Painkiller is back! This somewhat niche, yet rather respected gothic fantasy FPS series, played predominantly on PC, has had its highs and lows. It’s time to press the reset button, with a brand new re-imagining of the series – as a 3-player co-op horde shooter, of sorts. A weird pivot for sure, but we’re intrigued nonetheless. This is XboxEra’s review for Painkiller, reviewed on Xbox Series X!
Nomen est omen
Polish developer Anshar Studios takes the core concept of the original Painkiller game, back from 2004, adding its own spin to it. It’s a simplified version of a similar plot. This time, it’s not Daniel Garner stuck in Purgatory, needing to murder powerful demons for a chance to get back to his wife in Paradise. It’s just… 4 barely even named characters who, again, have to escape Limbo via murdering evil foes. Painkiller games never had particularly exciting plots, but this one somehow has even less of it.
This is all to set up what is essentialy a 3-person co-op romp, only vaguely reminiscent of the previous episodes in the franchise. Gone are the gothic vibes, or its original campaign structure. Players have to select one of the four available warriors, each coming in with their own bonus. These range from increased health, damage boosts and so forth. If there are not enough players, bots controlled by the game will take the spots.
Purging Purgatory
This co-op pivot is strange, but to be fair, the levels aren’t bad at all. There’s three trios of so-called raid levels, for a total of nine stages that basically constitute a campaign. It’s only a couple hours long, and story may as well not exist, but it’s a fun time. Levels are reminiscent of simplified versions of Doom Eternal stages. A lot of verticality, high speeds, lot of aerial movement. There’s a lot less exploration though, with only a handful of secret treasures to find. For the most part, it’s one arena battle after another. There’s occasionally slight variations on the formula, such as when the players need to fill barrels with demon blood by… well, murdering them. But it’s as linear and predictable as it gets.
That isn’t to say that the new Painkiller a boring game – quite the contrary. The combat model is strong, thanks to fast and precise movement, satisfying shooting, and acrobatic arenas. Players get to build their loadout from a selection of six customizeable weapons, rocking their own secondary fire modes and perks that players can slowly unlock. Weapons can shoot for a very long time, with no need to ever reload. The Stakegun makes a comeback, though it doesn’t feel as satisfying to impale enemies with it. SMG, rocket launcher, you know the drill. There’s even a satisfying melee weapon, named the Painkiller (a-ha!), whose rotating blades allow us to extract ammo from dead enemies. Neat!
Doom-like, rogue-like, hardly Painkiller-like
There was some confusion, nearing release, that this new Painkiller is actually a rogue-lite or rogue-like of sorts. That was a bit of mix up, but the game does feature such a mode, too. Called Rogue Angel, it sees players start with basic weapons and perks, only to earn more and upgrade them via more and more arenas to battle through. The challenge is much tougher here, compared to the base game. Indeed, like the campaign, there are even multiple difficulties to choose from. With a limited variety of arenas, weapons and perks, this mode doesn’t offer too much variety, but it adds a handful of hours of challenging battles to the game’s short, 4 hour or so campaign-like raid levels.
Whether you play raids or the Rogue Angel mode, completing challenges and levels nets you coins and unlock points. These not only help upgrading weapons, unlocking new ones and so forth, but they can also be spent on new skins for our heroes. There’s even an interesting tarot card system, where players can buy random modifiers for their runs. These are single use, but once unlocked, they can be rebought, thus defeating the randomness of it all as time goes on. This is all quite a pivot from the Painkiller franchise, but I’ find it I’ve found it fun. Between this and Metal Eden last month, there seem to be a wave of games inspired by newer Doom titles. Honestly, I’m all here for it.
Stop me if you heard this one before: a game about mauling demons
The game packs some real impressive vistas, all at a rock solid 60fps on Xbox Series X. Occasional drops happen at the start of a match, but rarely during combat. What stands out more negatively are the enemy designs and encounters. This being a co-op game, most arenas seem to boil down to just enemies spawning in left and right for a couple minutes, with little reason or rhyme. The few variations on the formula are quite repetitive, with only a few bosses breaking the pace. With only 6 weapons, characters having barely any difference and not much variety, chances are you may be done with most of what the game has to offer after only a handful of hours. And those hours are fun, yet quite unremarkable.
Ultimately, I walk away from Painkiller with somewhat mixed, but overall fairly positive feelings. The gameplay is fast, satisfying, with rock solid peformance and excellent graphics making for a blast of a shooter. It is, however, Painkiller in name only, as not only it loses the series’ core aspects, but also is rather uninspired all around. Very few memorable moments in the raids, generic enemy and arena designs, and not quite the depth needed for such a co-op experience to last you long. Still, if you crave for more shooters in the style of modern Doom, do give Painkiller a fair shot, as it can be a ton of fun both solo and with two allies by your side.
Painkiller
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- It's a fun shooter
- Gorgeous vistas
- Great performance
- Works surprisingly well as a solo game
CONS
- It's not really Painkiller
- Co-op adds little to the experience
- Unremarkable game design
- Limited variety and depth
