‘Hellraiser: Revival’ Is Here! Watch the Launch Trailer’s Nonstop Blood, Guts, and Depravity

Happy, happy Hellraiser: Revival Day.

Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival releases today, bringing Doug Bradley back as Pinhead for a new trip into the Labyrinth. And having played what I’d estimate is about 75% of the game, I am in love with it.

Our own Christian McKnight has also weighed in with his full review, praising the game’s visuals, gameplay, and authenticity. I haven’t reached the end myself, but so much of what I’ve played is exactly what I wanted from a Hellraiser game.

I love its old-school mechanics. There’s a very Resident Evil-like feel to having limited resources and making decisions about which weapons to carry, when to use them, and whether something is worth wasting your ammunition on. That adds another layer of tension when you’re already trying to survive whatever disgusting thing is coming around the corner.

But the biggest thing for me? It’s single-player horror.

As much as I enjoy the Halloween, Friday the 13th, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre games, I don’t have the time to line up hours to play with friends online. Neither do they. As you get older, you’ll see how difficult it becomes to find that time together.

Those asymmetrical multiplayer games can be a lot of fun, but unless you’re in sync with a group of people and playing regularly, it’s difficult for me to stay engaged. Sometimes I have five, ten, or twenty minutes to play. Sometimes I can carve out an hour late at night. A single-player game lets me work through an experience on my own schedule.

And being alone makes it scarier.

Hellraiser: Revival finds all sorts of ways to stick you in claustrophobic spaces, send you running around in circles, and make you feel like something could come after you at any moment. There’s a kind of mid-2000s simplicity to it, but it works so well. The mechanics don’t need to be complicated when the game is this good at making you uncomfortable.