Despite being a franchise made up of 11 movies — nine of which are increasingly diminishing returns — the Hellraiser series has carved up its own legacy as a relic of horror in popular culture. Even if you don’t know his name or where he’s come from, Pinhead (alternatively named the Hell Priest by series creator Clive Barker) is almost just as recognizable as Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees, and the Lament Configuration (the gold-and-black puzzle box that often summons the amoral Cenobites from their own dimension) is arguably one of the most iconic props in horror movie history. The first two films, Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II, laid the groundwork for a philosophically heady and nightmarish universe of horror, one that’s been expanded upon in books and comics; but for the most part, the sequels after the original have failed to capture exactly what it is that makes Barker’s most famous creation so alluring.That is not a critique that can be made about Hellraiser: Revival, the recent survival horror game developed and published by Saber Interactive. It’s a direct sequel to the original two films that ignores the canon of everything that came afterward, and Saber dedicated itself to the mission of resurrecting the self-destructive sensuality and extreme S&M imagery that defined the first two installments. And according to Revival’s narrative director, Antony de Fault, going back to the source is precisely what makes the game one of the best Hellraiser projects in decades.“We went back to the esoteric original vision, where the Cenobites are morally gray explorers of sensation, and their Labyrinth is not ‘hell’; it’s Order,” de Fault tells Inverse.Gone is the slasher-adjacent presentation that warped the series during the straight-to-video era, in favor of the profoundly human curiosity for sensation and experience that made the Cenobites angels to some and demons to others in the first place. And amid a comeback that includes the recent game as well as a newly launched comic book series, Inverse talked to de Fault about the process of bringing the Order of the Gash to consoles.How exactly did the team settle on a Hellraiser game for a project? Was it an idea birthed in-house?Hellraiser was one of several licenses that were presented to the team, and it was simply the one that resonated the most. The team had die-hard Hellraiser fans aboard, and the attention-grabbing nature of it seemed like fertile ground for a video game. It was also along similar lines to horror prototypes that were already being developed by the team, so the fit was natural.What was the biggest challenge of taking such a contained horror story like The Hellbound Heart/Hellraiser and turning it into something playable and fun in a survival-horror context?The biggest challenge was finding the right gameplay to go along with it. Those original Hellraiser stories don’t really feature many sequences that easily translate to gameplay; it’s mostly character drama and horrific visuals. The closest thing to gameplay is probably in the second movie, when Kirsty is varyingly trying to run and hide while in the Labyrinth, but we knew we couldn’t sustain an entire game on just running and hiding. That’s where the idea for a more violent character in Aidan came from, and for the Scarlet Church, and the Unworthy. Building a more diverse action survival horror experience let us vary the gameplay to keep things fresh, alternating between stealth, outright horror, action, exploration, puzzling, and drama.Just like the original film, Revival’s horror is born out of the intense and codependent love affair between two people. | Saber InteractiveWhat was it like working with Clive Barker, and how direct was his involvement on the story?Clive was a very permissive and supportive partner. He was heavily involved in the initial stages while we were ideating the story and gameplay, but once he could see that we understood his world and had a vision for how to bring it to life as a video game, he largely stepped back into the role of approving things, giving us occasional feedback and pointers to correct things like the representation of the Labyrinth or the powers of the Cenobites.Was there any sort of apprehension at all to approaching the inherent sexuality of the concept in video game form, and did those choices get any pushback?Oddly, I don’t think there was any apprehension. The inherent sexuality was actually very freeing; it gave us a permission slip to push boundaries, the confidence that if anyone challenged us, we could say, “But it’s Hellraiser.” We knew it was going to be somewhat controversial, and we got nervous at times, such as when payment providers started pressuring platforms to remove games citing ethical concerns. But generally it was just exciting to know that our game would, if nothing else, stand out for going boldly where no game like it has gone before. And to our surprise, there was never any pushback. We were assured that we should make the game exactly as we see fit, no censorship, no