{"id":15150,"date":"2026-10-08T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/?p=15150"},"modified":"2026-10-08T17:45:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T14:15:32","slug":"hellraiser-revival-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/10\/08\/hellraiser-revival-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Hellraiser: Revival Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">From the opening scene of Hellraiser: Revival, in which an intimate moment of sexual fetishism goes horribly wrong for its hero and his lover, this survival horror adventure inspired by Clive Barker\u2019s bloodsoaked ode to BDSM makes it painfully clear that it\u2019s not for the squeamish. So graphic is its ebb and flow between blasting gory holes and bathroom glory holes that the greatest moments of tension I felt playing it were not when I was fending off its hordes of gimp-masked cultists, but rather when I was nervously looking over my shoulder just in case my wife happened to walk in the room. However, peel back the sordid surface layer and Revival doesn\u2019t have much meat to go along with its many buckets of blood. Heavy-handed storytelling, repeated chase sequences, and uninspired boss encounters meant that no matter how many meatsacks had their skin pierced and flayed by chains that tightened onscreen, Hellraiser: Revival never managed to properly get its hooks into me. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">We play as Aiden, a one liner-spouting everyman with some troubling addiction problems who\u2019s on a quest to bring his newly murdered girlfriend back to life the only way he knows how: by making a pact with pale-skinned series poster boy, Pinhead (voiced with trademark unnerving eloquence by original actor Doug Bradley), to slaughter several members of a local death cult and feed their hearts to her partially reanimated remains. It\u2019s a disturbing premise that\u2019s pretty faithful to the first (and best) two films in the Hellraiser series, but I wish its plot was presented in a more dynamic fashion. The exceedingly gory scenes that featured Pinhead and his cenobite pals always had me glued to the screen, but so much of Revival\u2019s roughly nine-hour story is otherwise delivered in drawn-out exposition dumps spouted by secondary characters, and I never really felt too invested beyond the broad strokes. It\u2019s not a great sign when the chatty in-game merchant is doing most of the heavy lifting here, and I\u2019m not just talking about her ammo crates. <\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">Hellraiser: Revival Review Screens<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Hellraiser: Revival Review Screens\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2277167929 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/hellraiser-revival-review.gif\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Still, at least the shooting is pretty solid, albeit fairly stock standard for the survival horror genre. To be honest, if Revival\u2019s weapon and inventory system borrowed any more from the Resident Evil series you could probably squint and spot a Capcom logo watermarked somewhere onscreen. However, its assortment of upgradeable pistols, shotguns, machine guns, and breakable blades and bats facilitate some fun ways to decapitate and dismember the hedonistic hordes that stand in Aiden\u2019s way, and ammo is scarce enough that I was forced to make use of absolutely everything at my disposal. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">I admittedly had to toggle off the overzealous aim assist since it would regularly snap to a single enemy when I was trying to target an explosive barrel in the middle of a group, and I also lamented Aiden\u2019s inability to vault over obstacles. This became particularly ludicrous in one instance where I could clearly see a room full of precious items through a wide open window, but instead of simply jumping through the gap, I had to stop and hunt around for a key to the locked door in order to access them.  <\/p>\n<div class=\"display-title jsx-684634384 jsx-2659527929 quote-container\" data-cy=\"quoteBox\">If Revival\u2019s weapon and inventory system borrowed any more from the Resident Evil series you could probably squint and spot a Capcom logo watermarked somewhere onscreen.<span class=\"stack jsx-2959124702 jsx-326843967\"><span>\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Even so, Revival\u2019s mixture of slash-and-sidestep melee encounters and skull-shattering shotgun blasts makes for some gory good times, even if the variety of enemy types is somewhat limited. Beyond the machete and gun-wielding cultists, it\u2019s mostly the same gaggle of gangly ghouls, suicide-bombing beasts, and legless creatures crawling after you that you have to mow down. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">There are ample opportunities for stealth, too, with bricks and bottles to throw for distractions and violent stealth kills to pull off. Although I wish there were controls to peek around corners like in the recent Silent Hill: Townfall, because too often I\u2019d be spotted ever-so-slightly stepping out from cover and be forced to go in all-guns-blazing anyway. It was even worse during the occasional instant-fail stealth sections with stalker enemy types, who could sometimes spot me through bushes even when I was standing still.<\/p>\n<h2 data-cy=\"title2\" class=\"title2 jsx-1903782357 jsx-3735650234\">The Sweet Suffering<\/h2>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">What elevates Revival\u2019s combat slightly above the norm is the introduction of the Genesis Configuration, a powerful reimagining of the series\u2019 iconic puzzle box that gives Aiden the ability to grab objects like conveniently placed nails and sawblades from his surroundings and hurl them at enemies with forceful blasts of telekinesis. Use of these BioShock-style superpowers is tied to his \u2018suffering\u2019 bar, which must be continually topped up by staggering enemies and performing a grisly execution move that jams the hellraising Rubik\u2019s Cube into their mouths and blasts nine inch nails directly into their skulls like they\u2019re front row at Coachella. