Hellraiser: Revival is a brutal and smart survival horror, and my biggest surprise of SGF

I didn't know what to expect from Hellraiser: Revival going into my hands-on session at Summer Game Fest. I knew it was going to be a first-person horror game with a sprinkling of puzzles, but it shares more than a little DNA with Resident Evil.

Shortly after picking up the controller, I found myself in a small open area, complete with locked doors, puzzle boxes, and keys to find. Think of the Care Center in Resident Evil Requiem, but considerably smaller. As I went room to room, taking out the enemies lurking in each of them, I opened cupboards and lockers looking for the snake key I needed to open the door in the area's lobby.

Of course, Pinhead is more powerful than the likes of Grace, so you're able to power through enemies with your arsenal of guns and melee weapons, grabbing the keys you need without having to creep around in the shadows. The combat is a bit clunky, but the action is arcade-y and fast-paced, balancing out the flow.

The development team, who were nearby to support me (emotionally after the end of this demo), told me that the game does open up as it goes on, to the point where there are Resi-style open areas. Tim Willits, Saber Interactive's Chief Creative Officer, insisted that the game "isn't open world," but that there are big puzzles to complete in large areas as you progress.

Willits also said to me: "One of the things that I want players to understand is that this game is different than your classic survival horror," and that was obvious in what I played. There's an extremely interesting section in the corridors of someone's house, in which you need to solve environmental puzzles or interact with particular items in the right order as you head to the other end. The next time, the same area will loop, changing if you got things right or remaining unchanged if you got things wrong. It's almost a gruesome version of Exit 8, mixed with Control's Ashtray Maze in structure.

Each time you start the loop, the space gets weirder and more terrifying - chains hanging from the ceilings, blood covering more and more of the walls, and doors starting to creak open. It's a really smart way of ramping up tension and horror, while keeping things unnervingly familiar. 

The iconic puzzle cube is used in smart ways, too. During one demo section, I used the puzzle to rotate parts of the world around me to form a bridge across a gap. Puzzle solving on a larger scale is interesting, and few survival horror games use everything around you as the puzzle itself. Between keys to find for doors, looping sections, and using the whole world, Hellraiser: Revival seems to be keeping its conundrums varied and unique, so it's exciting to see what else the full game does.

Of course, Revival doesn't shy away from what makes Hellraiser Hellraiser. The game is brutal, shocking, and oh so gory. The final shot of what I played was vile stuff, in a good way if you're a Hellraiser fan, but too much to explain in text form, and I'm sure things only get more revolting later in the game.

I also spoke to Todd Hollenshead, Head of Publishing at Saber, about Hellraiser, and he reiterated how important it was to get the tone right. "We didn't want to shy away from what we thought was the core of the franchise," he told me when I asked how difficult it was to get the balance right when it comes to gore.

"I think Clive [Barker, Hellraiser's creator] was always like, you know, 'more violence, more sex, more sex, and violence,' to the point where it's like, 'okay, I think we've hit the line here,'" Hollenshead continued. 

The challenge of this tonal balancing act is, perhaps, why this is the first Hellraiser game ever released. It's intense in a way few other horror stories are, and Saber's game had to do it justice. Yes, toning it down a little may have found new audiences or allowed it to play things safe, but the sex, blood, and violence are a part of Hellraiser's identity. The developers needed to make sure they kept the dedicated fans happy. From what I've seen, I think they'll do that just fine.

I didn't expect to enjoy Hellraiser: Revival so much before I got my hands-on time with it. It's my biggest surprise of SGF, full of brutal survival horror and smart puzzle solving that make it stand out from the competition. It has shot up the rankings of the upcoming PC games I'm excited for this Fall, and all horror fans should have it on their radar.