Hellraiser: Revival might be divisive among critics, with a Metacritic score of 69 (fitting), but the game just got the one seal of approval that matters most: Clive Barker's.

"I was fearful at one point that the game would be overly censored, but I'm genuinely astonished by how far they've been able to push it," Barker said in an interview with Dread Central. "I think for the audience that loves Hellraiser and horror video games, this will be a knockout."

In fact, Hellraiser: Revival has pushed things so far in the opposite direction that a YouTuber's channel was permanently banned for showing the game despite censoring the game's explicit intro.

Barker says that he's "proud as fu**" of the end result, telling Dread Central that he was "astonished by the quality of the content" and that the game's "defiance is extraordinary."

Barker's delight that the game refuses to flay Hellraiser's edges is hardly surprising; he was fighting the same battle nearly 40 years ago, when he gave an interview with The Daily Calumet speaking out against the censorship of the original movie.

"I don't think there's anything in my picture which is gratuitous. I think it's trying very hard to break some new ground in terms of what you can show, but it's all related to the narrative," he explained at the time. "I don't care how grisly, strange or gory it is if it makes sense within the narrative.

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