By admin 
TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – Saber Interactive’s Hellraiser: Revival has been on my radar for a long time. Most people have that defining horror film or franchise they saw too young that has stuck with them well into adulthood, and Hellraiser is mine. While the first film remains a classic of the genre, the second was the one that stuck with me, especially the gorgeously rendered matte painting of the Labyrinth. The mythos and world of the pleasure-in-pain Cenobites have been a constant source of interest for me. Sadly, after that second film, the franchise tanked in quality to a dizzying degree (though the third movie gets kudos for being one of the only times my jaw has hurt from laughing so hard).
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But Saber Interactive’s trailers seemed to understand the assignment. Disgusting body horror, gruesome violence, a deeper dive into the Cenobite’s world.
My early experience with Revival was insanely positive. We take control of Aidan Lynch after his girlfriend Sunny has unlocked the Genesis Configuration (a mystical Rubik’s Cube that opens a portal to Hell) and is torn apart by the Labyrinth’s chains. Aidan set out to save her, making a deal with Pinhead (the Hell Priest, played by the great Doug Bradley returning to the role for the first time since 2005) and feeding Sunny the hearts of three people marked by the Cenobites.
The first quarter of the game is spent sneaking through the headquarters of a cult obsessed with the Genesis Configuration and creating Cenobites on Earth. You get to experience an artist’s gallery of different ways to mutilate a human body. It’s disturbing, and that early game manages to quickly make it clear that Revival isn’t messing around. Much like the early movies, this is a splatterpunk gore festival, and if that isn’t your cup of tea, you may want to turn it off.
But the problems start to settle in once you get your first taste of combat. In early trailers, I expected this to be a Condemned-style game focused on using blunt and edged weapons to take down foes. And while that is the case, Aidan lacks the ability to block attacks and must be one of the weakest characters in gaming. Enemies take forever to kill and the only means of evading their attacks is a strafe that isn’t very good.
Things only got more frustrating once guns were introduced. The shooting on PS5 felt rigid, and an auto-aim feature sends the crosshair floating around when you’re just trying to get a headshot. Thankfully, the enemy AI is rarely smart enough to make shootouts that much of a concern, staring off into corners and running around randomly like the sound of a gun firing gives them temporary blindness.
Combat improves later with the introduction of the Genesis Configuration as a way to lift saw blades and rebar and hurl those items through enemies.
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But sadly the majority of the games combat and boss encounters are spent strafing around, avoiding being hit while bonking or shooting something.
There is a heavy Resident Evil inspiration as you will be collecting materials to craft bullets and healing items. There’s an item box to store stuff in. There’s a cursory merchant system.
While none of that felt fleshed out, the moments spent in the Labyrinth or being pursued by Cenobites shined. I was on the edge of my seat trying to run away from the pursuing villains while solving puzzles and trying not to be ground into meat by rotating rhomboids of death. Those segments where time is not on your side, and you feel the fear of a descending spikey ceiling or the Chatterer trying to snap your neck, are some of the best horror gaming I’ve experienced in a long time.
On top of all that, the exploration of the Labyrinth, that bizarre realm that tickled and frightened my young imagination, was a dream come true. The care put into those sections was beautiful, disorienting, and oh so satisfying.
Hellraiser: Revival is baffling, if only because, as a part of the franchise mythos, it succeeds far and above what anything since Hellraiser 2 has managed. But as a game, the combat needs polish and boss fights definitely deserved greater care.
Pros: The best return to the world of Hellraiser in 35 years, gorgeous renderings of the Labyrinth, genuinely scary
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Cons: The action gameplay lacks polish and is occasionally frustratingly poor
Rating: 6/10
Review based on the PS5 version of the game.
The publisher provided a copy in exchange for an honest review.
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