Painkiller (2025)

[polonyc2]

Painkiller is back..from developer Anshar Studios via publishers 3D Realms and Saber Interactive, the beloved 2000s shooter that first debuted in 2004 is returning to PC and consoles

heading to Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S in Fall 2025


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkX_j2Qo2A8

 

[MavericK]

Nice, I was just thinking about this franchise the other day.

 

[w35t]

PLEASE BE GOOD!!!

Bodies flying and getting stuck to walls by the stake gun is among my fondest gaming memories.

 

[CAD4466HK]

Too bad it's using UE and not id Tech like the previous entries.
Still like the look of it though and will have to replay all the old ones before it launches!

 

[polonyc2]

I never played any of the Painkiller games but this looks exactly like the recent Doom games...even the music sounds like Mick Gordon

 

[CAD4466HK]

I never played any of the Painkiller games but this looks exactly like the recent Doom games

They were great fun!
More horde shooter like Serious Sam though.

 

[Comixbooks]

Was Bulletstorm related to this series?

 

[polonyc2]

Was Bulletstorm related to this series?

same developer- People Can Fly...I didn't realize they are also doing the upcoming Gears of War: E-Day game

 

[KazeoHin]

CO-OP?

In a Boomer Shooter?

I'm on board.

I never played any of the Painkiller games but this looks exactly like the recent Doom games...even the music sounds like Mick Gordon

That's the problem with doing something REALLY really REALLY well: People tend to follow the formula.

That said, I'd take a bad Doom Knock-off vs a good tactical shooter any day.

 

[Armenius]

same developer- People Can Fly...I didn't realize they are also doing the upcoming Gears of War: E-Day game

E-Day is being co-developed with People Can Fly. They made Judgement. There is a rumor floating around that the rest of the Gears collection is getting remasters and coming to PC but without multiplayer.

CO-OP?

In a Boomer Shooter?

I'm on board.



That's the problem with doing something REALLY really REALLY well: People tend to follow the formula.

That said, I'd take a bad Doom Knock-off vs a good tactical shooter any day.

Painkiller is backward death march horde shooter like Serious Sam, not a boomer shooter.

 

[polonyc2]

Painkiller is backward death march horde shooter like Serious Sam, not a boomer shooter.

aren't the recent Doom games basically a horde shooter as well in terms of how they throw waves of enemies at you with increasing difficulty

 

[hititnquitit]

Just went and looked...still have Painkiller in the case.

 

[sharknice]

Too bad it's using UE and not id Tech like the previous entries.
Still like the look of it though and will have to replay all the old ones before it launches!

I'm glad its using UE and not ID Tech. ID Tech hasn't kept up and looks like ass.

This trailer really gives me old school FPS vibes and I'm looking forward to all 5 hours of coop gameplay.

 

[CAD4466HK]

I'm glad its using UE and not ID Tech. ID Tech hasn't kept up and looks like ass.

This trailer really gives me old school FPS vibes and I'm looking forward to all 5 hours of coop gameplay.

ID Tech 7 Motor that was used in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle looks way better than than the shitty looking UE5 in Stalker 2 and Silent Hill 2 and has way better performance to boot.

 

[sharknice]

ID Tech 7 Motor that was used in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle looks way better than than the shitty looking UE5 in Stalker 2 and Silent Hill 2 and has way better performance to boot.

hardcore disagree on that

 

[CAD4466HK]

hardcore disagree on that

I guess we agree to disagree then.

 

[piratepress]

This is my kind of game here. I played the original and loved it, and can't wait for this one!!!

 

[shleepy]

Loved the original! There was just something really nice about the "feel" of the weapons, and I remember the ragdoll physics being fun for the time.
The video looks pretty promising, but I hope there's a little more variety in level design than what I'm seeing. The original had some really varied maps/levels with very different vibes.

 

[mullet]

Definitely something my wife and I would play looks good.

 

[Lateralus]

Y'all making me want to fire up Painkiller again.

I finally watched the trailer and it looks like fast, frenetic fun. Will be interesting to see how it compares to Doom Eternal/The Dark Ages. Looks similar in terms of graphics and chaos, and I approve.

 

[polonyc2]

so it's Doom with a co-op mode?...as long as co-op is not required and I can play the entire campaign solo I'm in

 

[Armenius]

aren't the recent Doom games basically a horde shooter as well in terms of how they throw waves of enemies at you with increasing difficulty

2016 and Eternal are not boomer shooters either, more like arena shooters. They don't have that hold S and shoot thing Painkiller and Serious Sam can sometimes have.

