Hellraiser Revival First Impressions – What’s In The Box, Mate?

We don’t need a reboot, we don’t need a remaster; we need a revival. Saber Interactive has done just that with Hellraiser Revival, and when it was announced, I couldn’t sleep. The excitement for a decent Hellraiser game, and also because they might come visit me.

With Clive Barker and Doug Bradley on board this sinister ship, the set-up plays callbacks to its roots with sadistic, gullible pervs who think using gothic Rubik’s cubes in the bedroom to slice one another up is a romantic gesture.

There’s no holding back as we join Aidan and his partner Sunny in a love-making session. A description so far removed from the missionary position, Kenny G and sandalwood. The box is brought out, and before you know, there’s a hole in the wall.

A Cult Following

This is our very early introduction to the Labyrinth, and boy, does it look good. Scary, but good. Sunny gets pulled in, and Aidan is left with the box and his penis, and runs stark-bollock naked through a terrifying maze of sprints and shits as the teleporting Cenobite, Chatterer, is in pursuit.

It was here that I truly bought into Hellraiser: Revival, as it was the most lucid experience of a horror title I’ve had in a while. I’m little invested in the original series and enjoy a handful of Clive Barker’s works, so this world-building, while fear-inducing, was faultless.

Giving vibes of Lust From Beyond, I was under the impression that outside of the cinematics, gameplay would primarily be puzzle-solving and running away. This changed when the game switched back to the ‘real world’, where Aidan had been imprisoned by a cult group named Scarlet Church (like the singer), and had a nail through his Johnson.

That nail looks like it was put there by Sunny beforehand, but the interactive elements of ripping stuff out of your skin were worse. It’s a bit too late to mention now, but Hellraiser: Revival is incredibly violent. My objective now, with my open wounds and birthday suit, was to sneak out of my prison and survive.

Gruesome Takedowns

Puzzles still feature, as do the usual hallmarks of notes being left by naive people thinking a protagonist would never find a keycode reference. But, considering the violence and how graphic it is, stealth tactics aren’t enough, and Aidan now sneaks around shanking people and shooting them in the head.

Combat is like Condemned and just as graphic. Takedowns are great for quick kills, though some enemies wear armour, forcing a little knife dance until you break it. It’s quite tricky to pull off as there’s no defence, just evasion, yet the combat is super smooth and dynamic, though tremendously visceral.

There are, of course, creative adjustments to make it more engaging, so there are a fair amount of enemies to contend with, and it feels a mixture of exciting, terrifying, and disturbing. Sneaking into a room while an ‘artist’ slices someone up put me off my croissant.

Then, just as I’d got the rhythm going and causing as much carnage as the Cenobites cause, the demo ended. On a positive note, it’ll be out in a couple of weeks (even on the Switch 2!), so if there’s time, and you have the guts for it, play the demo on Steam while it’s up – it’s mega.