Hellraiser: Revival builds dread from discomfort, with almost no jump scares

A 30-minute look at Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival leaned on anxiety and awkwardness. Violence, abuse, sexuality and the link between pain and pleasure are played straight. Narrative director Antony de Fault and game director Emil Esov put the brief in a few words: the player should feel uncomfortable, and the team is not bargaining that away.

In the demo, Aidan is searching for Sunny after she is dragged into the Cenobites' Labyrinth. One stretch is a place that keeps rearranging itself. Corridors look familiar, and notes along the way fill in the couple's relationship. De Fault says the intimacy that makes people squirm is put inside a game on purpose, as a kind of safe frame: it is not happening to the player's body, so there is still some distance.

The studio does not want BDSM stamped as evil by default. Aidan and Sunny's relationship, like the cult's inner life, is presented as unhealthy, while other characters practice BDSM by consent. De Fault says the point was not to single out people who like leather and whips. Esov adds that those consensual characters are among the most psychologically steady people in the game, and that a club scene is there to show the voluntary side against much worse episodes elsewhere.

Violence follows the same rule. This is a survival horror with guns and melee, but the hits are supposed to earn their place in the story. De Fault's point is that combat stops meaning anything when it has no context. Esov says the tension has to be portioned out or the player cannot actually feel it. The demo barely uses jump scares. One sharp fright is saved for near the end, and the rest is a long unease.