 

[ShuttleLuv]

Painkiller 2004 still looks sharp. Thats how far comps were ahead back then until the dumbing down from devs that took place around Xbox 360 / PS3 timeframe.

 

[Flogger23m]

Looks okay, but essentially a Doom knockoff. Seems like all shooters these days are either retro style games or survival games without much shooting.

ID Tech 7 Motor that was used in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle looks way better than than the shitty looking UE5 in Stalker 2 and Silent Hill 2 and has way better performance to boot.

Indiana Jones runs poorly. It looks stuttery no matter what settings and frame rates, and both the TAA and DLSS options result in horrible blurring when standing still which is quite odd, usually blurring happens in motion. It is enough to be distracting to the gameplay. The pop in is also horrific. You'll see trees changing LoD multiple times just 20-30 feet away. After seeing Nanite, the ID engine comes off as horribly dated in this area.

Like ID Tech engines before it, it has problems. The horrific texture pop in from Wolfenstien and Rage, to the performance issues in various games. The only games I've played on recent iterations that did not have unfixable problems were Doom and Doom Eternal (which looked underwhelming).

Max settings, minus path tracing (which no one can really use anyways):




Yeah it can look better at times, but other times it looks like a blurry mess. And no combination of settings could get rid of the jittery performance.


I think Unreal 5 looks much better, the only issue is most games on newer builds of UE4 and UE5 have stuttering but it isn't constant. Nanite allows much better detail and little to no LoD pop in, which makes other games look dated in comparison. Example of Hellblade 2 (which does have occasional traverse stutter but otherwise runs smoother 95% of the time):




I feel like a lot of people jump on the "lol Unreal sux" bandwagon because they heard it elsewhere. It certainly does have downsides, but most PC games over the past 4 or so years have been having stuttering issues and other image quality problems. Even Cyberpunk has stutters post Phantom Liberty in certain road sections, which is otherwise a smooth running game. These days it seems harder for me to find a game that doesn't have stuttering problems on PC.

 

[Lateralus]

Well I reinstalled Black Edition again...probably won't finish it, again, but damn if I don't have the urge to play it. 2004 was one hell of a year for gaming, between HL2, Doom 3, Chronicles of Riddick, Painkiller, The Suffering, UT2K4, etc.

So there's apparently an RTX Remix mod now: https://www.moddb.com/mods/painkiller-rtx-remix

I normally would've put that in the 'official' thread for Painkiller: Black Edition, but if you search just by title and not even by message bodies there are 3 pages of Painkiller threads going back to 2004. What a blast from the past...discussions from "So...Painkiller vs. Far Cry, which one should I get?" to "I'm trying to download it again and it's going slowly...oh that might be because Max Payne 3 released today"

 

[CAD4466HK]

Looks okay, but essentially a Doom knockoff. Seems like all shooters these days are either retro style games or survival games without much shooting.



Indiana Jones runs poorly. It looks stuttery no matter what settings and frame rates, and both the TAA and DLSS options result in horrible blurring when standing still which is quite odd, usually blurring happens in motion. It is enough to be distracting to the gameplay. The pop in is also horrific. You'll see trees changing LoD multiple times just 20-30 feet away. After seeing Nanite, the ID engine comes off as horribly dated in this area.

Like ID Tech engines before it, it has problems. The horrific texture pop in from Wolfenstien and Rage, to the performance issues in various games. The only games I've played on recent iterations that did not have unfixable problems were Doom and Doom Eternal (which looked underwhelming).

Max settings, minus path tracing (which no one can really use anyways):

View attachment 718557View attachment 718558View attachment 718559View attachment 718560


Yeah it can look better at times, but other times it looks like a blurry mess. And no combination of settings could get rid of the jittery performance.


I think Unreal 5 looks much better, the only issue is most games on newer builds of UE4 and UE5 have stuttering but it isn't constant. Nanite allows much better detail and little to no LoD pop in, which makes other games look dated in comparison. Example of Hellblade 2 (which does have occasional traverse stutter but otherwise runs smoother 95% of the time):


View attachment 718561View attachment 718562View attachment 718563View attachment 718564

I feel like a lot of people jump on the "lol Unreal sux" bandwagon because they heard it elsewhere. It certainly does have downsides, but most PC games over the past 4 or so years have been having stuttering issues and other image quality problems. Even Cyberpunk has stutters post Phantom Liberty in certain road sections, which is otherwise a smooth running game. These days it seems harder for me to find a game that doesn't have stuttering problems on PC.

