Sex, Guns, and Violence.
Since 1987, Pinhead has been one of the most recognizable horror icons across any form of media. The Hellraiser series has produced 11 films over the past forty years, but has missed out on entering the videogame space across a few shelved projects that never saw the light of day. Pinhead; however, would make a somewhat brief appearance in Dead by Daylight, but the horror icon would have to wait five more years to be featured in his own game.
When Hellraiser: Revival was first announced, many were worried it would have been yet another asymmetrical horror game, where a group of players attempt to flee from a horror icon. This was the case with Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and, of course, Dead by Daylight, which features countless characters from several well-known horror properties. Thankfully, Hellraiser: Revival was revealed to be a single-player survival horror game, with an announcement trailer that felt every bit as gruesome and grotesque as the films it was based on.
What also made fans less cautious about the project was the direct involvement of Clive Barker himself. From the script, character motivations, gameplay, its world, and the use of the IP itself, especially with each of the Cenobites featured here, he would guide Saber Interactive toward making the game as authentic as possible, especially as it is considered canon to the first two films.
Not only that, but the original Pinhead, Doug Bradley, would be reprising his role after leaving the character behind in 2005 with Hellraiser: Hellworld. His involvement made a huge impact to the project, appeasing hesitant fans who assumed the game would leave a lot in translation when it came to adapting the films. It also adds a level of credibility when you bring back an original actor, especially one so pivotal to the character.
Hellraiser: Revival takes place 20 years after the events of the second film, but ignores any of the further sequels and the 2022 reboot. While Pinhead would have been enough to truly sell this game, other familiar faces are also present, as Chatterer, Deep Throat, and Butterball, are all present. In fact, Deep Throat, who is the female Cenobite with her throat cut open and tugged at with several hooks, has a much larger role here than Pinhead himself. In fact, she's the most interesting character here, offering plenty of answers but leaving even more questions on the table.
Hellraiser: Revival is not for the faint of heart, or those who are squeamish about body manipulation/horror, or torture. From full frontal nudity of both men and women, to body horrors few movies or games even attempt to do, it becomes even more grotesque when you find out that most of those victims are still alive, Saber Interactive took no shortcuts to get Hellraiser: Revival to where it is; it's one of the most authentic adaptations of an IP I've ever seen. Saber was not going to play it safe, they were all in or not at all. This is a game that earns its M rating and then some, making other games in that same rating group feel incredibly tame by comparison. It makes Mortal Kombat feel like a Saturday morning cartoon.
Revival deals with a lot of mature topics, several of which are rarely explored in gaming, let alone AAA or even AA. From explicit sexual content, nudity, detailed body horror, bondage orgies, sadomasochism, domestic abuse, drug addiction, and the effects much of that can have on your mental health, almost no topic was off the table. As a large portion of the game takes place in a sex club, there are several instances of sex, bondage, graphic torture for pleasure and pain, and dozens of art pieces that depict excessive body horror.
Saber Interactive doesn't hold back here. The game is likely going to fail classification in certain territories, and Saber was actually surprised they were able to achieve the M rating without having to cut anything, fearful to gain that AO rating that would prevent it from coming to consoles. Hellraiser is a franchise that is detailed in those themes and its violence, so to see the dedication here from Saber to live in that space, and express it so vividly, makes this a truly authentic experience. It feels like the films instead of merely adapting them.
Hellraiser: Revival is a single-player first-person survival horror game that feels like a combination of Condemned: Criminal Origins, Silent Hill, PT, and Resident Evil; most notably its 7th and 8th entries, all mixed into one game. That's not to say it feels like an imitation of those games, or leans on them to do the heavy lifting, but it does set the expectations of what you're getting here.
From breakable weapons, repair kits, keys, lock picks, puzzles, gunplay, and a familiar inventory system, the inspirations are clear, but it's the world and gameplay around those systems where Hellraiser: Revival is truly unique. Sure, some of its systems are simple, and fairly shallow in what it offers, with one system that I hated to control, but so much of what Saber has done here does allow Hellraiser: Revival to have its own identity, which is a huge bonus for future sequels.
The plot here revolves around Aidan Lynch and his girlfriend Sunny. The pair are engaged in sex when Sunny brings a mysterious cube into the mix, having Aidan slice away at her skin with the edges of the cube. And, as the cube begins to unleash its powers due to it being powered by pain and pleasure, Sunny becomes possessed, leaves Aidan, and enters into the Labyrinth realm that has suddenly opened up in front of them.
While Aidan gives chase to find her, completely naked by the way, he becomes involved in a world he is not even remotely prepared for. However, he is soon captured by a group of cultists of the Scarlet Church, and is tortured for information about how he managed to open the cube, a device called the Genesis Configuration. While this type of puzzle box is similar to the series’ Lament version, which simply opens a portal when solved, the Genesis model is far more involved in a plot built around Pinhead himself.
