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Game Night Is About to Come With Hooks, Chains and a Very Bad Puzzle Box
Clive Barker’s Cenobites are heading for the kitchen table. Salt Entertainment has signed a deal with Barker and Park Ave Ent. LLC to develop and publish a line of officially licensed Hellraiser tabletop games, and the company put it all in a press release this morning, which IGN was quick to pick up because apparently we all needed something to do with our hands besides solving the Lament Configuration. The first releases are aimed at Halloween 2027, lining up with the 40th anniversary of Barker’s 1987 film.
Salt is treating this as a full program rather than one box on a shelf. The opening slate covers three retail games: a quick dice game about temptation and pushing your luck, an escape-room-style game built around the secrets of the puzzle box, and a social deduction game where hidden desires and shifting loyalties make it hard to know who, or what, is on your side.
Two well-known designers are attached to the bigger projects. Michael Shinall, whose résumé includes Bloodborne: The Board Game and Marvel Zombies, is building a major Hellraiser board game, while Francesco Nepitello, co-designer of The One Ring Roleplaying Game and War of the Ring, is handling a full tabletop roleplaying game for players who want to write their own stories of desire and damnation.
Barker himself sounds pleased with the idea of friends scaring each other around a table, saying, “I suspect they’ll know certain doors ought to remain closed. I’m counting on them being unable to resist.” Titles, artwork, pricing and exact dates are still to come.
Publisher: Salt Entertainment (Salt Games)
License: Clive Barker and Park Ave Ent. LLC (brokered by Surge Licensing)
Designers: Michael Shinall (board game), Francesco Nepitello (RPG)
Release Date: Beginning Halloween 2027
Source: Reporting and confirmation via Salt Entertainment and IGN.