Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival Game Is As NSFW As Its Creator's Original Vision

"Games have regularly pushed the boundaries of ultra violence, including Mortal Kombat's fatalities and the grisly cycle of violence depicted in The Last of Us Part 2. But the graphic content depicted in Saber Interactive's twisted adaptation of the infamous horror series is on another level, committing itself to be as true to the British author and director's original nightmarish creation as possible, and completely unfiltered."

"This means you're not just coming across a brutally mutilated corpse without actually seeing how they met their horrible demise. A woman's mouth is pulled with a hook while more dig into her bare skin before her whole back is opened up. A nail is hammered through a man's hand and into the arm of a chair, which he's also pinned to with stitches from his stomach."

"Barker's approach to body horror isn't just violent but also erotic. Indeed, in his book The Hellbound Heart, from which Hellraiser originates, the sadomasochistic Cenobites--humans transformed into demonic beings who worship sensation, whether extreme pain or extreme pleasure--are described in more explicitly sexual terms than in the films that followed. So whereas games can often revel in ultra violence but hesitate at sex and nudity, Hellraiser: Revival takes no half-measures."

Hellraiser: Revival opens with an hour of intensely graphic body horror that foregrounds mutilation, nudity, and erotic pain. Saber Interactive's adaptation embraces visceral imagery and unfiltered gore, depicting hooks, exposed backs, nails driven through hands, and interactive remnants of victims. The game's horror draws on Cenobite mythology: sadomasochistic beings transformed into demonic figures who worship sensation, whether extreme pain or pleasure, described in explicitly sexualized terms. Gameplay places players amid BDSM contexts, introducing protagonists Aidan and Sunny unclothed in a candlelit bedroom and engaging with extreme desires. The title refuses to separate sexual content from violence, taking no half-measures.

Read at GameSpot