During your capture you meet two of the game's main antagonists, Marlowe, who is the leader of the Scarlet Church, and his body horror specialist Bruno, a man who considers himself an artist of the flesh. It's here where Aidan has his left hand nailed to the chair, and his right arm sutured to his stomach, each of which he tears free as he attempts to escape. This tearing at the flesh is only one instance of the pain he will feel before this night is over.
Hellraiser: Revival has basic stealth elements, gunplay, melee, and the powers gifted to you via the cube to dispatch your enemies in a variety of ways. And, in some cases, albeit more rare than I'd like, you can choose to engage or attack from the shadows, engaging in a bit of stealth gameplay. However, unlike most games, if you break stealth, enemies do not go back to patrolling, they will remain engaged and will either track you down or remain stationed where they can get a clean shot at you.
Stealth is regulated to just ducking and hiding behind cover, but also lacks depth to make it easier to move around without being seen. You can hide in bushes or in the dark, with an eye icon indicating if you are hidden. However, being seen by enemies doesn't really convey any sort of indication that they see you, apart from them talking to themselves if they actually saw anything. You can throw bottles or rocks to distract your prey, as you sneak up behind them and cut their throats.
Gunplay and melee work well to take down your target with melee having some decent depth here. Armored foes will be mostly resistant to sharp weapons, so having bats or larger melee weapons will be more suited in taking them down. Striking with bats or knives have a solid heft to them, with crunches and slices feeling and sounding brutal. Melee weapons have a durability to them, so using a knife on an armored foe will cause it to snap much easier. Thankfully, you can use repair kits to keep your favorite weapons always at the ready. Overall, you have a decent variety of melee weapons, with more that can be found or bought later on in the game's little store, run by a mysterious older woman who knows more than she is letting on.
Guns range from pistols, shotguns, SMG’s, to revolvers and assault rifles. Each weapon will have upgrades that you’ll track down and equip, such as having a larger magazine, or changing the round types to make them more deadly. However, you'll be fighting for inventory space as, like Resident Evil, you start off with an extremely limited cache, requiring satchels to increase your carrying capacity. And, since ammo only stacks in certain amounts, having a lot of ammo will reduce the space you have for healing items, new weapons, and artifacts and relics that you can sell.
Gunplay feels good, with weapons having the appropriate kick to them. Aim assist is very mild here, with even the strong setting being very loose and never feeling like it tugging the cursor with any real force. You can aim for the head or different parts of their exposed flesh, or shoot barrels to have them burn from the explosive carnage. Enemies will rarely storm you when pressured, and will even take cover or force you to make the first move. The AI isn't groundbreaking, but does give you a bit more than just mindless targets to worry about, even on easy.
The cube itself can be used as a weapon, as you can swallow fire from torches and flaming barrels and fire it toward your foe. You'll initially only be able to pull razor blades or metal spikes from various parts of the environment and launch them toward your target, with the former being a good way to decapitate them and end the fight there. Eventually, you'll earn a large AOE attack that becomes a large component for handling the last few boss fights. That said, there is zero controller rumble during this attack, and it often left me wondering if I pulled it off at first.
However, there is one part of the cube that vastly disappoints. Ever so often, you'll need to interact with floating platforms or other parts of the environment that have the same glowing blue identifier. You can then move these platforms or even spin whole sections of the Labyrinth around. While the concept is fine, and can be an interesting tool, having this power while also having the same analog stick make you look in that direction means you lose all peripheral vision and also lends itself to being frustrating to control properly. Had it locked your orientation while using it, then it would have been far better to use.
One of the final times you use this power is in a location where being exposed means taking fatal damage to a power that will automatically lock onto you. Losing your peripheral vision as you are constantly looking up as you raise these pillars was so frustrating that I skipped out on trying to get the focus upgrade for my cube's powers. It was honestly the only part of the game where I was just done with what they wanted me to do. I had had enough.
Shortly after dealing with your introduction to the sex club, you'll meet an older woman who runs a shop. Until then, you were collecting coins and precious artifacts to sell, but with nothing to spend them on or even an idea on the where and who. Here, you'll find ammo, healing items, new guns and melee options, and recipes to craft. Crafting is fairly basic, as you'll collect scraps of metal, bandages, springs, herbs, and chemicals.
While the shop is very useful, she only has a finite supply of certain items in each chapter. I will say that not having her restock before the final battle was extremely annoying, as I had to take on the boss with absolutely no health or healing items, as most bosses usually follow a big flood of enemies that usually drain you of your stock anyway. Regardless, I did manage to find a few breakable containers in the fight that had a medkit or two. Still, having nothing for me right before the final battle was an odd choice.
Apart from gunplay, stealth kills, and the cube’s magical powers, you'll have safe or locker codes to track down, puzzles to solve, or keys to locate. While the odd solution comes from several of the documents you find or the recorders that must have been on sale, as they are constantly everywhere, most solutions are found as you interact with objects or find numbers painted on the walls. Puzzles vary from rotating tiers of a picture to form the full image, to moving lock pieces around to find the order of key items. There are some puzzles where you only need to find one key or others that need the full set. It does a good job at not repeating the same requirements across every puzzle or locked door.
