Painkiller
Developer: Anshar Studios
Publisher: 3D Realms
Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X (Reviewed), PlayStation 5
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $39.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
Hearing that a new Painkiller game would be coming out in 2025 was a surprise, primarily thanks to the fact that the franchise has been dormant for well over a decade despite receiving a number of sequels. It didn’t help that, for the most part, many of these sequels were poorly received at the time, but that didn’t stop 3D Realms and Anshar Studios from bringing this hellish shooter back to life. Or did they? Because it appears that something else got mixed into this revival ritual and has resurrected Painkiller as a shadow of its former self and transformed it into a raid based co-op shooter instead.
Story
Completely reset from the story that once saw Daniel Garner fighting through Purgatory in an attempt to reach his wife Catherine in Heaven, Painkiller now follows the battle of four souls with awful names that have found themselves sent to Purgatory for various heinous or blasphemous acts they committed in life and now find themselves endowed with a less than holy mission from the Voice of the Creator, Metatron. It turns out that the fallen angel Azazel has begun plans to invade Earth using his demonic hordes and weaponry created from Purgatory. In an attempt to try and “redeem” themselves, by slaying their way through three separate campaigns broken down into shorter raids that all pit three of these souls against Azazel’s forces to try and dismantle his machinations and slay the Nephilim that he is trying to raise.
Painkiller’s new story has some trappings to be interesting but it just never happens to actually deliver anything close to its premise. The moment to moment battles are as standard as they come and the final “boss” confrontations against the Nephilim in each of the three campaigns are the only noteworthy and unique feeling encounters that feel like they have any real role in the storyline. It also doesn’t help that the only way to actually learn about the four playable characters in the game is by hoping they will randomly chime up during a raid and talk to one another about their past to reveal more info about the actual characters themselves. Unfortunately these glitch out quite often to the point that characters will one-sidedly talk with a character that isn’t even in the group or stop talking mid-sentence should demons appear. Thankfully some of these conversations are then later viewable in the “Codex” where most of the game’s lore is kept, but anyone looking for more of a cohesive storyline, even as far as the original Painkiller games are concerned, will be disappointed here.
It is worth noting that while most of the gothic and darker elements of the original Painkiller have not made the transition to this new iteration, there are some decent interactions at least when it comes to listening to Metatron talk about the player’s progress or Azazel’s taunting when advancing through each stage. These moments stand as some of the better elements of the game’s minimal dialogue since, as mentioned before, the four main playable characters are severely lacking.
Gameplay
At its core Painkiller is now a “must co-op” arena shooter where up to three players, or the player and two bots since there must always be three active characters no matter what, fight their way through each “raid” stage. These raids tend to last anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes a pop with each campaign featuring three stages and the final one featuring a boss battle that has a slightly unique mechanic to it, but often not unique enough to actually change up the way players are actually playing, which is shooting anything that moves. Players have access to a very standard movement set of slides, jumping and scrambling up a wall, using a “grapple” to zip to very specific points in arenas giving players plenty of fast-paced movement options that feel mostly good to use, especially the sliding kick, and of course the weaponry they carry, though this has been given a significant downgrade for longtime fans of the franchise. Each character has slightly different “bonuses” attached to playing them though these are so minor they are mostly negligible outside of perhaps the hardest difficulties.
This is primarily thanks to the fact that, due to the “raid” nature of the game, players must instead choose to create a loadout before entering a raid that limits them to two primary weapons as well as the classic “painkiller” shredder that chops up generic enemies and turns them into ammo for the player’s primary weapons. Being limited to only two primary weapons means that players are meant to try and co-ordinate with their team, but given the fact that bots often play just as good, if not better, than most other players, it’s generally better to go that route. The weapons themselves are a mix of good and bad, with the Painkiller classic “Stake Gun” returning but feeling less impactful when it actually impales an enemy to a wall as well as other weapons such as a shurikan machine-gun that ricochets between enemies, a shotgun capable of elemental blasts, and some more extreme gravity altering options as well. Every weapon comes with a secondary “elemental” type of firing mode that drains the player’s elemental meter when used but it is not only incredibly effective at eliminating drone style enemies but also against both Demons and Nephilim as well. If nothing else, it must be said that actually shooting and slaying your way through hordes of demons feels incredibly smooth and fun, especially when combining elemental attacks to shatter through well over thirty drone-style foes in a group, though some weapons do feel a bit more fleshed out than others.
