This October, Painkiller is being revived, seeing the niche first-person shooter all about a man battling his way through Purgatory, seeking refuge in Heaven, rebooted and revitalised. Only this time around, things are much, much different. This 2025 fixing of Painkiller is all about co-op horde-based multiplayer chaos, seeing 1-3 players once again in Purgatory seeking redemption, now using an expanded arsenal, class and perk system and the deadly environment to make it out alive.
We got an early hands-on preview of the game, getting stuck into the opening hours and walking away delightfully surprised and excited for more.
Our preview time saw us going hands-on with two levels, a corrupted quarry and a cathedral. Storming through these fronts, the immediate headline is that Painkiller does feel incredibly fluid, frenetic and fun to play. You can zip through areas quite quickly thanks to a slide mechanic with generous speed and cooldown, along with dashes and on-the-fly platforming. Demon hordes are aplenty, grouping up in bunches to overwhelm you if you’re not careful, with an overpowered, more formidable, bullet-sponge-y foe just around the corner ready to deliver the killing blow. Working together to mow down the crowd, moving point to point, you’d be forgiven if you distilled the game down to ‘Doom, but in co-op.‘ However, it’s certainly more akin to titles like Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood, and the Warhammer: Vermintide series.
One of the through lines between all these games is that there are four playable characters to choose from when loading into a session. Each has their own personality and quips, and though that’s often cause for concern, none of the combat barks or one-liners are over-frequent, nor do they get grating or in the way of the fun. There’s slight personalisation between each character (one has more damage output while another has more health, etc), but, again, it’s not over-involved and it’s just one small background perk that’s going on at all times. One area that certainly will divide players is the more involved passive and active perk system that’s used via a card system.
You know the story, we’ve been here before. Where Back 4 Blood lost a good amount of its players was in this quite similar card system. Though admittedly a nice skin for Painkiller, where each perk card is part of a tarot deck and more can be added via deck shuffling in a raffle, keeping in theme with the game’s occult vibes, there remain a lot of questions. It’s not yet clear if Painkiller will have microtransactions, encouraging players to buy in and expand their deck. Though I don’t see any sign of them yet (and getting the gold from levels required to buy more cards and weapons is a grind), it’s a system that very easily makes room for that type of implementation. Admittedly, these are valuable and meaningful perks that you’ll want and need, stacking damage output very quickly, especially if you invest in the card that adds a whole 30% extra damage. Still, stay tuned for how these look come full release.
Painkiller’s biggest focus on replayability is largely on how fun it is to play. Level design is tight with a lot of verticality that is bolstered by a plethora of launch pads and fans sending you sailing upwards. I wasn’t able to pair up with any other players in my preview time, but even bots are incredibly responsive and reactive to the environment around them. Secrets await in hidden passages that must be unlocked through pressure plates and the like. Moment-to-moment gunplay can vary in intriguing ways thanks to the expansive arsenal you get, with each weapon having its own alternate firing mode. These include a wooden stake launcher suddenly being able to fire grenades or a bolt weapon being able to charge up an electric discharge that slows foes in their tracks.
Further replayability is emphasised through working your way up through the difficulties of a given level, tacking on the difficulty more and more and thus earning better items and more gold. Even only in the two levels I’ve got a taste of thus far, the want to better myself and chase higher-end content is already there. Typical objectives in missions often include holding defend points to see out a wave of enemies, or killing a certain number of enemies in close proximity to a blood vial to charge a battery. These tidbits can put players in a bind in these small areas, and I can already envision in my mind’s eye that the difficulty would only grow tenfold on higher-end content. Similarly, exploration begs you to look for more; I’d get through entire mission runs where I missed every collectible and hidden treasure chest despite being confident I was thorough in my searches.
There are a few lingering threads and questions I still have for Painkiller. Cruelly, the final mission of the preview ended right when I was placed into an arena with a conclusive boss to fight to tackle. I understand wanting to tease players with exciting content to come, but not getting to experience one big hook at all doesn’t necessarily feel like developer Anshar Studios is putting their best foot forward in showing what’s worth checking out come full release. Additionally, I don’t yet know what the future or success of Painkiller looks like in the future. Despite all this praise, it’s not doing anything all that out there. You’d be hard pressed to find good reasons to make this your next mainstay in the live-service horde-based shooter. Unless you’re incredibly in that space’s bag and playing every single one that drops, it’s not necessarily one many would prioritise.
In saying all of this, I did quite enjoy my time with this early taste of Painkiller. It’s already apparent it’s not going to set the world on fire, and it’ll even divide fans that loved its traditional boomer shooter roots, but it’s at least taking swings that I don’t immediately hate and am even charmed by. Sometimes, when a shooting game just simply feels good to raise some hell in, it’s hard not to want to at least see it out.
Painkiller releases on October 10 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. Stay tuned for how it pans out in the coming months.
About the Author
Charlie Kelly
She/Her, They/Them
Charlie loves her video games as much as she loves dumb, charming JRPG protagonists: probably way too much. You can often catch her spending too much time being emotional over LGBT stories in games. She also thinks Yakuza 6 is the best one.
