Hellraiser has always seemed like a difficult property to translate into a conventional videogame. The series has iconic monsters and imagery, of course, but its particular blend of psychological horror, body horror, sexuality and surrealism is arguably more important than straightforward action. Saber Interactive is taking on that challenge with Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival, a first-person survival horror game that aims to bring players into the franchise’s disturbing mythology rather than simply turning its Cenobites into another collection of videogame enemies. We played a demo of the PC version during Gamescom, and while there are still plenty of unanswered questions surrounding the full experience, what we saw suggests that Saber understands that making a Hellraiser game unsettling may be more important than simply making it scary.
What we know
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is a first-person action survival horror game and a new story set within the Hellraiser canon. Players take on the role of Aidan, who becomes involved with the mysterious Genesis Configuration, a puzzle box whose powers become central to his attempt to rescue his girlfriend Sunny from the otherworldly Labyrinth. His journey brings him into conflict with Pinhead, the Cenobites and a cult devoted to them, while the Configuration itself serves as more than just a narrative device.
The puzzle box gives Aidan access to supernatural abilities that can be combined with conventional weapons and used both in combat and when interacting with the environment. The game also features melee and firearms combat, puzzles, exploration and encounters with cultists and other hellish creatures, suggesting a survival horror structure rather than a purely action-focused approach. The story is designed as a new chapter in the Hellraiser universe, with the Labyrinth and several of the franchise’s best-known concepts forming part of the experience.
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is currently planned for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, and is expected to launch on October 8th, 2026.
What we saw
Our preview is based on a playable demo of the PC version that we played during Gamescom when we met with Saber Interactive. Before the session even began, however, the developers made very clear what kind of material we were about to see, with a lengthy content warning covering explicit sexual material, nudity, violence, body horror and gore. That disclaimer turned out to be entirely appropriate, because this is very much a Hellraiser game that is prepared to push its imagery and subject matter further than many mainstream horror games.
What we thought
The biggest challenge for Hellraiser: Revival may be finding a way to turn such an unusual horror universe into satisfying gameplay without losing what makes the franchise distinctive. Based on the demo, Saber appears to be approaching that problem by borrowing familiar ideas from modern survival horror and placing them inside an increasingly surreal and uncomfortable Hellraiser setting. There are recognizable elements here, including exploration, key items, puzzles, limited resources and combat, and the inventory management and general structure occasionally brought Resident Evil to mind. But the moments that felt most convincing weren’t necessarily the ones in which we were dealing with cultists and a mystery. Instead, they were the sections where the game started to distort reality and create the feeling that we had wandered somewhere we weren’t supposed to be.
That psychological approach feels like a particularly sensible fit for the property. Hellraiser’s imagery is immediately recognizable, but simply filling a game with gore and familiar monsters wouldn’t necessarily capture its atmosphere. The demo instead mixed conventional horror gameplay with increasingly disorienting environments, looping spaces and surreal imagery, at times evoking the uncomfortable uncertainty of P.T. more than a straightforward action game. The Labyrinth was particularly interesting in this regard, shifting the focus away from constant combat and towards navigation, stealth and environmental puzzles. Using the Genesis Configuration to manipulate the environment and create a path through these spaces gives the puzzle box a gameplay purpose beyond being a recognizable piece of Hellraiser iconography, although some of the physics involved in controlling objects could feel a little cumbersome.
Combat is certainly part of the experience, but the demo suggested that Saber isn’t relying on gunplay alone to make Revival work. The encounters have a weight to them, with certain enemies requiring more than simply pointing a gun and firing, while ammunition and resources encourage at least some consideration before rushing into every confrontation. The Genesis Configuration is arguably the most interesting part of this combat system, allowing the environment itself to become part of Aidan’s arsenal and adding a more distinctive layer to what could otherwise be fairly familiar first-person survival horror mechanics. We have some concern over how consistently these systems will come together, but the combination of conventional weapons and the puzzle box’s powers at the very least has the potential to give Revival a combat identity of its own.
The audiovisual presentation may ultimately be where the game has its greatest opportunity to distinguish itself. Revival is extremely graphic, and its violence, mutilation and sexualized imagery are clearly not intended to make the Hellraiser universe more accessible for a wider audience. This is emphatically not going to be a game for everyone, and perhaps not even for every horror fan. At its most extreme, the material we saw was deliberately difficult to watch rather than conventionally entertaining, which will undoubtedly be divisive. Yet that seems closely connected to the game’s goals: Hellraiser is supposed to be unsettling, strange and at times deeply uncomfortable. The demo’s environments, soundscape and oppressive visual design captured that tone well, even though we didn’t yet get much of a look at some of the franchise’s most iconic characters. The narrative also remains something of an unknown quantity, as the demo only offered fragments of Aidan and Sunny’s relationship rather than enough context to judge how well the full story will work.
Based on this first hands-on session, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival has the potential to do something more interesting than simply attach a famous horror licence to a familiar survival horror template. The best parts of the demo were the moments when Saber seemed willing to embrace the stranger and more psychological aspects of Hellraiser, using its violence and grotesque imagery to support an atmosphere of uncertainty rather than relying on them alone for shock value. There are still questions about the balance between combat, puzzles and exploration, as well as whether the narrative can sustain the disturbing ideas hinted at in the demo across the full game. But the audiovisual tone already feels appropriately Hellraiser, and the Genesis Configuration could provide the mechanical hook that the property needs. If Saber can maintain the demo’s sense of dread and make its most surreal ideas as compelling as its more conventional survival horror systems, Revival could offer something genuinely distinctive when it opens the doors to the Labyrinth later this year.