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">I like that the limitations of the suffering bar means these supernatural abilities don\u2019t make you feel too overpowered, and how the short timer on keeping an object suspended in stasis means you can\u2019t confidently wander around with a fanblade ready to launch like you could in Dead Space. Eventually these powers are expanded to let Aiden play with fire, which allowed me to shoot explosive barrels to take out one group of enemies, before hoovering up the resulting flames and hurling them at other monsters hustling over to provide backup. There\u2019s even a bar-draining super move that shackles clusters of creatures together and tears them all apart at the same time, chaining your attacks in a gruesomely literal sense. It\u2019s just a shame that this devastating option for crowd control doesn\u2019t arrive until much later in the story, giving you relatively few opportunities to really put it to use.<\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"poll-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<section class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\"><\/section>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">It\u2019s also disappointing that Revival\u2019s boss fights are so utterly flat and forgettable for the most part. There are some interesting exceptions like the flying Sister of Mercy, who shrouds the arena in a blood mist and darts at you through the crimson haze, and another beast that scrambles on all fours and locks you in a cage suspended from a tree branch, forcing you to desperately fend off ghouls clumsily climbing up the bars in order to escape and finish the fight. But too many of the boss encounters are boring, close-quarters clashes that barely raise a hair let alone hell, and are just not all that engaging to overcome. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">A skinless freak that sluices down into a pool of viscera like some sort of blood-splattered Splatoon character certainly makes one hell of an entrance, but the fight itself demands little in the way of strategy beyond circle-strafing and shooting him until he\u2019s done for. Ditto the second time you face him later on. Meanwhile a sluglike cenobite that has enough arms to give himself a group hug is equally one-note, and you have to fight him a staggering total of <em>four times<\/em> over the full course of the journey. For all the sharp objects that litter its environments, it&#8217;s somewhat surprising that Revival\u2019s boss fights can frequently be so dull.<\/p>\n<div class=\"display-title jsx-684634384 jsx-2659527929 quote-container\" data-cy=\"quoteBox\">For all the sharp objects that litter its environments, it&#8217;s somewhat surprising that Revival\u2019s boss fights can frequently be so dull.<span class=\"stack jsx-2959124702 jsx-326843967\"><span>\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Revival\u2019s puzzles aren\u2019t the sharpest either, typically limited to tried and tested tasks like searching for bolt cutters to bust open chained gates or scouring documents for clues to four-digit keypads. There are at least a handful of occasions where it really leans into its seedier \u2013 and at times sillier \u2013 side with quandaries that are designed to tease not just your brain but potentially other parts of your anatomy. (No judgement.) At one point I was asked by a latex-clad NPC to go on a treasure hunt for uncomfortable-looking toys in a bondage club in order to progress the story, while at another I found myself flummoxed by a combination lock that demanded I arrange the positions of a variety of couples in an orgy. Truly there are moments where Revival feels a bit like Resident Evil if you swapped out Leon Kennedy for Leisure Suit Larry, and while none of its puzzles are particularly challenging, a number of them are at the very least somewhat unique. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Yet while Revival might be sexually depraved, it\u2019s also disappointingly deprived of any interesting new gameplay ideas elsewhere, regularly cribbing from survival horror classics without doing enough to match them, let alone improve on them. Remember the frantic cabin defense in Resident Evil 4 that saw Leon team up with Luis to board up windows and kick down ladders as crazed villagers spilled in through every entry point? Well, there\u2019s a version of that here set in a much smaller, single-storey space that inspires considerably less in the way of panicked problem solving. How about a looping household hallway a la Hideo Kojima\u2019s P.T.? Yep, that\u2019s in here too, minus any interesting puzzle elements or baby-in-the-sink levels of genuine terror.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Even the absolute fundamentals are regularly fumbled. At one point I powered up an old elevator, and as I waited for it to make its agonisingly slow ascent to my level I steeled myself for a fight, since as we all know nothing spawns enemies faster in a survival horror game than the simple press of a call button. However, as the gun-toting goons inevitably started filing into the room from all corners, I discovered that I could just leave the building through the front door and gun them all down while they funnelled their way through the exit, which completely robbed the moment of its intended intensity.