It’s October. The nights are getting longer, the horror sales are starting, and on Thursday Pinhead gets his first starring role in a video game. Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival lands October 8 with Doug Bradley back as the Hell Priest, and if you’ve watched any of the Labyrinth footage, you already know the tone: puzzle boxes, chains and pain dressed up as a gift.
Revival is a first-person game that mixes combat, stealth and puzzles, so this list stays in that lane. No third-person survival horror (that’s a different list) and no jump-scare walking simulators. It’s ordered from the closest match in how it plays to the strangest pick in what it’s about. Saber has the official details on Revival, and our horror archive has more once you’re done here. Seven entries, because there wasn’t an honest eighth.
01
Melee horror / Monolith Productions
Condemned: Criminal Origins
PC · Xbox 360
Play This First
If one game explains how Hellraiser: Revival’s combat might feel, it’s Condemned: Criminal Origins. Monolith’s 2005 horror game is first-person melee at its most desperate: pipes, fire axes and planks swung at addicts and worse inside abandoned buildings where the light never quite reaches the corners. Every fight happens close enough to smell, and at least one Revival preview has pointed back to exactly this kind of grimy, intimate brawling. Forensics sections break up the violence as FBI agent Ethan Thomas scans crime scenes for clues. The weakness is its age: enemy types repeat, the forensics are heavily signposted, and the PC version is a basic port with limited settings. Turn the lights off anyway.
The Hook: For players who want to know what fighting back feels like when every swing counts.
02
Body horror puzzle / Ebb Software
Scorn
PC · PS5 · Xbox Series X|S
Closest in Aesthetic
Hellraiser has always treated flesh as architecture, and Scorn pushes that idea further than any game before it. Ebb Software’s 2022 nightmare drops you into a biomechanical world of meat corridors and machines that seem to breathe, inspired by H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński. There’s no dialogue and no explanation. You solve mechanical puzzles, some of them built around devices you physically plug yourself into, which makes it the closest thing in games to fiddling with a cursed puzzle box. The weakness is the combat: ammo is scarce, weapons are slow, and fights feel like an obstacle rather than a feature. It’s also short. For the visuals alone, nothing else on this list comes close.
The Hook: For players who come to Hellraiser for the flesh-and-machinery nightmare imagery.
03
Stealth horror / Frictional Games
Amnesia: The Bunker
PC · PS4 · Xbox One · Xbox Series X|S
Scariest on This List
Revival leans on stealth when fighting won’t save you, and Amnesia: The Bunker is the best modern lesson in that balance. Frictional’s 2023 game traps you in a First World War bunker with a creature that hunts by sound, and you have one revolver, almost no bullets and a generator you have to keep fuelled to hold back the dark. It’s semi-open, so you choose routes, craft tools and improvise, and every run plays a little differently. Compared with Revival’s puzzle-box powers, The Bunker strips you down to almost nothing. The weakness is that the Beast’s dynamic hunting can feel unfair when it finds you through no fault of your own, and the whole thing ends sooner than you’d like. The panic, though, is real.
The Hook: For players who want stealth horror where one wrong noise ruins everything.
04
Survival horror / Capcom
Resident Evil Village
PC · PS5 · PS4 · Xbox Series X|S · Xbox One
Best Balance of Fight and Flight
Resident Evil Village is the best answer if Revival’s mix of fighting back and running away is what appeals. Capcom’s 2021 sequel keeps the first-person view of Resident Evil 7 but opens it up into a cursed village with four very different domains, from a gothic castle to a flooded reservoir and a factory full of machine-and-flesh horrors. It swings between combat and dread better than almost anything in the genre: one section is all shotgun shells and wolf-men, and a quiet mid-game detour is still the scariest hour Capcom has made. The weakness is the final stretch, which turns into an action shooter and loses most of the fear. It’s still the most complete package on this list.
The Hook: For players who want horror that lets them fight back without ever feeling safe.
That’s the first half: four games that match how Revival plays, from melee brawls to stealth and puzzle rooms. The back three are about what Hellraiser is about: an unstoppable presence, the fragility of identity and Hell itself, each taken in a very different direction.
