By Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is out, and thanks to Saber Interactive for providing a key, I’ve been testing it on both the Steam Deck and the Steam Machine. It runs pretty decently on the Deck, but the Steam Machine handles it a hell of a lot better. A big warning first, though: this game is extremely violent and extremely graphic, with some very questionable scenes, so proceed at your own peril.
Spectacular graphics, well optimised
For all its content, Hellraiser: Revival is actually very well done, and the graphics are absolutely spectacular. Performance is very good for the most part, with a couple of caveats: there are some fairly big lag spikes here and there, and quite a lot of annoying pop-ups at times.
4K and 1440p performance
At 4K on the High preset with FSR on Quality, 30fps is genuinely feasible, which shows just how well optimised the game is. You can use the in-game frame generation here too, but it makes those lag spikes a lot worse.
Keeping the same settings and dropping the resolution to 1440p gives a much more stable experience, holding above 60fps all of the time. The game has a heavy water reflection effect, so you normally take a big frame rate hit whenever water is on screen, but 60fps and above is still easily doable here with FSR on Quality, and it doesn’t turn into a fuzzy, hazy mess, especially on High.
I tried the other upscalers too, and FSR comes out best right now. XeSS was pretty close, but FSR just felt a bit smoother.
1080p on Epic settings
At 1920 x 1080, you can push the game up to the Epic preset. With FSR still on Quality, it gets over 80fps a lot of the time, dipping into the 60 to 70 range around water, so Epic is viable at 1080p if that’s how you want to play or you don’t have a big screen.
Bear in mind that Epic brings in some micro stutter, especially around water, and the hitches when level loads kick in are really noticeable on the Epic preset regardless of resolution. I also hit some big lag spikes in combat, even while running above 60fps most of the time.
Frame generation and recommended settings
Using either Mako frame generation or the in-game frame generation, you can push the game to 90 or 120fps. However, I still got in-game lag spikes, and it just didn’t feel as smooth as it should at those frame rates.
My recommended settings for the Steam Machine are:
- Resolution: 1440p
- Graphics preset: High
- Upscaling: FSR Quality
- Frame rate: capped at 60fps in-game
- Frame generation: Off
With these settings I had a very smooth, stable experience. There were still very minor lag spikes during some loading sequences, but they were barely noticeable compared to the other settings.
Final thoughts
Hellraiser: Revival is a great showcase for the Steam Machine. Stick to 1440p on High with a 60fps cap and it’s incredibly smooth to play, letting you just enjoy the game, provided you can stomach how graphic it gets.
