Hellraiser's Clive Barker Feared New Game Would Be 'Overly Censored' But Is 'Proud as F**k at the End Result'

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Hellraiser: Revival. 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.

Sam Hill is a news writer at Polygon covering gaming and entertainment. He's a Portland, Oregon–based journalist known for covering gaming, the outdoors, national parks, tech, food, and internet culture. He has written for a range of publications including Outside Magazine, Boston Magazine, Vice, the Seattle Times and Digital Trends. New mod gives NPCs their own histories, grudges, and reasons to hunt down Arthur Morgan

If you’ve ever watched someone play an old PlayStation game and wondered why their character keeps spinning around in circles, congratulations, you’ve already met tank controls. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s your quick introduction: With tank controls, pressing up moves your character forward in whatever direction they’re facing, and pressing left or right only rotates them, so with the stick alone, you can’t sidestep or turn on a dime. That’s manageable in a hallway. It’s much less so when you’re sneaking past a guard, lining up a shot, or timing a leap across a pit, which is why the same scheme caused trouble in just about every genre during the PS1 era. These eight classic games are the hardest to go back to, whether the culprit is tank controls or something else entirely. The dealbreaker: Lining up one jump means turning in place, backing up, taking a run-up, and holding a grab button in midair. Every single time Reminder: Tomb Raider is a platformer. You’re jumping roughly every 15 seconds, and most of those jumps demand precision measured in single pixels.

Amazon has launched another buy 1, get 1 50% off book sale this week and it includes the wonderful Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia. This hardcover book is a great gift for fans of the video game series and the latest discount makes it a good time to pick up a copy for yourself and a friend. The encyclopedia was originally published back in 2018, but has consistently been one of the most popular Legend of Zelda books out there. In addition to being part of Amazon's BOGO promotion, it's also on sale for 45% off list price. Buy 1, Get 1 50% OffThe Legend of Zelda EncyclopediaIt is worth noting that there's a reason this book has consistently been on sale over the last few years. The encyclopedia only explores the first 30 years of The Legend of Zelda, which means it doesn't include information from Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. The timeline and database element of the book only extends to the Twilight Princess era of the games. Preview of The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia. That being said, it's still the only version of the encyclopedia that exists.

It’s been almost a decade since Star Wars Battlefront 2 and fans have been eager for a follow-up. According to Giant Bomb cohost Jeff Grubb, Lucasfilm is indeed shopping around a Star Wars Battlefront 3, but it remains to be seen who might actually make it. According to the rumor, Bungie is one of the studios in the running. The origins of this rumor are gnarly, so buckle up. Electronic Gaming Monthly recently released a compendium retrospective, and one of the bonuses as part of the Kickstarter was a new digital issue. That new issue reportedly featured the return of the Quartermann gossip column. That column contained a rumor that Lucasfilm wants to do a new Battlefront game. Grubb featured the column on his Game Mess Morning podcast for October 19: The suits at Lucasfilm have been aggressively deploying probe droids for a development partner to take on the task of creating a follow-up. So far, no one has fully stepped up, but yours truly is hearing two major game studios are circling the project like a couple of snowspeeders led by the completely unsurprising EA DICE who we can hope learned from their loot box lesson.