As players fight through each stage of a raid they’ll always come across one of three objectives. Either kill all waves of enemies, fill “blood barrels” by killing enemies within range of said barrels, or survive long enough after hitting a switch. Here is where players will usually need to worry about Demons spawning in alongside hordes of weaker enemies. Demons have larger health pools but can also be staggered through sustained elemental damage and commanding your allies to focus on one is a great way to chip away at one before it becomes too much of a problem. A stunned Demon can be instantly finished off with the painkiller for a large elemental bonus. It is interesting to note that some elemental types can be combined together to create extremely powerful stunned states, though organizing this with allies is troublesome even if it works best against some of the Nephilim bosses. That being said, the boss enemies do not have the same instant-kill elements, instead they’ll expose weaknesses when stunned.
At the start of every raid players have a difficulty option they can select for themselves that will not only change how much damage players receive and dish out but also how many enemies spawn and their reactions. Higher levels reward players with extra coin and “ancient souls” (upgrade points) per arena cleared but it is also worth noting that there is an extremely limited amount of actual things players can meaningfully upgrade or purchase in the game. Initially, players are locked to only being able to use the Stake Gun and shurikan thrower, with other weapons requiring “gold” earned from raids and ancient souls to unlock. Players can then unlock additional components to strengthen their favorite weapons or simply buy skins or costumes for their favorite character, though once again the actual variety here is incredibly limited. The other “upgrade” comes in the form of Tarot cards that are expendable cards that players must use coins to draw at random and can be used one time for any raid they wish. After this, the tarot card is burned but can be easily restored using ancient souls, meaning players don’t have to rely on random chance to reacquire a favorite card that may boost their damage, double their money, or more.
Unfortunately that happens to be one of the biggest issues with Painkiller. Longevity. Despite being designed as a co-op shooter that rewards players for taking on challenges, the actual rewards themselves are paper thin after a while. Once players complete the primary raids, they’ll have likely unlocked nearly everything worthwhile that they may have had their eye on. Combine that with the repetitive nature of the “tasks” given to players in every arena and runs quickly feel like they are simply going through the motions. This is especially true when playing with bots as they will not properly react to many of the optional side-exploration, not that there even is much in the way of that as each level only contains extra “chests” with money to be found as well as some slightly off-the-beaten path gatherings of gold or healing items. It is also a shame that despite the game having a “revive” mechanic for picking up allies, playing with bots just results in a lost life without any chance of being revived. Either way, this leaves players with very little reason to even think of coming back to the game once they’ve taken on the major campaigns, let alone dive into any of the side content such as a poorly thought out roguelike mode that adds very little to the overall experience other than a way to test the player’s skills and longevity against enemies they’ve long grown familiar with..
Audio & Visuals
When it comes to Anshar Studios’ depictions of Purgatory it almost feels like they played it a bit on the safe side overall. Which is rather shocking given the gothic nature of the original game. Enemy designs are decent enough, though players will be surprised to find out that they’ve seen every single enemy type simply by completing one campaign, meaning there is very little actual enemy variety even amongst Demons. There are some levels that have some very inspiring looking set-pieces but, ironically, these are mostly placed in areas players are meant to simply walk through, hoping the character’s might chime up during a moment’s respite rather than actually feel like part of the environment during combat. The actual combat environments are decently varied with a lot of different vertical options and grappling points to keep players moving amongst the demonic hordes and it all plays incredibly smoothly with not even a single hitch even as countless enemies were exploding into shattered ice on the screen.
The voice work throughout Painkiller is something someone might actually need a painkiller to deal with most of the time. Once again, the core cast of characters are incredibly grating to the point that players will be hard pressed to like any of them, let alone how they sound. The saving grace happens to be the way that Azazel and Metatron chime in from time to time as at least their voice work is handled exceptionally well. As far as the background music is concerned the title is filled with all kinds of heavy metal and rock which is fitting for the nature of the title, but really lacks that type of punch that fans of that music appreciate, almost feeling muted at times where it should have been feeling triumphant as players slay hundreds of demons waiting for the next door to open up.
Overall
Despite Painkiller‘s fractured history, it feels like trying to reboot it into something that it never was was already a step in the wrong direction. While a fairly okay co-op shooter that has some slick movement options and great gunplay with most of its weaponry, Painkiller simply feels uninspiring and less than the sum of its parts. Between a non-existant storyline, characters that are so forgetfully generic, and an unrewarding “grind” for rewards, Painkiller‘s 2025 reboot feels less like a revival and more like a cash-grab using a dormant IP that longtime FPS fans would jump at, only to find a watered down version barely resembling the Painkiller name.
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