WARNING: The subject matter of Hellraiser is inordinately graphic. We have such sights to show you, but you've been warned – this is a razer width from AO in content and visuals.
It would have been very easy for developer Boss Team Games and Saber Interactive to make a generic slasher game, slap Pinhead on it, and then call it “Hellraiser,” but two things would have happened: creator Clive Barker would have opened the portal to hell and sent them to it, and the fans would have pushed them all right into its gaping maw. No, the only choice here was to work with the series creator and do it exactly the way they did – without any level of restraint, and that’s precisely what they did.
Blood, bondage, and black leather.
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival doesn’t ease you in – it sets its barbed hooks into you and drags you directly into its world, daring you to keep looking at what it has to show you. My hands-on time with the game at Summer Game Fest made one thing immediately clear: this isn’t a nostalgia play or a cheap re‑skin of generic horror tropes. No, it’s a deliberate, vicious interpretation of the world of Hellraiser, and one where there is a clear understanding of the difference between gore as decoration and horror as ritual.
The demo opens with our “hero” Aidan Lynch in what appears to be some sort of BDSM club. His girlfriend, Sunny, has been taken by the Cenobites, and he intends to save her. The club is plush, with red padded doors behind which are all sorts of visceral and visual pleasures and pain. Pictures on the wall hint at wild kinks, extreme behaviors, and outright dangerous sex, with no compunction about showing you every bit of it. The club, though opulent, feels like the kind of place where you wouldn’t want to touch much of anything. Everywhere you look is bondage, restraints, and a desire to push the envelope of human endurance. It’s not only pervasive, but it’s also downright intrusive, setting the perfect stage.
This club holds all sorts of pleasures...and pain.
Unfortunately for Aidan, he’s not supposed to be here, and the club residents are quick to point that out violently. Cultists, shrink-wrapped in slick black leather from head to toe, complete with all the chains and zippers one might use for a convenient handhold in the right situations, are eager to please their masters by trying to separate your head from your shoulders. While they have pipes, bats, pistols, and the occasional rifle, you have something far more powerful.
Aidan’s bargain, though we don’t see it in this demo, has provided him with the box. The box, currently in Lament configuration (a cube), resides in one hand, with a pistol in the other. Sure, you can shoot these cultists as they rush towards you, but where is the suffering in that?
This place holds sights that will make you uncomfortable.
The Lament Configuration is the spine of the entire experience of Hellraiser, as it should be. It is not a prop, and solving it to transform it into its various configurations to solve puzzles will be a delight. In our demo, however, we mostly unleashed one of its most potent powers – pyrokinesis. Pulling in remnants of human suffering as fuel, it belches forth flames, immolating the poor bastards where they stand. Other powers include telekinesis or summoning the iconic Hell Chains to rip through enemies in all sorts of satisfying ways, though I doubt that’s the end of that power list. Lore-wise, the box can be configured into Lament, Lore, Lauderant, Liminal, Lazarus, and Leviathan, and I can’t wait to find out what lies inside each, provided they’re in the game. Based on the slavish dedication to lore accuracy I saw on display, I’d bet they are.
Beyond combat in the sex club, there’s also a number of puzzles waiting to be solved, some optional, and some blocking progress. The bouncer’s office has some weapons, ammo, and money to be had, provided you can find the key. Another door is locked with four symbols. I say symbols, but let me assure you – they’d get you demonetized on YouTube as they are leather-clad human figures having sex in various positions, with you “filing in the middle” symbol, if I understood the puzzle – I didn’t get to solve it in my time. The door I did get to open had a far more interesting story to show me.
Look closer for how this puzzle is solved. The picture on the right might give you some clues.
I collected a ticket to the “Peep Show”, and once I fed the ticket to the door, I was allowed inside. Immediately, the door shut behind me, and the world changed. Surrounded by what was clearly the labyrinth of hell, I made my way into a room that had some creature slurping and chomping loudly as it consumed something or someone. Using the box, I twisted the landscape of this hellscape, aligning the M.C. Escher-esque paths that seemingly warped back on themselves. Escaping that fate, I opened a door and found myself in my own apartment. It was time to learn a bit about Sunny.
As I walked around, the place seemed entirely normal, but I could see Sunny’s silhouetted figure behind a door that I couldn’t open. Making my way upstairs, I wrapped back to the beginning of the apartment. It had changed. Slightly darker and looking a touch more sinister, I suddenly had a flash of a minor argument between Aiden and Sunny. Nothing concerning so far, until I made my way upstairs and wrapped again.
Some miscellaneous pics from other parts of the game.
The apartment had turned a crimson shade of red, with various things strewn about. Sunny is not living up to her name as she screams at Aiden to “Show some fucking emotion!”, throwing down a flask of alcohol and setting the place on fire! Scrambling through the door one more time, the fire is gone, but it brings me to the next thing that lies over the top of the entire demo – the audio.
Audio in horror is most often relegated to jump scares with loud stings and explosive bursts of sound. Here, there’s a subtle distortion that tells you the Cenobites are near. There is a foreboding and ever-present but equally unnerving sense of pressure that lingers, prickling the back of your neck. It’s this sound that led to the final sight the demo had to show me.
Rounding the corner, the room that had previously been inaccessible was now open. Standing adjacent to Sunny was the Surgeon (aka “Butterball”). He pointed at what I was to be shown – Sunny, restrained in “pet-tie” stance, which is to say her arms were violently yanked backwards and held behind her as she was forced onto her knees, face forward. Her mouth was held open by barbed hooks in a silent scream, and her eyes had been hollowed out of her skull. Her skin was flayed with numerous lash marks, but it was unclear if she was alive or dead. One thing was certain – she had suffered mightily, and her suffering might not be anywhere near over.
The hands-on time with Hellraiser: Revival made me wonder if Sunny was worth it, or if Aiden was worth redeeming, either. They both seem like awful creatures that had summoned things well beyond their control. They’d summoned the Hellpriest and his Order of the Gash, and whatever bargain Aiden had struck, the bill was coming due. This game seems to be shaping up to be the definitive Hellraiser experience, trusting the audience to understand that true horror and dread come from anticipation, not jump scares, and not loud audio stings. I can’t wait to hear Doug Bradley bring Pinhead to life once again as he holds up a mirror to the worst parts of us and asks us to peer deeply. Our suffering will be legendary, even in Hell.
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. It’ll tear your soul apart at some point in late 2026. It also picked up one of our coveted Best of Summer Game Fest 2026 awards – congratulations to the team for building what may be the best damned Hellraiser media we’ve seen in decades.
