Hellraiser: Revival Developers Wanted the Game Banned in at Least One Country, but It’s Now Available Even in Australia

Despite a few restrictions, the game launched uncut in most countries.

The team behind the horror game Hellraiser: Revival set an unusual goal: make the game so brutal and provocative that at least one country would ban it or refuse to give it an age rating.

Narrative director Antony De Fault shared this in an interview with IGN. He said the Saber Interactive team set out to capture the extreme content of the Hellraiser film series and of Clive Barker’s original novella, The Hellbound Heart.

The developers wanted to do more than show taboo subjects. They wanted players to engage with them. Hellraiser: Revival contains nudity, violence, heavy gore, references to self-harm, and sexual scenes. De Fault said it was important for the team to move beyond traditional horror, where the player only watches shocking events unfold.

He also noted that the interactive format of video games makes this kind of experience more immediate. The team therefore aimed not only to show taboo things but to draw the player into them, including through violent actions and a more intimate first-person perspective.

The developers still had to make some concessions to stay within acceptable age rating limits. De Fault cited a scene in which one character masturbates while looking at images of the protagonist’s girlfriend.

According to the narrative director, the scene was explicit at first, but showing the character’s genitals could have led to a stricter age classification and limited the game’s distribution in many countries. The developers rearranged the objects in the room so the player cannot see the action from a certain angle.

De Fault believes this small change did not weaken the scene’s effect on the audience. He added that a player’s imagination can be more effective than a direct depiction.

To some extent, the developers achieved their goal. In Indonesia, the local video game classification system gave the game an RC (Refused Classification) rating. In practice, this means the game cannot be legally sold in the Indonesian market.