Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival PS5 Review. Saber Interactive has a healthy list of games under its belt, many of them based on beloved IPs. Hell, they even have a Jurassic Park game in development. Much like with A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, the team’s most recent release comes from another horror franchise: Hellraiser. Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival looks to bring the essence of the Cenobites to a new medium. Does it have what it takes to translate into this new form?
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival Review (PS5) – Painful Pleasure
Back to the Labyrinth
Hellraiser: Revival doesn’t waste any time. The opening scene depicts you, Aiden, performing a ritual with your girlfriend, Sunny. You inflict pain on each other while in the throes of love. Soon, the Cenobites appear and tear Sunny apart. Now you are caught in the Labyrinth and must find a way to escape while avoiding a sado-masochistic cult dedicated to the Cenobites.
Narratively, Hellraiser: Revival does a fantastic job of maximizing the Hellraiser mythos while also making the mythos its own. Specifically, this comes down to the cultists and your dealing with them all while your own objective unfolds. Their rituals end up crossing over your journey, which leaves you dealing with many additional problems along the way.
This works because it creates a sort of Silent Hill world where other people experience their own things, but everyone’s wires all end up crossing. In general, the movies have focused more on individual experiences with the Cenobites and the Labyrinth, so expanding in this way gives the formula a fresh touch.
Story-focused Sections
There are two gameplay loops that you experience during Hellraiser: Revival. The first is a linear one that plays out much like a walking simulator. These sections of the game focus more on horror storytelling. Sometimes you just navigate a maze. Other times, you run away from a pursuer. In these sections, you don’t get to use your weapons or powers. Here is where the meat and potatoes of the story take place.
While this side of the game feels very straightforward, it also does a great job of keeping you in the horror elements, forcing you to find your way through the Labyrinth while occasionally dealing with or fleeing from dangers. In particular, the chase sequences prove quite effective. I don’t know if it’s the sound design or the way the maps are structured, but these chases get under your skin and make you desperately want to get away from your pursuer.
Personally, these sections of the game are my favorite. While there isn’t much gameplay to be had apart from walking, running, and the occasional puzzle, the walking sim areas focus on the world and the creatures in it. It also builds up on the foundation that the movies and stories created to make something that stands out among the best in the franchise.
Then There’s Exploration
The other gameplay loop asks you to explore small areas and solve simple progression puzzles. This formula comes from the beloved survival horror genre, where you comb an area for clues and items that you use to open up the path and continue the game. During your time in these areas, you also encounter different variations of mangled cultists who want you dead.
While this works in many other games, it doesn’t work as well here. These areas consist of small, circular zones that lead you in a loop. At the beginning is a lock of some kind and a passage that is blocked from the other side. When you finally make it through the zone and find the key, you then come out at the once-blocked passage and open the lock in order to progress.
You do get a couple of more traditionally open zones later on. With that said, these end up just being more like a central objective with branching zones that lead you to puzzle pieces needed to activate or unlock the central objective.
Dumb Enemies
Some enemies get in your way, but they offer very little resistance. In fact, the enemy AI doesn’t really do much of anything apart from stagger around and slowly attack. Even worse still, the enemies approach you, come to a complete stop, then start their attack animation. You can hit them with your knife over and over and back away with enough time to avoid their slow attacks.
Even when they use guns, they don’t offer much resistance. The maps include enough obstacles to confuse the enemy AI so you don’t take much damage. All in all, enemies might put up a fight, but it’s more like fighting against test dummies instead of humans.
Honestly, enemies don’t pose too much of a threat. The only times they prove to be formidable are during fights where these constantly spawn and you must survive. This ends up being the perfect example of “strength in numbers.” Each one may be stupid, but when they all come after you at the same time in a confined space, then you can easily get overpowered.
Earthly Weaponry
To deal with enemies, you naturally need weapons and skills. Along the way, you find melee weapons like bats, boards, and machetes. Unfortunately, these weapons suffer durability damage and only withstand so many uses. Yes, you can repair them if you really like one weapon in particular, but they don’t hold much advantage. The only exception to this is your knife. This weapon has no durability limitations, and it still proves very effective against regular enemies that don’t wear any armor.
With that said, guns work on everything equally. Guns don’t suffer from any durability issues, so they last the entire game. You can also find and buy upgrades for your guns along the way. That includes old reliable weapons like handguns, a shotgun, and automatic rifles. The more you invest into your weaponry, the better your experience.
Unfortunately, gunplay and melee feel odd. Aiming and moving together feels heavy but not intentionally like in Killzone, for instance. Instead, it feels more like an early build that doesn’t include polish or refinement. Aiming is very robotic, with weapons staying fixed most of the time in one place with no sway or natural movement. It still gets the job done in most cases, but you start to feel the limitations almost immediately. Upping sensitivity helps to a point, but then it starts to feel overcompensated.
A Solid Use of A Long-standing IP
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival isn’t a perfect outing. Some of the creative choices, like adding in explorable sections, add more bloat for the sake of gameplay variety without adding significant substance. To boot, enemy AI in these parts of the game is very simple and offers little challenge. With that said, the true potency of this game comes from the more focused, linear areas, where the concepts and scares get the chance to really show themselves. There are some cool ideas in Hellraiser: Revival, and every Hellraiser fan needs to check it out.
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is out today for PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.