The survival horror genre has been in a really good place over the past few years thanks to major franchises like Silent Hill and Resident Evil being in top form. However, while video game IP are succeeding in the horror space, the licensed games based on established horror IPs have mostly struggled in the meantime. However, Saber Interactive looks to be doing something different from the majority of licensed games (failed multiplayer games, with a single player survival horror game, and the first new Hellraiser anything since the 2022 Hulu film and first video game overall with Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival. At Summer Game Fest, we got to go hands on with the game, and it completely surprised us.
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is a first person survival horror game that feels like a mix of modern Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The demo we got to play had us exploring a theater and needing to escape. To do this we had to find a key to the Snake Door as well as find a ticket to a machine to leave the area. We had to do this all while dealing with multiple enemies chasing us around. Luckily, these weren’t Cenobites, but crazed cult members. However, they were still pretty tough to take down as ammo is limited and armored enemies can take a lot of hits to take down. While melee weapons and guns are the main weapons to be used in the game. You are also equipped with the classic Hellraiser cube known as the Genesis Configuration which gives you telekenetic powers to pull and shoot things scattered about at enemies. Unfortunately, these uses aren’t unlimited and you must recharge the cube’s power by killing enemies.
Once we were able to escape the theater, we were transported to the main character’s house and were in a looping sequence of exploring the same hallway (very P.T.-esque) while getting a bit of hints at the story. Afterwards we were transported to the Labyrinth, an otherworldy area, where we had to solve some environmental puzzles and got a power up for the cube. The Labyrinth is completely different from the main areas of the game as you cannot use weapons and the game is more puzzle focused in this realm.
What is really interesting about Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is that Clive Barker himself is helping to create the story of the game so it feels in line with the rest of the franchise. Then, while we didn’t get to see him, Doug Bradley is also returning as the iconic Pinhead who leads the Cenobites.
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is set to release later this year on PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series S|X.