restrictions.Just like the films, the game pushes the envelope in terms of engaging with the dichotomy between violence and lust. | Saber InteractiveWhat exactly makes Doug Bradley the quintessential Pinhead, and how did getting him back for Revival happen?This won’t be an interesting answer, but Doug simply is Pinhead. His specific presence, the way he intones his lines, these traits left the original mark on people’s psyches, and that’s irreplaceable. Someone else could come along and leave a different mark in the same role, but it could never be exactly the same. And getting him back was no trouble, as far as I’m aware! All he needed to hear was that his good friend Clive was involved with the game; that was enough to get him to take a look. And then when we explained the idea and spoke about Pinhead’s role in it, that was it. He seemed genuinely pleased to return to the role and relished the recording sessions, as we all did.What spurred on the decision to create a new puzzle box for the game?The idea to create a new puzzle box for the game was a fairly obvious one. We knew that we didn’t want to break the lore of the Lament Configuration, we knew that multiple boxes were canon already, and we knew that we wanted the player to be able to do more with their Configuration than simply solving it; we wanted it to become a tool in their hands. Later, we figured out that we also needed it to have a very specific purpose in the story, which goes a bit beyond what the Lament was designed for. So the Genesis Configuration was born, and that freed us to have it do all sorts of stuff in combat, exploration, and puzzling gameplay.Saber created a new canon puzzle box that can be used for puzzle solving or combat in-game, functioning similar to the plasmids in BioShock. | Saber InteractiveHow did you approach extrapolating the Labyrinth from its appearance in Hellraiser II into a fully playable video game location?We began by studying what was shown in the movie, which roughly boils down to an oppressive maze, in which Cenobites roam among their entombed “victims” (suggested by what they do to Chanard in Hellbound), and where individuals can also be trapped in psychoactive spaces that take the form of their “personal hell.” From there, we thought about works that likely inspired Clive, like the architectural sketches of [M.C.] Escher, as well as works that were probably inspired by Clive, such as the impossible labyrinth in House of Leaves. Once we’d figured out the “vibe” of the place, we also began thinking about gameplay that might occur there, so we looked at games like PT and Control that evoked these ideas of mazes, impossible spaces, and “personal hells,” and the kind of gameplay they were populated with. These informed the traps and shifting hallways of our Labyrinth, as well as the way it sometimes takes on a more psychoactive mode that forces Aidan to explore familiar places that mess with his head.Were there any other survival horror games in particular that served as inspiration for Revival?I think the game wears its inspirations fairly plainly, so it’s stuff like Resident Evil for action and puzzling, Silent Hill for story, Outlast for stealth, and Alan Wake for some of the more mind-f*ck environments. There’s also a hefty BioShock inspiration, in the way that the Configuration sort of works like its plasmids do in the player’s left hand, and its blood-smeared art deco, and the characters of the Scarlet Church.Introduced in Hellraiser II, the Labyrinth is the Cenobites’ terrifying home dimension, and it’s easy to see how much care went into the process of making it a memorable location for players. | Saber InteractiveMuch in the same way that the Hellraiser series functions kind of like an anthology, do you have any plans to return to this world?We’d love to, to refine everything we were just figuring out how to do this time, but that decision will largely depend on the success of this game. We’ll see!What makes Hellraiser: Revival a worthy successor to the first two films after so many disappointing film sequels?I think it’s the fact that we had Clive aboard, and we worked hard to really understand what Hellraiser is trying to say, philosophically, at its core. We went back to the esoteric original vision, where the Cenobites are morally gray explorers of sensation, and their Labyrinth is not “hell”; it’s Order. We ignored later interpretations that turned the Cenobites into bloodthirsty slasher villains or into biblical demons. Then once we’d returned to that original vision, we didn’t try to change it. We just understood it, then set about trying to carry the same meaning to new generations of audience, in a new medium, so that Clive’s intent can resonate with them all over again.That’s not to say this is a repeat of the originals, because with the much longer runtime of a game, we found we could go deeper than the originals did and go further into the mythos in ways I can’t really talk about without spoiling the final act!Hellraiser: Revival is currently available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.