Hellraiser: Revival Evaluation (PS5) | Push Sq.

If I may say one factor about Hellraiser: Revival, it could be that it is a trustworthy adaptation of Clive Barker’s seminal horror sequence.

This survival horror would not pull its punches, with brutal gore, a disturbing world of sadomasochism, and pin-perfect recreations of facets of the movies. For that, followers of the sequence will get a kick out of this sport.

The problem is that this faithfulness is hamstrung by a irritating blended bag of gameplay concepts that ebb and move from sensible sequences to a number of the worst gameplay moments of 2026. The peaks and troughs I skilled whereas reviewing this sport have been actually one thing.

Let’s begin with the story, although. Sunny and Aiden are two adventurous souls, let’s say, however one fateful evening they get somewhat too adventurous in mattress whereas utilising the sharp corners of the Genesis Configuration.

That opens a gateway to the Labyrinth and calls forth the Cenobites. Eager to just accept handing herself over to discover the riches of ache and pleasure, Sunny is torn aside by the Cenobites in a horrendously fleshy trend.

Aiden is then captured by a intercourse cult that worships the Cenobites, and should not solely escape, however reclaim Sunny from the Labyrinth.

What follows is a reasonably linear first-person shooter that relishes within the brutality of this universe. For that cause alone, I actually loved my early hours with the sport, and glints of enjoyment remained all the best way to the credit.

I’ve solely ever seen the primary Hellraiser film, however I like that Saber has gone all in on bringing Clive Barker’s world to a different medium. Each hallway is stuffed with some sort of depravity, with a number of the most violent and disturbing issues I’ve seen on PS5. It’s positively not going to be for everybody, for that cause alone, however I respect the dedication to Clive Barker’s imaginative and prescient.

Ranges together with the Labyrinth, that are sprinkled throughout the roughly eight hours it takes to achieve credit, are particularly sensible, with gorgeous use of lighting and a few enjoyable and trippy puzzles. Whereas chase sequences with a very chompy member of the Cenobites do get somewhat repetitive, it’s nonetheless toe-curlingly tense.

I cherished the morphing environments and the way they dove into the troubled previous of protagonist Aiden and his tumultuous relationship with Sunny. It by no means holds again, and actually pushes its ranking to the restrict.

The problem, actually, is the remainder of it. Regardless of trying gorgeous at instances on each PS5 and PS5 Professional, Hellraiser: Revival is clearly a lower-budget sport. You may really feel it within the gameplay, with an actual inconsistency between weapons, some clunky platforming, and a few actually baffling moments of stage design. In some ways it jogged my memory of Teyon’s RoboCop: Rogue Metropolis.

It appears like Saber is throwing gameplay concepts on the wall to see what sticks. Whereas a second straight out of P.T. positively does, a bizarre mini-recreation of Name of Responsibility Zombies doesn’t. These highs and lows are additionally relevant to the environments, which at instances are actually nice-looking and stuffed with ambiance, and different instances they’re simply wonderful.

My greatest ache level, nevertheless, issues fight. Fight itself isn’t dangerous. Enemies are pretty robust, and I favored that when a cultist confirmed up with armour on, it genuinely modified the best way I needed to strategy them, as blades couldn’t hurt them. The issue was a extreme lack of assets.

Hellraiser includes a crafting system the place you should gather provides across the stage, and finally purchase recipes from a recurring retailer. The concept is that you would be able to finally make ammo, well being packs, and lock picks.

Nevertheless, by means of nearly all of my playthrough, I felt like I had no provides, which in flip meant I had no ammo or weapons, and since melee weapons have very restricted sturdiness and repairs solely partially repair them, I used to be usually left to combat enemies with my default blade, which barely did any harm.

I can already hear lots of you protesting that it is a pillar of survival horror, however I’d argue there’s a wonderful line any developer should stroll. Many different survival horrors skate that line with simply the correct amount of provides to get you thru, however what scraps Hellraiser leaves so that you can gather doesn’t align with the quantity of enemies and executives it throws your manner.

You do have the Genesis Configuration that can assist you out, which lets you throw sharp objects and even hearth at enemies. Nevertheless, it’s fueled by inflicting harm to mentioned enemies, and since that’s a difficulty because of the lack of assets, it doesn’t really feel like as constant a instrument because it in all probability ought to.

All of those points actually come to gentle within the sport’s boss fights. The bigger bosses are a number of the most frustratingly designed bosses that I’ve performed, with mechanics that aren’t fairly apparent, or areas which can be extremely awkward to navigate.

There have been a number of fights the place I merely ran out of provides, so I used to be attempting to get my petty little hits in earlier than they killed me and I needed to begin the entire thing over once more. That is particularly irritating since lots of the mini-bosses are repeated a number of instances throughout the marketing campaign.

The sport definitely begins to throw extra assets at you in the direction of the tip of the sport, however I believe it is telling that in the previous few fights, you are in a position to transfer spinning blades to take out bigger quantities of enemies, quite than combat them together with your weapons.

Hellraiser: Revival has a top quality and efficiency mode choice throughout each variations of Sony’s console. I didn’t discover any stark variations between both model, however even on efficiency mode, I did spot a number of dips in body price, particularly when transitioning from one space to the following.

There are some DualSense haptics carried out right here, but it surely’s very inconsistent, like feeling every choice within the storage field menu by means of the controller, however not within the retailer menu, or the shotgun having an actual oomph to it, however the submachine gun feeling like a tepid toy.