Update [Thu 17th Sep 2026, 4:40pm]: Added an additional mention of Saber's recent AI disclosure shenanigans. See the bottom of the article.

Original Story: Well, that might be one of the most gore-soaked experiences I've ever had with my clothes off. Or at least my character's clothes. You'll have to ponder my state of dress on your own time. Today, Saber Interactive (developers of Space Marine 2, among others) dropped the demo for Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival - their official continuation of the gore-slick movie series, now in video game form, and no less boundary-pushing. And much as I'd like to show you some screenshots of what awaits, I will just say that there's a lot of sex and violence here. Often happening at the same time.

See, the demo opens with a pair of young hedonists - Aiden and Sunny - doing the deed while high out of their gourds and playing with an assortment of pointed and bladed instruments. As you do. They've also got a weird puzzle cube in the bedroom with some entertainingly sharp edges. One thing leads to another and suddenly Sunny's gone off for a breezy au-naturale walk through the eldritch abyss and Aiden - stark naked and voiced by prolific indie game developer Xalavier Nelson Jr. - follows. And then, of course, everyone's favorite DIY supply & leather fashion model and his catwalk cadre turn up to make things worse.

I won't spoil much further because you probably want to experience it for yourself, but for a good chunk of the demo, Aiden remains naked, up until halfway through an escape from a cult of cenobite-worshipping murder-kinksters. Not that the nudity and violence eases up even for a moment, it's just mostly happening to other people. And they have gone to great lengths to render every dismembered corpse, naked or otherwise. This is Video Nasty stuff dialed up to nine, and the non-Cenobite villains so far are gloriously hammy, chewing on the scenery with feral glee.

Gameplay-wise it's promising so far. It feels like a slightly more action-oriented Resident Evil 7, sneaking through corridors, taking down cultists when you can and hiding in shadows when you can't. Crafting up resources to heal yourself and even, in one part, having to pick up an expendable baseball bat to smash armor plates off a suited-up heavyweight enemy. There's definitely more combat here than I expected in a Hellraiser game, and while the melee feels messy and imprecise so far (at least on Hard mode, which also limits you to Resident Evil style save points), there's room for it to grow.

Discussion as to just how much sex and violence video games can even depict aside, this does throw Valve's content policies into further question. Recently they (temporarily) flagged a very tame leftist comedy game and a vampire game with no explicit nudity as Adults Only, effectively marking them as full-on pornography, blocking them access in several countries and requiring credit card ID in the UK and Australia. Hellraiser has no such restrictions. Mid-coitus knife play? The camera lingering on our protagonist's noticeably pierced dwingus? Nope? Nothing? Okay, then.

Granted, there's nothing in this demo that an M-rated film couldn't get away with. But that dreaded Adults Only tag keeps finding its way onto the tamest, most innocuous of games, but only indie ones. Big studios like Saber have nothing to fear, apparently.

Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival launches on October 8th for £35/$40, with pre-orders open now. There's also a deluxe edition that'll include an extra weapon and some extra edgy skins for the pistol and baseball bat, but that just seems a bit silly. The demo is, as mentioned, out now. Also, Content Warning: Yes.

It is also worth noting that Saber recently made headlines in the bad way. Their CEO went on a vicious tirade against a former writer that accused the company of having been replaced by AI on their upcoming Rideshare "Stimulator". A claim the company initially denied, then grudgingly admitted, and then apologized for the outburst after amending the game's Steam page with an AI disclosure. There's no hint that any of that mess has spilled over to Hellraiser (and Xalavier, voicing the protagonist, is vocally anti-AI), but big companies contain multitutdes.