Painkiller - A Chunky Hunk Of Killbeef (Review)
- James Stephanie Sterling
- 2 days ago
- 12 min read
Painkiller
Released: October 21st, 2025
Developer: Anshar Studios
Publisher: 3D Realms
Systems: PC, PS5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S
If you want a big thick shooter that’s hard enough to satisfy and simple enough for anyone to get their hands on, few are as much of a pleasure to play with as Painkiller. A classic of the “strafe around a million monsters” FPS subgenre, it’s great for the kind of edgy fun that doesn’t edge you. Not even a refractory reload is put between you and the mass penetration.
News of a reboot was pretty exciting to me, especially as I’d somehow gotten the impression that when they said it would be a “reimagining,” it would be a reimagining. Basically, I expected a modern but direct take on the 2004 original and I looked no further into it because that’s how I engage with the game industry these days.
My disaffected relationship with videogames sure can lead to some interesting surprises!
Reimagined in a more extensive fashion than I think many fans wanted, Painkiller 2025 is a cooperative horde shooter cast in a typically contemporary mold. Four brand new characters snark their way through Purgatory as agents of Metatron, fighting the damned legions of Azazel for reasons I can’t remember because no matter how much I play, the inconsequential story washes right over me.
Seriously, I’ve played it loads and I can’t tell you what’s happening in it besides Azazel suggesting the protagonists call him Daddy.
This new Painkiller isn’t what I expected and I was initially disappointed to learn so, but here’s the thing - I really like it! Unlike the significant number of players who’ve given the game an unfortunate review on Steam, I quickly found it a shallow yet endearing romp that I keep playing simply to enjoy its basic combat mechanics. I have my share of complaints but I’m remarkably fond of this underestimated game.
Painkiller’s New Groove is a heavy, chunky shooter stocked with weapons that are a bonafide treat to use. Some truly delicious audiovisual feedback gives every gun a sense of impact that I’ve personally found difficult to get tired of. The co-op gameplay is as standard as it gets, with three players performing simple objectives that almost always equate to killing loads of stuff, but that’s fine by me when the killing is so amusing.
It’s rare that I find an FPS’ full arsenal enjoyable across the board, but every gun in Painkiller scratches an itch for me. Each weapon can be kitted out to have one of two Core firing modes and an Attachment that provides some wacky alt-fire on a cooldown. Your choice of Core and Attachment can be further refined between one of two paths that help alter a weapon’s overall behavior.
Taking the Shotgun as an example, you can set its Core to fire a wide spread of splashing pellets or a tight-knit direct cluster. Its Attachment options consist of a freezing ice blast or a repulsion wave that sends enemies flying, and each has its own choice of settings - the repulsor can be refined to either smash targets into surfaces or become bouncing traps that you lay on the ground, while the freeze mod can either go rapid fire or explosive.
The alterations per gun aren’t numerous, but they can drastically change their utility. Whether you want to control crowds, set traps, focus on sapping the stamina of larger enemies, or just get silly, there’s plenty to play around with. You’ve got options that reward skillful shooting or lean into spray n’ pray, and either route is fun. All of the freezing Attachments are instantly gratifying, as are the electric ones that often create chains of bursting mobs.
Once kitted out, the weapons themselves are a right laugh. You start with the Electrodriver, a launcher that hurls clouds of bouncing shurikens around the room. The Stakegun can be set to lob three heavy stakes in a line or a single drilling stake that penetrates through flesh and armor. I’m quite fond of the Handcannon and its Attachment that rapidly pinballs headshots between enemies. There’s an obligatory Rocket Launcher that can be fixed to either do big slow explosions or slightly faster small ones - either one is a good time.
Even the humble SMG is eccentric, opening up with a rapid burst of bullets before slowing into a steady rhythm - its Core can either turn the rhythmic fire concussive or add a powerful penetrative shot between the two settings. The game describes it as bipolar, and I’m not sure if that’s distasteful but it just increased my affinity for it. I’ll take whatever representation I can get!
A gun’s various settings can be upgraded with Ancient Soul tokens earned throughout runs. Upgrades are never just straight improvements - they add new twists to what’s already there, such as the SMG’s penetrative round getting a gorgeous ricochet effect. I greatly enjoy all of this, but admittedly there isn’t a lot of it in the grand scheme of things. Guns don’t so much have skill trees as skill stumps.
You go into battle with any two guns you like, and whatever you bring will pack a massive punch. Alongside that, you’ll be making use of a highly slippery sliding maneuver that, while mostly used for speed boosts, can kick groups of enemies really far in a way I find very funny. Consumable items are limited to the mundanity of ammo, health, or a lure that almost nobody uses, though such pickups become pretty crucial on Nightmare difficulty.
Of course, your chosen arsenal always comes with the titular Painkiller, a close quarters buzzsaw that grinds ammo out of enemies. It can easily perform homing finishers on basic enemies, making them burst into cooldown shards for your gun Attachments. Once you learn to regularly tag this weapon in, you’ll be able to lay down constant alt-fire and carpet the place in ice, fire, or bullets that go boing.
