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Article Summary
- Salt Entertainment has announced plans to publish a line of officially licensed Hellraiser tabletop games, including a new tabletop RPG.
- The Hellraiser TTRPG is being designed by Francesco Nepitello, the creator of The One Ring Roleplaying Game.
- The line also includes a major Hellraiser board game from award-winning designer Michael Shinall.
- The first games are planned to release beginning Halloween 2027 as part of the 40th anniversary of the original Hellraiser film.
Clive Barker’s Cenobites are about to unleash hell at the tabletop. Board game publisher Salt Entertainment recently announced that it has signed a licensing agreement to develop and publish a line of officially licensed Hellraiser tabletop games – including a Hellraiser RPG.
The new TTRPG is being developed by award-winning designer Francesco Nepitello, creator of The One Ring. The release will kick off on Halloween 2027 as part of the larger 40th anniversary Hellraiser celebrations that will be taking place at the time.
So what else can fans expect from the new Hellraiser RPG? Below, we open the box and face down all the terrifying details.
What is the Hellraiser tabletop RPG?
So far details are fairly light on what the TTRPG will consist of. The official press release from Salt Entertainment notes:
Acclaimed designer Francesco Nepitello, co-designer of The One Ring Roleplaying Game and the award-winning War of the Ring board game, will design a new Hellraiser tabletop roleplaying game (RPG), opening the franchise’s world to original stories built around temptation, desire, consequence and the terrifying unknown beyond the human world.
“I wanted to design a horror roleplaying game for years,” said Nepitello. “Getting to do it with Hellraiser is incredibly exciting. Its blend of dread, desire and forbidden knowledge offers so much to explore at the gaming table. I can’t wait to open the box with the players.”
What is Hellraiser?
Hellraiser is a horror franchise that’s appeared in novels, films, comic books and video games. It began as a 1986 novella entitled The Hellbound Heart written by British horror author Clive Barker. Barker later adapted the concept into the original Hellraiser film, which he wrote and directed, and which was released in 1987.
While the lore of Hellraiser has become increasingly dense over the decades, the primary focus is on the Lament Configuration, an ornate puzzle box that opens a gateway to the hellish realm of the Cenobites. The latter are demonic entities who harvest the souls of those who summon them for their sadistic experiments. Their leader, the nail-studded Pinhead (famously played by Doug Bradley), went on to become one of horror’s most iconic villains.
The original film spawned a sprawling franchise that includes nine sequels, including a 2022 reboot from director David Bruckner that premiered on Hulu with Jamie Clayton as Pinhead. There’s also a long history of Hellraiser comics, including a five-year run of issues published in the late 80s and early 90s by Epic Comics (the mature imprint from Marvel Comics). Barker also released a sequel novel entitled The Scarlet Gospels in 2015, and an HBO TV series has reportedly been in development since 2020.
More recently, in September 2026 the franchise was resurrected in a series of one shot comics from Boom! Studios entitled Hellraiser: Resurrections. The franchise also returned as a video game in October 2026 with Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival, a first-person survival horror game from Saber Interactive and Boss Team Games, which is available for the PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. It features an all-new story set in the Hellraiser universe, with Doug Bradley returning to voice Pinhead.
Final Thoughts
Hellraiser has always been a story about curiosity, temptation and the terrible price of getting what you want – which, let’s be honest, sounds a lot like the average RPG session. Putting the creator of The One Ring in charge of the new game also feels like this has the potential to be more than just an attempt to cash in on a popular franchise.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story as more details are revealed. In the meantime, you can read the full announcement on the Salt Entertainment website.