Hellraiser: Revival Review — Survival Horror Game is a Superb, Outrageously Gruesome Expansion of Clive Barker’s World
With original creator Clive Barker overseeing the project and Doug Bradley reprising his role as Pinhead for the first time in 20 years, Revival resurrects the classic horror franchise as a first-person video game
by Alex Kaan 8 October 2026
Saber Interactive
40 years ago, Clive Barker wrote a novella that would forever change the horror genre. The Hellbound Heart, the story of a hedonistic criminal who acquires a mysterious puzzle box that summons interdimensional sadomasochistic beings known as the Cenobites, would be adapted only a year later, in 1987, by Barker himself into Hellraiser, the horror classic that would go on to spawn an 11-film franchise. With new writers and directors coming and going, the overall quality — despite a few outliers — generally diminished with each new instalment, but the otherworldly, seductive power of Barker’s original has more than stood the test of time.
Thankfully, the franchise’s first video game, a first-person survival action-horror from Saber Interactive, takes its cues from Barker’s original rather than the disappointing follow-ups. Addictive, enthralling, and punishingly gory, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is an interdimensional thrill ride that fleshes out the iconic horror franchise to dazzling effect.
Saber Interactive
The game begins in a messy house littered with used condoms as biker gang member Aidan Lynch (Xalavier Nelson Jr.) and Sunny (Leader Looi) engage in some BDSM. Sunny has just brought home a strange puzzle box known as the Genesis Configuration — a spin on the original Lament Configuration — and at her request, Aidan proceeds to cut her with the box. Drawing blood, the box opens up a portal to the Labyrinth, the vast, beautiful yet monstrous maze-like dimension that the devious Cenobites call home. To the sound of swelling strings that quote Christopher Young’s 1987 score, all of the original film’s Cenobites (Butterball, Deep Throat, Chatterer, and their Hell Priest leader, the infamous Pinhead) appear to take Sunny into their realm.
Bloodied and delirious, Aidan wakes up in the clutches of the film’s earthly antagonists, the Scarlet Church, a group of Leviathan-worshipping fanatics who want to create Cenobites on Earth. Seeing the world through Aidan’s perspective, the player must escape the Scarlet Church, gather weapons to kill his enemies, use the supernatural powers of the Genesis Configuration, and travel quite literally to the depths of Hell to bring Sunny back. The journey will bring him face to face with Pinhead, and for even casual fans, hearing Doug Bradley’s distinctive, deliciously evil baritone voice after two decades away from the role should provide a thrill.
Saber Interactive
With original creator Clive Barker supervising the project, the way that Hellraiser has spawned a game of this scale is a testament to how rich Barker’s worldbuilding and mythology were in the first place. Wisely, director Emil Esov doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but uses the original’s aesthetics and themes as a canvas for some Resident Evil-style fun. Part of what makes the game so effective is that it understands that Hellraiser, at its core, is about discovery, sensation, and the taboo thrill of mixing pain and pleasure, and the themes readily lend themselves to the mechanics of a first-person survival horror game, especially when looking head-on at such grotesque visuals.
From kinky sex to gut-wrenching body horror, there is an audacity to Hellraiser: Revival in its commitment to delivering graphic imagery to honour a famously graphic franchise. This is one of the most brutal, wildly explicit major video game releases, full stop. Consequently, it inspires that key mix of fear and lurid excitement that lies at the heart of any worthy Hellraiser adaptation, a title that Revival can claim without a shadow of a doubt.
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival comes to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on October 8th.