All of this good shit equates to some of the most tangibly enjoyable shooting action I’ve experienced in a while.
Painkiller’s obviously not a thinker, and if you’ve played any other horde shooter you’ll get with its program immediately. Three players drop into a stage and shoot their way from A to B, spending almost all of their time mowing down waves of thralls and the occasional elite Demon. Sometimes you’ll need to use a Blood Tank by slaying enemies within its vicinity and then plugging it into something, or complete rituals vial some area-capture chicanery, but even the most complex mission boils down to killing, killing, and killing.
Despite such a simple formula, level maps have been designed with complexity in mind. Between all the open arenas are secrets and optional platforming sections containing gold (for guns and cosmetics), as well as extra lives and other pickups. While these side areas are cool in theory, they’re not really conducive to a co-op game full of
players more interested in killing than collecting. In fact, teams can have such little patience for explorers that I once got kicked just for trying to gather a little extra gold at the end of a stage.
I’d almost not blame the kickers had I not been carrying their asses for the whole run, as gold swiftly loses its value before too long. We’ll get into why shortly.
There’s a decent bit of enemy variety, with basic Thralls having many variants and each Demon offering a unique set of annoyances. The Taurus and Tormenter are quick fuckers that deal big damage up close, the Hellfire and Desecrator are built for range, and the Warden is simply a cunt - he incapacitates a player and drags them into a portal, instantly killing them without a revival chance unless he’s stopped in time. I hate the Warden, he’s the worst way to go.
Navigating the world has its positives and negatives. The slide mechanic is enjoyable enough and controls are super responsive, but the physics are overzealous to say the least. Nudging a wall while sliding can ping you off it at awkward angles, and there’s an unintuitive wall jump maneuver that hasn’t got much utility but will trip you up, especially since jumping, climbing, and wall jumps are all mapped to one button by default.
There are loads of pitfalls on every stage, which seems a bit mean considering how slippery the slide move is and how much strafing you’re expected to do. Your finishing move also sends you zipping toward targets in a way that’s guaranteed to send you into chasms many times over. These drops take off only a small chunk of health, but on higher difficulties that loss can be incredibly hurtful.
Painkiller really nails the movement and it’s a shame the level design just isn’t quite set up to support it. The result is that I often don’t leap around as confidently as I should, as I’m always conscious of all the inconvenient tumbles surrounding me.
Speaking of tumbling, struck enemies often do a weird thing where they fall over before getting back up again half the time. In a slower paced game this wouldn’t be an issue, but you’re meant to be constantly moving and shooting so waiting to double tap the survivors is a bit counter-intuitive. While the UI is good at showing when you’ve killed something, you’re always killing something, so seeing bits of a horde get up after they all went kaboom is always peculiar. I’ve regularly seen teammates leave many enemies alive as they’ve not noticed how many hadn’t died, so I know the mental disconnect isn’t just with me.
I’d prefer to keep them staggered on their feet rather than ragdolling along with the corpses. It’s not as satisfying to utterly scatter a crowd of Thralls only to see half of them stand back up again.
Some of the inability to tell what’s still alive is down to the visual design. I dig the consistently strong aesthetic, but it might be a little too strongly consistent - everything is so dark and spiky that it can be hard to tell enemies, environmental details, and even player characters apart. Amidst the chaos of it all it’s not the worst thing in the world, but I’ve lost my share of ammo to things that looked demonic but very much weren’t.
Stages are grouped into narrative arcs of three apiece, the third of each capping off with a big boss fight. Bosses aren’t very complicated, they’re huge demons with more varied attack patterns and arena gimmicks that can be used to stun them, but they’re all pretty fun. Most of the entertainment comes from their cool factor - they’re legitimately massive and they have great animations, plus their deaths are amusingly melodramatic.
It’s full of flaws, but I enjoy just how straightforward Painkiller is, walking the line between simple and simplistic by making the upfront murder really satisfying. I just haven’t gotten tired of watching Thralls go splat after an electrocution, or get punted off a cliff, or fly far away upon contact with a speeding stake. It’s got a set mileage depending on the player, and I totally see how anyone else could get bored of it sooner than myself, but so far I’ve gotten deeply into it.
All that said, if there’s something capable of exhausting me, it’s the fucking cast.
The playable characters are conceptually interesting, each one having died in some dramatic fashion, such as the vengeful smithy Roc indirectly hacking himself to death with a sword that cut him every time he used it against the demons who killed his family. Joining him are the half-demon reverend Ink, missionary-sacrificing queen Sol, and faceless amnesiac Void. Sadly, they’re not all that good beyond their core conceits.
There’s not much chemistry between squadmates, their sarcastic lines make them hard to like, and the worst part is they don’t stop fucking talking. Dialogue is mega limited for as often as it occurs, so characters end up parroting the same old shit, frequently running their mouths so much they start interrupting themselves with their own voice lines or queuing up so much verbal tripe they’re yelling updates about a fight long after it’s over.
