Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival Hands-On Preview – Pain, Pleasure, and Pure Terror

Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival finally gives the cult horror franchise the video game treatment fans have been craving for decades.

At Gamescom 2025, Saber Interactive unveiled a demo that delivered not just fan service, but a deeply unsettling survival horror experience that feels like a natural extension of Clive Barker’s twisted universe.

The demo opened with Sunny unlocking the sinister Genesis Configuration, triggering an encounter with Pinhead himself – voiced once again by horror legend Doug Bradley after a 20-year absence – and his Cenobite followers. From there, the player was pulled into the nightmarish Labyrinth and a storyline involving cultists who seek to manufacture their own Cenobites for a grotesque purpose. It’s immediately clear that the game leans heavily into the franchise’s core themes: the razor-thin boundary between pain and pleasure, and the lure of forbidden transformation.

What followed was a grim escape sequence where choices carried real weight, demanding the player to inflict pain for progress. From that point, the experience shifted into a more traditional first-person survival horror structure – but elevated by atmosphere and design. Puzzles varied from cryptic navigation challenges to tense stealth sequences, all wrapped in the oppressive architecture of the Labyrinth. Even without combat on display in the demo, the blend of mechanics hinted at a game that’s both faithful and frightening.

Most striking was how the game maintained its dread in an unlikely setting: a bustling Gamescom floor. If the sight of shifting corridors, twisted cult rituals, and the looming presence of Pinhead can chill in a brightly lit demo hall, one can only imagine the terror in the isolation of a dark room at home. The promise of the Genesis Configuration’s darker powers, still unseen in full, teases even greater horrors to come.

With Saber Interactive embracing the extremes of Barker’s vision, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival looks set to be a bold and grotesque debut for the series in gaming. If the final release can balance combat with its already gripping puzzles and atmosphere, this could be one of the most unforgettable horror games of the generation.