will probably save your life a few times or get you out of a sticky situation, no pun intended, if you catch my drift.



Beyond the combat, Hellraiser: Revival also blends platforming and puzzle-solving sections, often under some pretty heavy pressure. Cenobites will pursue you while you try and solve environmental puzzles like figuring out the correct sequence of moving objects to open a passage or find missing pieces of a larger contraption around the Labyrinth. This takes the concept of Resident Evil 2’s Mr. X pursuit mechanics and dials it up to 11. In fact, whenever I entered a combat section that required me to use my weapons, I wished we could get to the next chase or puzzle section faster. I don’t think I’ve white-knuckled chase sequences as anxiety-inducing as Hellraiser: Revival, and that’s saying something.

Over on the technical side of things, I played Hellraiser: Revival on an RTX 5060 with a mix of Medium/High settings, with DLSS doing some heavy lifting to get me up to a comfortable capped 60fps, though there were instances of framerate fluctuations but they weren’t too distracting. Saber Interactive never fails with their polished PC versions and Revival is no exception. The audio design also deserves a mention because it’s superb. The voice acting for Aidan and Sunny isn’t always great - and Aidan does ham it up at times - but everything else, from Pinhead's deep and commanding voice to the unsettling sound effects of the Cenobites and creatures, is terrific.



Hellraiser: Revival is absolutely going to please fans of the Hellraiser movies thanks to its unflinching body horror that the game doesn’t shy away from or make any attempts to censor, almost perfectly capturing the grimy, sexually charged evil nature of its source material. I completed the game in 10 hours and at a decently priced R599 on Steam or R749 on PS5, it’s probably worth it too. However, some elements of the game could frustrate players, especially its combat. Nonetheless, I think it hits the mark more than it misses as long as you can forgive its shortcomings and don't mind seeing things that make you wish you could wash your eyeballs afterwards.

Hellraiser: Revival for PS5 is available to order at Nexus Hub for R749