Characters constantly whine about not having health or ammo, they’re prone to repeating the same lines every few seconds during boss fights, and when they reach objectives they’ll almost immediately start harassing any teammates who aren’t with them. I despise when NPCs pester players for not rushing through a campaign, and Painkiller makes you embody one. All the while, they’re talking in a sarcastic, hostile, or whinging tone, causing me to growl at the game to shut the fuck up.
As forgettable as the plot and the in-game writing is, I must say Painkiller features some of the most enjoyable flavor text since all the brilliant shit a mystery genius wrote for Vampire Survivors. Whoever wrote the lore entries and weapon descriptions for Painkiller deserves some sincere flowers because I’ve loved reading them. I can’t quite describe the writing style, it’s eccentric and flirtatious and I just really enjoy it.
Sticky grenades are described as clinging “with desperate affection, allowing relationships to mature before ending in devastating breakups.” One of the ice upgrades lets you “watch thralls slow-dance into glacial stasis as demons fight winter’s embrace.” One of my particular favorite descriptions suggests “turning demons and thralls into involuntary science lessons.” Lovely turns of phrase.
I clearly have personal and professional interest in this kind of thing, so I adore seeing how much character has been put into something as utilitarian as weapon descriptions. The lore Codex is similarly full of detailed backstories for guns, locations, and enemies, often written from the perspective of Azazel, and it’s all a thousand times more charming than anything you’ll hear throughout the actual campaign.
Whoever did all that flavor text, I see you. You did an amazing job.
Where Painkiller is really going to struggle is in its long term offerings - in fact, I’d say it’s been struggling with that from the outset. It doesn’t take long to unlock every weapon, and if you only care about getting the full upgrades for two mainstays you’ll be wrapped in no time. Progress is staggered somewhat by having upgrades locked behind weapon mastery challenges, but they’re things like “use the mod that sets stuff on fire to set stuff on fire” so you’ll blitz through those with basic use.
There’s an attempt to keep things fresh with Tarot Cards - consumable game modifiers that do things like doubling your gold, adding elemental effects when landing from heights, or dealing more damage at full health. Each card can be reused by spending three Soul Tokens, and some of them are quirkily novel. They’re also very much an afterthought and I’m not sure how many players have bothered to use them. I need to remind myself they’re even a thing.
Cosmetic unlocks are where Painkiller has really let itself down. Characters each have access to two recolors and… that’s it. If you got the deluxe edition you’ll actually have a proper reskin, and there’s another skin you get from doing something at the point of purchase, but when it comes to spending gold and unlocking stuff you have a truly dismal pair of basic paintjobs to the default model. Weapons get it even worse, as there are literally two unlockable skins shared between the lot of them, each purchased separately. One is somewhat nice, the other is downright ugly, and neither fit the game’s aesthetic.
I’m a whore for cosmetics but I really couldn’t give a shit about such paltry and visually unexciting acquisitions. I only started unlocking them because I had tens of thousands of Purgadollars burning a hole in my pocket, and considering I already dropped dosh for the deluxe version like a total mark I had better options from the jump. Why would I bother swapping gold for a different color of Void’s default skin when I began the game with jester and plague doctor variants?
Cosmetics also toggle themselves back to their defaults if you leave the game. Is that a major issue? Not really. Does it bloody annoy me? Yes it bloody does!
Between the unapologetically samey gameplay and the limited unlockables, major player bleed seems inevitable. I don’t think Painkiller was necessarily wrong to offer an uncomplicated shooter with uncomplicated shooting, but it uncomplicatedly shot itself in the foot by having such a threadbare supporting framework. Even I will need more than this before much longer, and my tolerance for the game’s repetition is clearly higher than average.
Oh, and some technical fixes wouldn't go amiss. It's gotten better about crashing since launch, but there is still a risk of it occuring. The game will also freeze now and then, just for a second or so, long enough to threaten a full-on fuckup. While this is far from the buggiest game I've ever played, there are definitely a few rough patches in need of rough patching.
Despite my gripes, nothing can diminish the fact I’ve spent an obscene amount of time enjoying this one-note projectile party. I’ve played so much of it I’m actually great at the thing, and do you know how much time I can usually spare just to get decent at a game? Not a lot! I’ve made time to play this fucking thing skillfully, elegantly in fact, almost always exceeding my teammates’ scores by hundreds of thousands. I say this not to brag - mastering the Painkiller reboot isn’t gonna impress anybody - I say it to indicate just how much this game resonated with me.
This game that has mixed at best reviews, that plenty of people seem to dislike, and I just kinda fucking love.
The Painkiller of 2025 is not the purist’s Painkiller. It’s nonetheless a great time and it absolutely relishes in exactly the kind of straight shooting chaos I’d want from such a game. Weapons are so pleasingly tumescent that I’ve consistently had fun in the face of flaws and irritating dialogue. I only hope 3D Realms can populate Purgatory with a few more hooks, because I don’t want to see what’s currently there fizzle out too quickly.
However it pans out, I’m absolutely rooting for this one.
8.5/10
