Hellraiser's Long-Awaited Return Officially Gets Unexpected Metacritic Score

Published Oct 8, 2026, 11:06 AM EDT

Austin King is the Senior Editor of Gaming at ScreenRant and has been with the site since 2020 with a focus on RPGs and tabletop games. He previously managed content for Geek to Geek Media, and has served as a writer for sites like Nintendad, Geek Fitness, and more.

In addition to his work at ScreenRant, he also hosts the Dragon Quest FM podcast and is the author of several books, including co-writing Nimbus (a #1 bestseller in 2013). His latest is the nonfiction The Dragon Quest Book, available now.

He's written about pop culture, video games, and genre studies over the course of his career. You can find him on BlueSky, X, and at Dragonquestaustin.com

Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival has officially debuted, and reviews are a bit mixed so far. After Hulu's strange reboot in 2022, fans have been cautiously waiting for the horror icon's return. Now, fans can celebrate with the first official Hellraiser video game thanks to Saber Interactive. Although, it might not be the game people were hoping for.

Billed as a "gruesome" horror FPS, players must face off against a Cenobite cult led by Pinhead. Excitement has been pretty high for Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, but its Metacritic score is underwhelming right now. Currently, roughly three hours since the embargo lifted for reviews, Hellraiser: Revival has a score of 69, which is "Mixed or Average" going by Metacritic's scoring model. Here's what critics are saying about the new Hellraiser game right now.

The game was reviewed on PS5, PC, and Xbox, but it received Mixed scores on all of those platforms (right now, Switch 2 scores are still showing TBD). PlayStation 5 has the lowest at 69, with Xbox and PC both averaging 74. With all the reviews combined, the over Metacritic score is 69, the same as what's showing for PS5.

ScreenRant's own review of Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revivial praised the game as a "terrifying return to form," but noted that it falls on a lot of horror tropes gamers are used to by now. Our reviewer, Nicholas Becher, wrote, "Overall, Hellraiser: Revival is an essential play for fans of Clive Barker's twisted horrorverse" and that it's "worth checking out if you're a fan of extreme horror," even if you've never seen any of the Hellraiser movies. We gave the game an 8/10.

Other reviews also praised the attempt to bring a canon Hellraiser story into a video game, with Hardcore Gamer writing, "Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival is an honest attempt to create a solid survival horror game set in the Hellraiser universe."

Game Rant, which gave the game a 7/10, wrote, "Hellraiser: Revival is a well-paced, competently-made survival horror experience that feels incredibly authentic to its gritty source material. But it's also an experience that's currently hampered by immersion-breaking bugs, enemy AI issues, and uninspired boss fights."

Game Informer gave Hellraiser: Revival its lowest score so far with a 45/100. "After watching [the] finale stumble through the same visual and audio potholes plaguing the rest of the journey, I was angry."

It seems like that's been a sticking point for most reviewers. The game has bugs, and the difficulty is another issue flagged several times. While reviewers praise Hellraiser's return, it looks like the game is bogged down with familiar tropes and performance issues that keep it from being a wholly fun experience.

Fans of the franchise may not be disappointed, and updates can certainly fix some of the problems reviewers have flagged concerning gameplay. Still, a Metacritic score of 69 puts it around the same mark as similar horror games based on movie properties, like Halloween: The Game (which has a 65) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre video game from 2023 (which sits at 72). If you're a fan of the genre, then you still might want to see what Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revivial has to offer.

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