<\/p>\n<h2 data-cy=\"title2\" class=\"title2 jsx-1903782357 jsx-3735650234\">Hellmazer<\/h2>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">In occasional departures from the slaughter-filled hallways of sex clubs and cult leader mansions, Aiden is regularly whisked away to the Labyrinth for a brief break from combat. Although this MC Escher-inspired maze of concrete corridors is far more linear than it initially appears, it nonetheless does a great job of capturing the ominous feel of Hellraiser\u2019s infamous realm of torture and pain. From the looming Leviathan on the hellscape\u2019s horizon to the insect-like cenobites that scatter along the walls like grotesquely fleshy cockroaches, it\u2019s initially a very intimidating place to explore. Every jagged surface looks like it could have your eye out, and Revival plays some clever tricks on you to keep you on your toes, like rearranging the walls around you to make you feel like you\u2019re really trapped inside a tangle of impossible architecture.  <\/p>\n<div class=\"display-title jsx-684634384 jsx-2659527929 quote-container\" data-cy=\"quoteBox\">[Revival] does a great job of capturing the ominous feel of Hellraiser\u2019s infamous realm of torture and pain.<span class=\"stack jsx-2959124702 jsx-326843967\"><span>\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">I very much enjoyed the occasional use of Aiden\u2019s telekinesis power to manipulate large chunks of the environment and create paths through this otherworld, as well as dashing past its spinning instant-deathtraps in order to snare optional upgrades to Aiden\u2019s health and suffering bars. What I did grow tired of, though, were the overused chase sequences that see you pursued by Chatterer, the cenobite from the films that basically resembles a wind-up pair of chattering teeth being smuggled inside a stretched-out skinsuit. The first instance of me being hunted by this rictus-grinning goon certainly may have gotten my blood pumping, but by the third of fourth instance of sliding under the same clusters of chains and obstacles, my heart rate had dipped well below the speed of his perpetually pattering pearly whites.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Still, even though my repeat runs through Revival\u2019s mazes eventually became monotonous, at least they consistently functioned as intended. Back in the story\u2019s mortal realm, things didn\u2019t always seem to go to plan. Beyond minor bugs like enemies glitching through walls and audio dropping out during boss fights that made them seem more silent than violent, there were a handful of more significant errors in the PS5 version I played that, while never completely gamebreaking, were pretty annoying to endure. In one instance, I\u2019d fought my way to a cabin deep in a cemetery and puzzled open a locked safe, only to find that I had no inventory space to claim the gun upgrade inside it. So, I trudged all the way back to the nearest save point to temporarily offload some weapons and ammo into a storage box, only to return to the safe and be frustrated to find it locked again with no button prompt to reopen it.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Later on, I was surprised to find the door to a safehouse had somehow become stuck and wouldn\u2019t budge. It was open wide enough to let me see the merchant calmly blinking back at me, but I couldn\u2019t get close enough to actually buy anything from her. This meant that for about a 30-minute stretch at the more combat-heavy end of the story, I was forced to make do with the scarce amount of ammo I could scrounge from the environment until I finally battled through a number of enemies and a boss fight on my way to the next save point, which made that period substantially more of a grind than it probably should have been.<\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"playlist-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<section class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401 user-list-embed\" data-cy=\"user-list-embed\">\n<div class=\"card jsx-2310533475 jsx-1355461925 box\">\n<section class=\"stack jsx-806034919 carousel-section jsx-282394234\" data-cy=\"carousel\"><span class=\"stack jsx-3647836811 jsx-1304765713\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<h3 data-cy=\"title3\" class=\"title3 jsx-12333944 jsx-2321054750\">Tristan&#8217;s Favourite Horror Games<\/h3>\n<p>Intensity in ten entries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"stack jsx-3647836811 jsx-2980091846\">See All<button class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button button--secondary jsx-3027214138 action-button contained centered large\" data-cy=\"more-actions-btn\" type=\"button\" title=\"More Actions\"><span class=\"ign-icon icon-ellipsis jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"icon-ellipsis\"><\/span><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">However, at least I\u2019ll only ever have to suffer these problems once, because although Revival cribs plenty from other, better survival horror series\u2019 like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, one thing it hasn\u2019t replicated is their signature replayability. Although there are two endings to achieve, they each stem from the one binary decision made at the story\u2019s climax, meaning I was able to instantly reload my last save and experience both without having to play through the full story a second time. No matter whether you opt for the thoroughly bleak or more optimistic of the two outcomes, this tale eventually closes with a Pinhead quote that reads, \u201cYour suffering has only just begun, we have such sights to show you.\u201d Apparently those sights don\u2019t include a New Game+ mode or any other form of unlockables, though, because Revival simply boots you out to the main menu with nothing extra to reward you with for completing its story.   <\/p>\n<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/hellraiser-revival-review.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/hellraiser-revival-review.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/hellraiser-revival-review.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/hellraiser-revival-review.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[51],"class_list":["post-15150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-49","tag-51"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15152,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15150\/revisions\/15152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}