Thank you 3D Realms for providing us with a review code!

The original First Person Shooter (FPS) Painkiller game was released in 2004. The franchise was successful with various sequels and expansions. In 2012, Painkiller was enhanced with Unreal Engine 3 and released as Painkiller: Hell & Damnation. I played a little bit of the 2012 release and enjoyed the fast paced gameplay and found the backstory engaging. I wasn’t a fan of the occult imagery, and that carries onward with this 2025 reboot. Other than the occult imagery and taking place in Purgatory, there are not many similarities between the older games and this reboot.

In the latest Painkiller release, you get to play as one of four characters who have been sent (mistakenly?) to Purgatory. An archangel named Metatron tasks your team of three players with eliminating a fallen angel named Azazel. The main story only consists of nine levels and can take a few hours to complete. To extend gameplay, you can play at different difficulty levels and as different characters to learn about their back stories. As you play alongside the various characters you’ll get to listen to banter between them to find out more about them before they died.

There are four character models to choose from with two being male and two being female. I typically played as a bald and heavily tattooed half-demon female named Ink. The other female was a priestess who conducted many rituals involving human virgin sacrifices. One of the male characters is named Void; he wears a hooded shroud and his face looks like a galaxy. He’s aptly named! The last character is an older man who can move pretty good for his age!

Upon launching the game, you'll be given a tutorial on the controls and various mechanics unique to this entry. After the tutorial is complete, you can join a Quick Play Match, play through the Raids or the Rogue Angel arenas. The Rogue Angel mode is a roguelike experience with procedurally generated areas and epic boss battles. The weapons provided are chosen randomly and each level increases in difficulty.

No matter which mode you choose to play, you’ll find the same four difficulty levels (Slumber, Daydream, Insomnia, and Nightmare) and similar game mechanics. Many gameplay mechanics are recycled through the various game modes as well. When shooting enemies, you’ll get a style score, for which I typically got a D, because I didn't jump or change my weapons around enough. As long as the demons were getting vanquished, I didn’t care! Throughout the game you’ll have many opportunities to fill up barrels with blood and replenish soul wells. These tasks are pretty straight forward for human teammates, but the bots are useless in assisting in these objectives.

The bots are great at taking down demons and reviving you if you’re down for the count. For the mini-boss level demons, you can set a marker on them to have the bots prioritize taking them out. You can also order them to step on a pressure plate to open up a treasure cache room.

Each of the levels has item caches, gold scattered around, and a few treasure chests asking to be found. In the item caches you’ll find healing potions, ammo refills, decoys, and an occasional extra life. By default, you can only be revived a maximum of three times before getting a game over. An extra life is redeemed immediately while the other items force you to choose since you can only carry one item on your character at a time. I chose a healing potion since ammo can be generated with the painkiller gun in a pinch!

While the previous Painkiller games were a single-player experience, this reboot is designed for online multiplayer. You can create public or private matches with an access code. The online community is lackluster despite having crossplay support. Crossplay can be disabled if you prefer to play on your specific platform. I often started a match playing with bots but ending up with one or more humans at the end of the run.

The asking price of $39.99 for this remake is a bit pricey given the short single-player campaign. While there are some players online, I fear that number will drop as the game ages and the price remains steep.

Visually, Painkiller looks amazing, and the enemies are very detailed and grotesque. When shot, blood will spray out of them like a fountain. The bosses are intimidating and unique, there's a decent amount of variety in the levels, and there’s plenty of nooks and crannies to explore to find hidden items.

The voice acting is good, and I found the banter between the characters to be amusing. There are some sexual jokes made throughout the game. Some of the online players I met used some foul language; your mileage may vary there.

If you’re a fan of the original Painkiller series, you may be disappointed with this entry. It’s a shame that the online community is pretty small. Chances are that you’ll be playing with more bots than players, and sadly the bots are not good at completing many of the objectives. While I enjoy the FPS aspects, I’m not a fan of all of the occult imagery and use of Tarot cards. Now that this review is finished, I’ll be reclaiming my disc space back.