Just a few days before heading out to Gamescom, I decided to watch Clive Barker’s Hellraiser for the first time. It’s a cult-classic 80s horror film filled with brilliant, gory practical effects and a niche sadomasochistic spin in its narrative.
It wasn’t just because it was a hole in my film C.V though; it’s because a few days later I’d be playing Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival, which, to the shock of many, is a first-person single-player narrative game, clocking in at about 10 hours in length. That was music to my ears.
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The portion of the game I played in a Saber Interactive booth took up about 40 minutes and was split into two distinct halves. The first saw me explore the base of this sex cult that our protagonist has previously infiltrated, trying to find keys to unlock a few locked doors – à la Resident Evil.
With a selection of guns and the magical Genesis Configuration in hand, the first thing that really caught me by surprise was the heft to combat. Ammunition is limited, and melee weapons all have durability that runs out really quickly. Then some of these freaky enemies, adorned by skin-tight gimp suits and spiked armour, were a little tougher to deal with than expected.
For example, armoured enemies are resistant to bladed melee weapons, so I’d often need to expend my few shotgun shells on those, while saving the slicing for the more exposed enemies. And lemme tell you, those guns have some kick. There was a real violent and meaty feel to the guns that I loved.
I also played the game on the hard difficulty, with four options available depending on your level of comfort with FPS games. Hellraiser difficulty, the hardest, has limited save points, which makes things a lot tougher, and the Narrative Director Antony de Fault claimed that mode might actually be “too hard”.
But in hard mode, I had a pretty decent challenge in combat, as enemies aggressively approach and seemingly attack at the same time too. I actually died a couple of times before finally learning how to quickly switch between hacking away with my blade, blasting a few select shots, and throwing sharp projectiles and even balls of fire at enemies with the Genesis Configuration.
It certainly felt like it had the legs to keep things interesting combat-wise, and it all had a great polished feel to it.
The environment is really nice to take in. A couple of audio logs or text logs are scattered about, but it was also cool to take in the non-interactable elements of the environment, which in this portion of the game was adorned with sex toys, alcohol, and scattered lewd magazines.
But then the game switched gears when I made it through the last locked door and was transported to The Labyrinth. This is the mythical realm in which the Cenobites reside, the iconic demons to some, angels to others of the Hellraiser series, including the poster-child Pinhead, played here again by the original actor Doug Bradley.
This entire section looked entirely different and was scarier than anything that had come before. It was filled with a few cool little obstacles like spinning blades to avoid, or using the Genesis Configuration to rotate sections of the room to create a path.
But then came a section ripped straight out of PT, albeit with the Hellraiser spin, which really showcased the game’s brilliant lighting and sound design, but also how well this franchise is suited to this kind of horror.
It was in this section that the game proved that it was in no way holding back. The Hellraiser series has a reputation for melding sex and violence in a really disturbing way, and Revival has pushed its ratings to the limit, meaning it’ll likely turn a few people off. In fact, I heard that in a session before mine, another journalist allegedly left the hands-on session shaken up.
I can’t say I felt that strongly about it all, but I certainly enjoyed that Saber has managed to capture that weird niche of the series in video game form.
Heading into my appointment, I was curious to check out the game more than anything else. But after my session, I had a new game to add to the wishlist. It surprised me with its detailed graphics, its hefty combat, and its keeping of the dark and violent tone of the film series.
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival certainly won’t be for everyone, but now, after my time with it, I can’t wait to play more.
Will you be checking out Hellraiser: Revival when it drops on PS5 on October 8th? Let me know in the comments below!