05
Stealth horror / Creative Assembly
Alien: Isolation
PC · PS4 · Xbox One · Nintendo Switch
Best Stalker in Horror
Pinhead doesn’t run, and neither does the Alien. Creative Assembly’s 2014 survival horror understands that one unkillable hunter is scarier than a hundred monsters, and it builds the whole game around that idea. You’re Amanda Ripley aboard Sevastopol station, and the Xenomorph adapts to your habits, hunting by sound, checking hiding places and punishing anyone who repeats the same trick. Like Revival’s Cenobites, it’s less an enemy than a presence the level revolves around. The weakness is length: the game runs longer than its ideas, and later sections lean on human and android enemies who are far less frightening. You can’t meaningfully fight back, either, which makes it the purest stealth pick here.
The Hook: For players who want to be hunted by something that can’t be stopped, only avoided.
06
Narrative horror / Frictional Games
SOMA
PC · PS4 · Xbox One
Biggest Ideas
Hellraiser’s real subject was never gore. It’s what people will do to their bodies and minds in pursuit of sensation, and what’s left of them afterwards. SOMA asks a similar question about identity. Frictional’s 2015 game strands you in an underwater research facility where machines believe they’re human, and the horror comes as much from the ideas as from the monsters. It’s the most thoughtful game on this list, and a few of its choices will stay with you longer than any jump scare. The weakness is the monster encounters themselves, which can feel like obstacles between the good parts. Frictional later added a Safe Mode that removes the threat entirely, which tells you where the game’s heart really is.
The Hook: For players who want horror that gets under their skin long after the credits.
Doom 3
PC · PS4 · Xbox One · Nintendo Switch
Odd One Out, Worth It
Revival’s Labyrinth is Hell as Clive Barker imagined it: cold, ordered and cruel. Doom 3 is Hell as id Software imagined it in 2004, and it makes a fascinating counterpoint. Before the series became the rip-and-tear power fantasy of the modern games, Doom 3 was a dark, slow horror shooter set on a Mars research base where the experiments open a door that should have stayed shut. Monsters burst from walls, and the darkness is so heavy you’ll treasure every flashlight. The weakness is the monster closets, which turn predictable, and a sluggish middle section. The 2019 ports bundle the expansions and let you mount the flashlight on your armour, fixing the original’s most famous complaint. If you prefer your Hell fast, our FPS campaign list covers the modern side.
The Hook: For players who want to see a very different version of Hell before visiting Barker’s.
Closing thought
Horror games keep coming back to the same few ideas: a place you can’t leave, a thing you can’t kill and a body that isn’t safe. Hellraiser added a fourth, that the monsters will give you exactly what you asked for. Most of the games on this list build around one of those ideas. Revival is trying to hold all four in one box, and we’ll know on Thursday whether it can. If your October taste runs more gothic than gory, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse arrives on October 15, and our Metroidvania list is the place to warm up.
FAQ
When does Hellraiser: Revival come out?
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival releases on October 8, 2026 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version also listed for the same date.
Is Hellraiser: Revival first-person?
Yes. It’s a single-player, first-person survival horror game that mixes combat, stealth and puzzle-solving. You play Aidan, who is searching for his girlfriend Sunny, and Doug Bradley returns as the voice of Pinhead.
Do I need to watch the Hellraiser films first?
No. Revival tells a new story, written in collaboration with Clive Barker, so it’s built to stand on its own. The original 1987 film is still the best primer if you want the Cenobites’ tone before you start.
What’s the scariest game on this list?
Amnesia: The Bunker. A single creature that hunts by sound, very little ammunition and a generator that keeps running out make it the most stressful game here.
Which game on this list has the most combat?
Resident Evil Village gives you the most firepower, and Doom 3 is a full shooter. If you want close-up melee like Revival’s previews suggest, Condemned: Criminal Origins is the better match.
Which of these kept you up with the lights on, and what horror game did we leave off?
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