Is Hellraiser: Revival Worth It? Critics vs Players

Evidence-based review · scores read on 11 October 2026

Hellraiser: Revival splits critics and players sharply. On OpenCritic it holds a Top Critic Average of 73 from 29 top critics, with 61% recommending it; on Steam, 94.9% of 3,188 user reviews are positive. Our evidence-based score is 7.9 (Good): a scrappy, faithful and very explicit horror shooter that Hellraiser fans should play, and that everyone else can reasonably wait to buy on sale.

This review is not based on our own playthrough. It is a synthesis of the OpenCritic and Metacritic pages, Steam user reviews and full reviews from Eurogamer, IGN, Push Square and TheSixthAxis, all read on 11 October 2026, with the score worked out by the published formula in the "How we got to 7.9" section below.

What is Hellraiser: Revival?

Revival is a first-person survival horror game from Saber Interactive, released on 8 October 2026 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2, priced at $39.99 on Steam in the US. You play Aiden, who strikes a pact with Pinhead to get his girlfriend, Sunny, back. Doug Bradley, the series' original Pinhead, returns to voice him, as both Eurogamer and IGN point out. Our Hellraiser: Revival hub collects everything we publish on the game.

What do critics agree on?

The Hellraiser parts are the best parts. Eurogamer's Matt Wales singles out the Labyrinth's shifting architecture and the chase sequences with the Chatterer as the standout moments, and Push Square calls the Labyrinth levels "especially brilliant". Even IGN, one of the cooler big outlets, says the scenes with Pinhead and the Cenobites kept it glued to the screen.

The combat borrows heavily from Resident Evil. IGN describes solid but stock shooting with a Resident Evil-style inventory and merchant, Eurogamer says the game often feels like it is channelling Resident Evil 4, and Push Square compares the package to Teyon's RoboCop: Rogue City, a clearly lower-budget game that still looks stunning at times.

The Genesis Configuration is the twist that mostly works. The reimagined puzzle box lets Aiden pull nails, sawblades and fire out of the environment and throw them at enemies, powered by a suffering meter that fills as he damages foes. IGN says it lifts the combat slightly above the norm and TheSixthAxis calls it an important part of Aiden's arsenal, while Push Square finds it less dependable because resources are so scarce.

The story and pacing sag. IGN criticises long exposition dumps, mostly forgettable bosses and repeated chase sequences across a roughly nine-hour story. Eurogamer calls the narrative "too obvious and too incoherent by turns", though it credits the game's earnestness and a more confident second half.

Where do critics split?

On the overall score, a lot. Pure Xbox described launch day as "seriously divided reviews", with verdicts ranging from rave to 5/10 and below. OpenCritic's median across all 51 reviews is 80, seven points above the top critic average, which suggests the cooler verdicts came disproportionately from top critics.

Eurogamer's 3/5 captures the middle ground best: not a great game, it argues, and in its uneven first half not always a good one, but entertaining and never less than fascinating. Push Square's 5/10 is harsher. It enjoyed the early hours and the Labyrinth, then found inconsistent weapons, clunky platforming and baffling level design in the rest of the game.

At the top end, TheSixthAxis's 9/10 rests on the same strengths the sceptics concede: breakable melee weapons that force you to scavenge, Doom-style finishing moves through the Genesis Configuration, and maze sections it calls incredibly tense. Its puzzles, the site says, are solid rather than groundbreaking. The gap between 9/10 and 5/10 is less about what Revival contains than about how much a reviewer forgives a AA budget in exchange for faithful Hellraiser atmosphere.

What do Steam players say?

Players are much happier. At 09:10 UTC on 11 October, Steam's review summary showed 3,024 positive reviews out of 3,188 (94.9%, Very Positive), and the English-language subset was 95.8% positive from 1,870 reviews. The mood has cooled only slightly: 87 of the 100 most recent reviews were positive, and 5,286 people were playing at that moment. Steam excludes off-topic review bombs from its scores, and none of these numbers include console players.

We read the 100 most recent positive and the 80 most recent negative English reviews and counted recurring topics (a rough keyword count, not a survey). Positive reviews most often mention how faithful it is to the films and the source material (17 of 100), the visuals (13) and the Resident Evil-style structure (12), with Doug Bradley's Pinhead a frequent highlight. Negative reviews most often attack the combat (28 of 80), the story (21), bugs such as falling through the map (19), the price (17) and performance (16). The median positive reviewer had played for about 10 hours, close to the length critics report.

Many of the negative reviews end up agreeing with the critics rather than contradicting them: they praise the look, the atmosphere or Bradley's performance, then say the shooting and the story around them are ordinary.

Reddit leans the same way. A thread titled "Hellraiser Revival Is Awesome", posted to r/HorrorGaming on 8 October, had 781 upvotes and 139 comments by 11 October.

How does it run on PS5 and PC?

Push Square, reviewing on PS5 and PS5 Pro, found quality and performance modes on both consoles, with frame-rate dips in performance mode mainly when moving from one area to the next. IGN's PS5 copy hit more annoying bugs: a safe that relocked after it left to free up inventory space, a safehouse door that jammed and cut off the merchant for about 30 minutes, enemies clipping through walls and audio dropping out in boss fights. None was game-breaking, IGN says.

We found no detailed performance testing of the Switch 2 or Xbox versions in the reviews we read, so we make no claims about them. On PC, Steam opinion is mixed on this point: a few positive reviews say it runs well, while 16 of the 80 negative ones mention performance or crashes.

How we got to 7.9

Our formula weights critics at 70% and players at 30%. Critics: OpenCritic Top Critic Average 72.79 ÷ 10 = 7.28. Players: Steam positive share across all languages, 94.86% ÷ 10 = 9.49, from 3,188 reviews (our minimum is 500). Score: 0.7 × 7.28 + 0.3 × 9.49 = 5.10 + 2.85 = 7.94, rounded to 7.9.

We applied no correction. IGN's bugs and Push Square's frame-rate dips are real, but they describe different problems rather than one issue documented by two independent sources, and neither outlet calls the launch broken. That puts Revival at the top of our Good band (7.0–7.9). On critics alone it would score 7.3; the Steam audience is what lifts it.

Should you buy Hellraiser: Revival?

• Buy it if you love the Hellraiser films or Barker's novella: critics and players agree the Cenobites, Pinhead and the Labyrinth are handled with care.
• Buy it if you want an eight-to-nine-hour, Resident Evil-style shooter with heavy gore and can live with rough edges.
• Wait for patches or a discount if you want polish or replay value: IGN reports no New Game+ and two endings decided by one late choice.
• Skip it if explicit sexual content and torture are a dealbreaker: reviews describe them as central to the game from the first scene.

If you want horror that critics rated higher, our Silent Hill: Townfall review covers a game with the opposite profile: warmer critics, cooler Steam players, and our Silver Pines review covers a cheaper 2D survival horror that both groups rate highly. And if Revival's Resident Evil influences are the appeal, our guide to Resident Evil Village's PS VR2 mode shows how to play the series' 2021 entry in VR on PS5. For a first-person game from the same month that leans on combat rather than horror, our Valor Mortis review weighs critics against Steam players in the same way.