Ran great for me with no stuttering, what is your texture pool set to? That made the biggest difference to me with a 4070S, but then again that was in December, I'm aware that it had patches that have ruined performance since I last played it.

And I never said anything about Hellblade 2, I picked games that I played in comparison to Indiana Jones, but of course you had to pick the best looking UE5 game to compare it to that had nothing to do with my post or this thread. You never mentioned Stalker 2 or Silent Hill 2, which is what I was comparing it to.

And I never said anything about Wolfenstien and Rage. You might as well go back to Doom 3 and the OG Painkiller then.

I was comparing recent UE5 to recent ID Tech. Going off of this post: "I'm glad its using UE and not ID Tech. ID Tech hasn't kept up and looks like ass."

 

[Flogger23m]

Ran great for me with no stuttering, what is your texture pool set to?

I believe the 2nd highest which was recommended, though at the time of the screen shot with the two men in front of the grass hedges it was set to the highest. The game would CTD as it would run out of VRAM with some settings, and in an attempt to get it to look smooth I turned it down to high (I think Ultra and Extreme were two settings higher) as it would give a warning about VRAM though it ran fine. Regardless, the textures look bad for something that seemingly can't run on 12GB of VRAM. Poor optimization, and seems like the legacy of Id Tech engines having issues with texture streaming, pop ins, and blurriness has not yet been fixed. I brought up those past games for a reason, the ID Tech engine games (except Doom 2016 and probably Eternal) all had texture quality, streaming, and horrific pop in and that trend continues with Indiana Jones.

Regardless of the frame rate, the game always looked jittery and stuttery. No combination of settings would result in a smooth looking game.

Below is a screen shot of Indiana Jones (2025) and Insurgency Sandstorm (2018), a 7 year old game on UE4 made by a small indie team with a budget likely 1/3 of what Indiana had. The reflections on the tiles look better in Indiana, but the visual clarity of Insurgency Sandstorm is way better. Indiana looks washed out and blurry. Look at the retention of details on the walls in Insurgency in the upper right, which are further in distance than they are in Indiana. They retain much more detail. They're entirely different types of games with Insurgency being a small budget multiplayer only game, but I'd say graphically they aren't too far off when considering engine limitations. Especially considering the budget, team size, and year of release differences.



Indiana and the ID engine, IMO, aren't even close to what newer versions of UE5 can offer visually.

That made the biggest difference to me with a 4070S, but then again that was in December, I'm aware that it had patches that have ruined performance since I last played it.

If patches ruined performance, that would be disappointing.

And I never said anything about Hellblade 2, I picked games that I played in comparison to Indiana Jones, but of course you had to pick the best looking UE5 game to compare it to that had nothing to do with my post or this thread. You never mentioned Stalker 2 or Silent Hill 2, which is what I was comparing it to.

But why limit the comparison to specific games that had notable performance and development issues? There are many UE games with budgets of all sizes, and visual results vary a whole lot. But that doesn't mean UE5 isn't capable of looking better. If you're comparing engines you need to compare engines, and not games. Especially if those games aren't using the newest UE5 builds/features. ID engines are harder to compare because they have less games, and all tend to be AAA budgets.

Tech 7, IMO, is quite underwhelming when compared to what UE5 can offer. Nanite is a game changer. The horrible draw distance in Indiana shows that Nanite, or something like Nanite (the new Assassin's Creed engine implements similar technology), could have really improved the visuals. Indiana just looks outright dated when it comes to draw distance and LoD. And that seems to be an engine limitation, otherwise they would have had some graphic options to prevent the horrific pop in.


* I'm sure Indiana looks better with path tracing enabled, but unless you have a 5080 or higher no one will be able to use it anyways so that aspect is hard to evaluate. In which case, the performance to visuals will still not be good in favor of Tech 7 considering there are games like Alan Wake 2 or UE5 games that use Lumen that offer better performance for the visual quality offered.

 

[CAD4466HK]

But why limit the comparison to specific games that had notable performance and development issues?

Because those are the UE5 games that I played, and that is where my opinion comes from. Unlike you I'm not carrying a torch for UE5 so I have no desire to pull up every game that was made using it, just the ones that I have played. Oh and once again "I'm glad its using UE and not ID Tech. ID Tech hasn't kept up and looks like ass."