There are a few moments where the difficulty can get a bit too much when seeking down said keys. One such key is a statue piece that unlocks a door you need to get through. As you grab the statue head from a chair in a small cabin, you are immediately attacked and then need to nail wood planks to each of the three windows to survive an onslaught of enemies. While you'll soon have to defend those temporary defenses, you then get attacked from those dropping in from the ceiling, all while having to still defend those windows. The amount of enemies here was far more than I had supplies for. While a gas canister did wonders for burning the half dozen that blocked me in the small entrance room, I did finally manage to down them all and escape, using nearly every item or consumable weapon I had, just to survive.
The forces at play that you'll engage with are numerous members of the cult, as well as tortured abominations that are somehow still alive. One mini-boss that you'll run into quite often in the back half of the game is a mess of limbs that can spew out sludge that forces you to wipe it clean before you re-engage in combat. To defeat it, you'll then need to dismember its limbs, all while dodging its swings. However, once you have that AOE attack, you'll make short work of them.
While the enemy variety is fine, I do wish the more body-suit forms dressed in bondage that we see via those in the club would have factored in, giving us some Silent Hill vibes of the creatures that are contained into their own body sac. Body torture and manipulation is present here in significant ways, but the enemy variety rarely are composed of such individuals.
Regardless, the mutilation you can perform on your enemies is incredibly grotesque and utterly violent, as well as what is present around you, especially in one scene with a woman strapped to a table as you sneak around the room. Her whole hand flies by you as her host, Bruno, is dancing around the room with a scalpel, talking about the wonders of pain and pleasure.
There are plenty of scenes of immense torture, especially in the game's opening moments as Sunny is torn apart, her body a victim of hooks that are gouged in deep, peeling back her flesh. The game also doesn't hide away from nudity or sex, as flashes of Aidan's embrace with Sunny are constantly shown throughout the game.
The relationship that Aidan and Sunny have is expanded on throughout the game through a series of flashbacks. We learn the reason why Aidan is so determined to save Sunny, why she is so important to him, and how bad he needs her. However, as we start to see moments of their relationship play out, the differences between love and need become apparent. While Sunny did save Aidan from a life of addiction, love itself can often fall victim to being a game of addiction as well, replacing one vice for another.
Aidan's story here is pretty solid, and the themes of addiction, domestic abuse, and the desperation and anxiety that comes from being unknowingly trapped in a toxic relationship, one where you simply ignore or don't see the red flags that are so prominently waving around you, can certainly resonate with some of its audience. Few games really dive into such themes, but the Hellraiser films are known for such topics, especially when it comes to those relationships being highly sexual and built around pleasure and pain.
Hellraiser: Revival does a great job at making you immersed in its world. The sex club itself is a den of desire, with even a small task of providing toys and a brief moment of spanking to one of its guests really sets the mood. Then, on the other side of the coin is the Labyrinth, a realm of hallways and staircases that can shift at a moment's notice, especially when chased by the Chatterer.
Each realm has a lot of personality and mood to it, keeping the tone of the game's themes at the ready. You'll explore areas beyond the club, such as the aforementioned cabin, as well as tunnels and crypts below the club that have several hazards that can cut you in two, or electrify you into a puddle of goo.
The club itself, throughout the different times you explore it, is often littered with the bodies of many of its guests, dressed up in bondage, gagged, or folded like a lawn chair. There is a ton of detail in this location, with likely the most amount of 3D models sex toys in a game ever. Guiness World Record, mayhaps?
Pinhead, and the company he keeps look incredible and provide some great voice acting between both the horror icon himself as well as Deep Throat, whose vocal oddities really shine through. They are thankfully used sparingly and never feel like they are needing to use them to convince you this is a Hellraiser product.
Visually, the game feels perfect for the licence, and via its real world locations and the Labyrinth, are often rendered beautifully, providing all the pleasure and pain one would want for the franchise.
With Doug Bradley returning as Pinhead, it certainly sets the bar high with the vocal performances. Xalavier Nelson Jr, who is also a prolific game developer, who has worked on over 100 games in varying roles. He is also the studio head of Strange Scaffold, the studio behind 2024’s I am your Beast. His role here as Again has some great moments, and it's also great to see a main protagonist in a game actually have their own face and not that of the actor.
Hellraiser: Revival is pretty solid and does a lot to adapt the IP into something that feels like part of the universe rather than a simple licensed tie-in. Few developers have adapted a property so perfectly, and especially one so adult and mature, all without comprising the tone and feel of the source material.
It's hard to imagine a better game built in the Hellraiser world than what Saber Interactive has created here. From its violence, sex, and aesthetic, the experience here is unequivocally Hellraiser, both in body and soul. Few license games nail the source material as good as what Saber has done here, and fans of both the films and survival horror are in for the treat, just make sure to play this with the curtains down.
Developer - Saber Interactive, Boss Team Games, Mad Head Games.
Publisher - Saber Interactive.
Released - October 8th, 2026
Available On - PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, PC.
Rated - (M) - Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs.
Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X/S
Review Access - A review code for Hellraiser: Revival was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.