The first five minutes of Hellraiser: Revival will make your eyebrows high-five the ceiling. It opens with a BDSM-flavored sex scene complete with piercing and blood and a veritable buffet of sex toys scattered around the room, then evolves into a gory example of what hooks and chains can do to flesh. If you're sweet and innocent you might want to clutch some pearls, but to Clive Barker fans like me it's a signal that Revival is committing to the spirit of the author and director’s sexy subversion rather than watering it down. And I'm not an easy woman to please. The original Hellraiser movie rewired my brain when I saw it as a teenager (yes, I have a therapist), and Barker's Books of Blood volumes are in my top five reads of all time. I was bracing for disappointment, but that opening proved that Revival wasn't going to shy away from the body horror or sex that runs through Barker's work. The Hellraiser world is one of horrible and hedonistic extremes, so trying to avoid either would be like trying to swap Beyond Meat patties for prime rib. And the deeper I got into Hellraiser: Revival, the clearer it became that the game's understanding of those extremes went beyond pure sex and gore.

Expanding on any existing fiction, especially one as iconic as the Hellraiser series, is a challenge for anyone. " From a player experience perspective, it's key that the game stars the OG Pinhead, Doug Bradley, because no one wants a bad impersonator ruining the party.

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