Hellraiser: Revival gets release date, joins clogged games lineup

The latest entry in this legendary horror series is going to have hellish competition

Pinhead’s return isn’t far off. Just in time for Halloween, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is set for an Oct. 8 release date for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The latest take on Barker’s long-running franchise is a survival-horror game from Saber Interactive and Boss Team Games.

Hellraiser: Revival follows Aidan Lynch — who, weirdly enough, is being voiced by Xalavier Nelson Jr., head of game developer Strange Scaffolding (El Paso Elsewhere, I Am Your Beast) — a man who stumbles on a supernatural puzzle box that summons sadomasochistic demons known as the Cenobites. After his girlfriend Sunny agrees to join the Cenobites in Hell, Aidan goes on a (presumably very unpleasant) journey to bring her back. Pinhead, the face of the series, is certainly there too. The game will mix survival horror and action elements, as Aidan fights and flees his demonic foes.

Hellraiser: Revival's standard edition will go for $39.99, and the deluxe version will cost $49.99.

For those unfamiliar with Hellraiser, it’s a film series that spun off of Clive Barker’s novella The Hellbound Heart, and it's got some freaky psychosexual stuff going on. Barker wrote and directed the original 1987 film, Hellraiser, which was followed by 10 more films. As it goes with horror franchises that began with a good original idea, most of these sequels were not very good. The most recent entry in the series, Hellraiser (2022), received solid reviews despite being relegated to Hulu’s straight-to-streaming underworld.

Hellraiser: Revival joins one of the most clogged game release calendars we’ve seen in quite some time. Thanks to every other publisher fleeing Grand Theft Auto 6’s Nov. 19 impact radius, September and October are stacked. For example, in late September, there’s Marvel’s Wolverine (Sept. 15), Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave (Sept. 17), Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 (Sept. 17), Control Resonant (Sept. 24), Silent Hill: Townfall (Sept. 24), and Onimusha: Way of the Sword (Sept. 25).

Early October is similarly dense, with Rayman Legends Retold (Oct. 1), Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve (Oct. 2), Gears of War: E-Day (Oct. 6), Star Wars: Galactic Racer (Oct. 6), Valor Mortis (Oct. 13), and Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse (Oct. 15).

While it makes some sense that many of these games are sticking close to the end of the year for a holiday sales boost, at some point this release strategy of pushing out dozens of notable games in the same couple of weeks seems like a very bad idea. Grand Theft Auto 6 doesn’t come out until the third week of November, so it’s a bit confusing why so many publishers are choosing to enter a desperate fall melee instead of sneaking in right before Rockstar’s game sucks all the air out of the room. Fittingly, Godzilla is one of the brave few willing to stand against this goliath, with Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered set for Nov. 3. Take Two had better get ready for some Atomic Breath.