And I will agree to disagree with you as well. Go give Stalker 2 a spin and tell me how it runs compared to The Great Circle in your opinion.

And this is so OT that I'm probably going to get a warning and this post will be deleted along with yours...so yeah.

I believe the 2nd highest which was recommended, though at the time of the screen shot with the two men in front of the grass hedges it was set to the highest. The game would CTD as it would run out of VRAM with some settings, and in an attempt to get it to look smooth I turned it down to high (I think Ultra and Extreme were two settings higher) as it would give a warning about VRAM though it ran fine. Regardless, the textures look bad for something that seemingly can't run on 12GB of VRAM. Poor optimization, and seems like the legacy of Id Tech engines having issues with texture streaming, pop ins, and blurriness has not yet been fixed. I brought up those past games for a reason, the ID Tech engine games (except Doom 2016 and probably Eternal) all had texture quality, streaming, and horrific pop in and that trend continues with Indiana Jones.

I played with it on High and had a great time, no VRAM warnings or stuttering. Maybe you should drop yours lower and give it another try.

I'm sure Indiana looks better with path tracing enabled, but unless you have a 5080 or higher no one will be able to use it anyways so that aspect is hard to evaluate. In which case, the performance to visuals will still not be good in favor of Tech 7 considering there are games like Alan Wake 2 or UE5 games that use Lumen that offer better performance for the visual quality offered.

I would never even try to use PT with a 12GB GPU after I learned the hard way with Alan Wake 2, which ran like shit and looked like shit on my system even without PT.

 

[Flogger23m]

Because those are the UE5 games that I played, and that is where my opinion comes from.

But you were comparing engines. It Tech has always had issues as mentioned, Indiana is just another example of that. It looks quite ugly and doesn't run well. There aren't many examples of Tech 7, and this is the latest ID engine we have access to and it just isn't good.

Unlike you I'm not carrying a torch for UE5 so I have no desire to pull up every game that was made using it, just the ones that I have played.

It isn't carrying the torch for UE5 to talk about the newest builds and use examples of games made with it.

Oh and once again "I'm glad its using UE and not ID Tech. ID Tech hasn't kept up and looks like ass."

Well he isn't wrong. Indiana looks dated in many areas, has performance issues, and looks blurry. In a number of ways it looks worse than indie games from 7-8 years ago on UE4, forget about UE5. I too am happy it is using UE5 and not ID Tech. I worry about traversal/shader comp stutter, but Tech 7/Indiana has constant jitters which looks even worse.

The pop in and LoD change is some of the worst I've seen in many years.

And I will agree to disagree with you as well. Go give Stalker 2 a spin and tell me how it runs compared to The Great Circle in your opinion.

Why use a buggy game that released in alpha state as a judge of an entire engine? You can play a whole bunch of UE5 games to get an opinion of it. Unless the upcoming ID Tech 8 has something akin to nanite, it will look very dated with the horrific pop in. Any engine that doesn't have a nanite like feature is dated, IMO.

I played with it on High and had a great time, no VRAM warnings or stuttering. Maybe you should drop yours lower and give it another try.

That is the problem. Regardless of settings or frame rates, the game is a jittery, stuttery mess. It looks and plays like 50-60 frame rates no matter what. Much like how the older versions of ID tech had texture pop in not matter what system specs you had. Much like the horrible pop in. Limitations of the engine.

Uncharted 4 looks better overall IMO (much better visual clarity, retains detail) and plays much smoother. I'd say that engine/game is better than Tech 7.

 

[FrgMstr]

You do know there is an IJ thread, right?

 

[Enigma]

The trailer looks meh. Besides that 3D Realms is involved.... If any of their past releases in the last few years have anything to say about what they will deliver,

I am very skeptical that it will be what fans of the franchise are wanting.

 

[Lateralus]

The trailer looks meh. Besides that 3D Realms is involved.... If any of their past releases in the last few years have anything to say about what they will deliver,

I am very skeptical that it will be what fans of the franchise are wanting.

I didn't even notice the 3D Realms thing...yeah, that doesn't mean it'll automatically be meh, but I wouldn't blame people for being skeptical based on some of their other games.

One thing that's apparently not going over too well with fans of the original games is that this is primarily co-op based, and even if you choose to play solo you have to lug around an AI companion.
Other complaints are that the enemies are a bit generic looking, and unlike the original games that had varied locations, you're stuck in purgatory the whole time here.

