Painkiller

Technically, this Painkiller reboot is a great success, boasting beautiful visuals and mind-blowing, fluid, challenging, and energetic gameplay. Its biggest problem is that it resembles the current vision of DOOM more than its own origins, which has cost it its identity in favor of a more generic and shallow market vision.

Painkiller delivers fast-paced action and a roster of memorable, uniquely designed weapons. However, those -arguably- well-crafted aspects struggle to keep the player’s interest after a few hours, due to the repetitive enemy design and overall lack of variety.

Painkiller 2025 is a game that nails the assignment but, in many ways, misses the point. The core of the experience is spot on. The moment-to-moment, the feel of the weapons, the slightly cheeky tone. There’s even some half-decent writing and world-building buried in those quippy conversations between our heroes. What could have been an incredible single-player shooter to rival the original has been reduced to a mostly forgettable cooperative online crack at yet another game as a service thing that doesn’t really satisfy anyone, and makes me wonder why no one at the four companies attached to this didn’t at some point question whether this was the best form for a Painkiller reboot to take.

With it being a co-op shooter, series fans aren't likely to get on with this new Painkiller unless they approach it with an open mind. And indeed, while it's nothing special, slaughtering demons with friends while amassing an arsenal of upgraded and customised weapons can be good fun.

Painkiller takes the original fan-favourite FPS and turns it into one of those modern squad shooters where there's a lot of fun to be had for a day and then the content dries up fast. It might be worth seeing what support this game gets before you jump in.

Painkiller version 2025 embraces its shift to a game-as-a-service model and does it well, even if it comes at the cost of its soul. It's a good cooperative outlet, fast-paced and fluid, but one that leaves early fans behind.

Overall, Painkiller (2025) is a decent online shooter, but it really lacks content. You can rush through all the levels very quickly and complete the full campaign in a few hours (like maybe 4 hours). It is nice that it has multiple difficulties, but that just doesn’t hold up when you have so few of levels. The single player is basically an afterthought – it’s like a mode that punishes you for not playing online. If you plan to play Painkiller online with friends or randoms then you might find something to like here, but those that want a single player experience, look elsewhere or just go back to the older Painkiller games.

Painkiller has a strong base that any shooting game needs. Its weapons are a blast to use and get weird enough to make it satisfying to rip through constant droves of demons. But even that core conceit runs dry over time as the well of ideas simply can’t support limited maps, basic objectives, and not enough variety to keep the flame burning. It’s possible as new content rolls out with DLC, Painkiller may evolve into something greater but right now it can be enjoyed by a group of friends over a weekend or two, hoping to one day leave its limbo of what-ifs.

Painkiller has some truly incredible weapons and powers, but not a lot to do with them. I saw everything the game had to offer in one sitting, and while there is replayability, the repetitive and boring objectives prevent me from wanting to keep going. The game looks awesome, but falls into generic territory in several ways, while also adopting a lot of that Marvel-esque vibe we're all tired of. It's reductive to say, but we already have DOOM at home.

The new Painkiller only partially hits the mark. With forced co-op mechanics, longtime fans may feel the essence of the original’s relentless, unfiltered action has been diluted.

If you're craving the wholesale slaughtering of otherworldly beings, Painkiller has you covered despite a myriad of superior alternatives. You'll enjoy buddying up with co-operative pals and relish in the carnage of the game's meaty weaponry. However, if you're a veteran of the arena shooter or a learned observer, you'll find Painkiller is far too similar to the genre's juggernauts than can be comfortably accepted.

Painkiller isn’t bad but it isn’t good either. It is another co-op shooter that has little content in it and doesn’t stand out from the other competition. Boss fights are fine, and the gunplay is decent. Unfortunately, they get old fast and the game just isn’t fun to put hours upon hours into. Honestly, just play Warhammer: Darktide or DOOM. They are more fun and worth your time.

Considering the limited amount of content available at launch, it’s hard to justify a $40 price tag for Painkiller. That said, its core gameplay remains fun and engaging, and with future content, it has the potential to become a solid co-op action experience.

Painkiller is a shame not because it's especially bad, but because some of the fun weapons and combat are buried beneath the dull, uninspired and repetitive mechanics, and a surprisingly short 6-hour runtime. It can be fun to shoot demons with cool weapons and a friend or two, but this just feels a bit too disposable, and ultimately uninspired.

Painkiller is a serviceable co-op shooter that doesn’t live up to its namesake. It gets the satisfying gunplay mostly right, but the rest is unremarkable considering its short length, repetitive objectives, grindy upgrade mechanics and lack of any kind of proper engaging narrative or satisfying conclusion. While it’s hard to call Painkiller bad, I’d also struggle to recommend it to anyone aside from hardcore fans of co-op, while DOOM Eternal exists. If you want an excuse to mow through rooms of demons with two friends, then Painkiller will serve you just fine, but fans of the original will probably have more fun with any of the large array of single-player boomer shooters available on the market.