Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival Reviews
An appropriately mixed bag of grisly body horror, Hellraiser: Revival is a strange, scrappy, and never less than fascinating game.
While the studded scalp of otherworld antagonist Pinhead absolutely looks the part, it’s a shame that little else in Hellraiser: Revival has been nailed to anywhere near the same extent.
But the overall experience is one of a narrative that puts too much trust in its consumers to respect who or what’s being consumed, and the result is a beautiful-at-moments maze with sadly nothing at its center.
I am pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed Hellraiser: Revival. Its respect for its source material is apparent throughout, with the Labyrinth, the Cenobites, and the Genesis Configuration being standout pieces of the puzzle. The rest of the game isn't reinventing the wheel for first-person horror, but the "don't fix what isn't broken" approach works just fine here.
Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival does the iconic horror franchise justice with its story and atmosphere, both of which are top-notch and enough to justify its existence.
It may not reinvent the wheel, but it effectively combines its gameplay elements in a way that's incredibly engaging.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Hellraiser: Revival is everything I wanted from a game based on Barker's series. The extremity of its depiction of the slippage between pain and pleasure, the visualisation of both the Cenobites and the Labyrinth, even the sheer visceral nature of the combat and environment. I might be a little biased as I am such a fan of the source material, but this stands out to me as one of the best horror tie-in games I can remember and is essential for anyone with even a slight fondness for the Cenobites and their dark delights.
Hellraiser: Revival offers a well-paced survival horror experience that's packed with fan-service, but also a Labyrinth-load of bugs.
Clive Barker's Hellraiser Revival is a frustrating experience, as for every one thing it does really well, it does two things that will annoy the life out of you. Part of me was willing to see past the jank, as you have a pretty niche horror title coming to life in a new medium, and I certainly respect it for giving it a go.However, too often its design choices would irritate me, hold me back from progressing, or just straight up make me not want to play. While it's got little sparks of something special in there, Hellraiser: Revival is more pain than pleasure.
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Review in Italian | Read full review
Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival had all the components to become a hit. However, stylish design and well-written characters are unable to save mediocre gameplay and irritating puzzles combined with outdated mechanics. On top of that, in 2026 what's happening on screen is incapable of scaring an audience that has lived through a pandemic, an AI boom, and numerous military conflicts.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival combines numerous ideas; however, not all of them come together seamlessly.
If you are a Hellraiser fan then you are already waiting for release day, but for those that are new and curious; if you can handle the extremes that this game offers then I invite you to check it out, they have SUCH sights to show you.
Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival isn't a perfect outing. Some of the creative choices, like adding in explorable sections, add more bloat for the sake of gameplay variety without adding significant substance. To boot, enemy AI in these parts of the game is very simple and offers little challenge. With that said, the true potency of this game comes from the more focused, linear areas, where the concepts and scares get the chance to really show themselves. There are some cool ideas in Hellraiser: Revival, and every Hellraiser fan needs to check it out.
Hellraiser: Revival gets the themes and look absolutely nailed down, but with a 'constantly on' story, it betrays itself as players will find themselves quickly desensitized.
Cast your mind back to Hellraiser, from 1987. What do you remember? In my mind's eye, I see an attic, some hooks, a generous helping of blood, and a...
Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival is not without its issues, but looking past its pale and dead exterior reveals one of the best licensed horror games ever made.
Hellraiser Revival has all the blood, sex and grotesquerie you'd expect, almost perfectly capturing the Hellraiser experience in video game form. But it struggles to carve out an identity of its own, mimicking plenty of horror greats without quite understanding what made them so great. Regardless of its flaws, Revival tells a story that Hellraiser fans should enjoy, even if its uneven gameplay makes it a much harder sell for everyone else.
It has some issues than can annoy, such as difficulty spikes and a couple of troublesome forced stealth sections, but these don't stop Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival from being a thrilling rollercoaster of a survival horror experience. Sexy, gory and grotesque are perhaps the best words to sum it up.
First-person single-player survival horror take on the legendary series