Oh well, we'll see how it pans out. I've been having a lot of fun with Painkiller: Black Edition and was sort of surprised by how good it still looks. It definitely holds up in terms of music and gameplay, so regardless of what happens, at least we'll still have the good ones from the original lineup (Resurrection and Recurring Evil aside).

 

[CAD4466HK]

Oh well, we'll see how it pans out. I've been having a lot of fun with Painkiller: Black Edition and was sort of surprised by how good it still looks. It definitely holds up in terms of music and gameplay, so regardless of what happens, at least we'll still have the good ones from the original lineup (Resurrection and Recurring Evil aside).

Yeah I have plans to replay all of them soon, even the real shitty ones like Overdose, "Tastes like chicken!"

 

[horse]

Painkiller was fun...in 2004. I had the Black Edition but never touched any of the xpacs after that as they just seemed pretty bad to me.

 

[revenant]

I still have my Painkiller gold boxed! ... PK is cool.. talk about hoards of baddies... so many waves... felt like doom 1/2 but with way bigger environments and with WAY more baddies.. in a good way. New one does look a lot like Doom 2016 / Eternal. Looks fun though..

 

[Mchart]

ID Tech 7 Motor that was used in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle looks way better than than the shitty looking UE5 in Stalker 2 and Silent Hill 2 and has way better performance to boot.

Not to mention runs better for the fidelity it provides. Every UE5 game runs like ass. Pretty much every modern engine with RTGI seems to run better compared to UE5. Although i'm assuming this is mostly because developers using UE5 get lazy as fuck and they refuse to optimize outside of what Epic provides in the toolkit.

 

[Mad Maxx]

I loved the Painkiller series!! Had no idea it was being remade but I’m all in for it!

Well I reinstalled Black Edition again...probably won't finish it, again, but damn if I don't have the urge to play it. 2004 was one hell of a year for gaming, between HL2, Doom 3, Chronicles of Riddick, Painkiller, The Suffering, UT2K4, etc.

So there's apparently an RTX Remix mod now: https://www.moddb.com/mods/painkiller-rtx-remix

I normally would've put that in the 'official' thread for Painkiller: Black Edition, but if you search just by title and not even by message bodies there are 3 pages of Painkiller threads going back to 2004. What a blast from the past...discussions from "So...Painkiller vs. Far Cry, which one should I get?" to "I'm trying to download it again and it's going slowly...oh that might be because Max Payne 3 released today"

The Suffering was outstanding!! It was the only game that caused me to have nightmares of being chased by those creatures with blades for arms/legs. That’s another game that deserves a remake.

 

[Armenius]

The trailer looks meh. Besides that 3D Realms is involved.... If any of their past releases in the last few years have anything to say about what they will deliver,

I am very skeptical that it will be what fans of the franchise are wanting.

If Interceptor Entertainment isn't the developer then it should be fine.

 

[Enigma]

If Interceptor Entertainment isn't the developer then it should be fine.

Tell that to those of us that ordered the Wrath: Aeon of Ruin Big Box and the Ion Fury: After Shock big boxes.... We waited 5 years for the Wrath Box to never come, The Ion Fury: Aftershock box still has not come either.

It has been radio silence from 3DR up until a few days ago when legal action was threatened. They have since canceled the Wrath box after holding the money for 5 years. They have until june to make the deadline on the AfterShock Box.

As far as Interceptor goes they were disbanded a long time ago and reformed into an new group called "Slipgate Ironworks". That outfit cannot be trusted either as they are still headed by Frederick Schrieber. The same person that until the Saber Interactive take over last year headed up 3DR and Interceptor/Slipgate


I am just saying be aware that if 3DR is involved it might be a shit show.

 

[Flogger23m]

Not to mention runs better for the fidelity it provides. Every UE5 game runs like ass. Pretty much every modern engine with RTGI seems to run better compared to UE5. Although i'm assuming this is mostly because developers using UE5 get lazy as fuck and they refuse to optimize outside of what Epic provides in the toolkit.

Pretty much every new game runs poorly. Even the new Assassin's Creed game without ray tracing and upscaling can only get around 80 frame rates on an RTX 5080, at 2560x1440. Graphics are generally improving (and regressing a bit in some places) but the performance of many new releases just doesn't match the visual quality increase IMO.