Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revivalcarries the weight of a long-running, deeply disturbing franchise, and with that undoubtedly comes certain expectations. Most fans would assume the game might embrace the creeping,psychological tension of other modern horror titles, relying on oppression and dread to drive the fear. However, as an action survival horror experience,Hellraiser: Revivalhas apparently chosen a different path that might even surprise longtime horror fans.
The phrase “action survival horror” gets tossed around often, but in the case ofHellraiser: Revival, it’s clearly intentional, as it actually appears dead-set on meeting genre expectations. Rather than going the route of similar first-person games that prefer a passive approach to enforcing the player’s vulnerability,Hellraiser: Revivalwants to challenge them in a more direct way. As the franchise translates to a playable format for the first time, its decision to put weapons into the player’s hands and emphasize fighting back rather than running could end up being its most defining feature.
Hellraiser: Revival Is Breaking the Mold of Modern Horror Games Through Combat
Most Horror Games Run, But Hellraiser: Revival Fights
A key part of anygreat horror gaming experienceis atmosphere, and one that makes players feel helpless, afraid, and often alone. The genre arguably thrives most when players know they aren’t a superhero who can fight back but are mere people with basic human knowledge and survival instincts simply attempting to navigate dark, oppressive realms filled with unimaginable terrors.Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival, on the other hand, seems to be taking a rare approach to first-person horror by allowing players to fight back for once rather than run.
Generally, combat is emphasized more in third-person horror games than in first-person, although it’s not necessarily inherently excluded from the latter. The reason, however, thatfirst-person horror gamestraditionally shy away from letting players fight back is for the sake of immersing them in the experience and truly subjecting them to fear. When players are handed weapons in a first-person horror game, it can thus rob them of that experience by making them feel too powerful — unless, of course, the game has a different goal in mind.
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revivalseems to be taking a rare approach to first-person horror by allowing players to fight back for once rather than run.
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival’s decision to grant players both melee and ranged combat options could actually work in its favor, regardless of how much it flips the script on traditional first-person horror gaming. The franchise has always been rather violent, and the decision to blend combat with that brutality could bring the world of Cenobites to life in an entirely new way. At the very least,Hellraiser: Revival’s emphasis onfirst-person combatmatches the tone of the franchise by making its gameplay more confrontational, intense, and deliberate than what is normal for the horror genre.
Hellraiser: Revival’s Combat Focus Could Be Its Key to Distinction
This effectively puts the “action” inClive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival’saction survival horrorlabel and implies the game will likely still lean into building an atmosphere of dread but will instead force it onto players through unique enemy types and then ask players to fight back. Survival, in this case, is less about players outrunning danger and more about them vanquishing the very things trying to kill them. This, above all else, could be the key to its distinction in the library of horror games.
IfHellraiser: Revivalcan deliver on its promise of confrontational horror without losing theatmosphere that defines the horror genre, it could really stand out. Trading in that helplessness players normally feel in a horror game for aggression is a big gamble, but for a franchise likeHellraiser, it might be exactly what sets the experience apart, as well as what finally gives the Cenobites a gameplay identity as terrifying as their legacy.
