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REFERENCE

Before You Open the Box: What the First Hours Ask of You

What it is
First-person survival horror. You play Aidan, who uses the Genesis Configuration puzzle box to try to get his girlfriend Sunny out of the Labyrinth.
Players
Single-player only.
Saving
Manual saves at save points in the world (eight slots, by one trophy guide's count); no chapter select.

The tools you will juggle

🧊 The Genesis Configuration
The puzzle box is both a puzzle tool and a weapon. Its powers unlock as the story goes on; the trophy list names Telekinesis and Hellchains, the power that rips enemies apart. Steam's list also names Pyrokinesis.
🔨 Melee weapons break
A melee weapon wears out and breaks in a fight. You can repair it, and reinforce it to make it last. Plan to carry spares.
🗝️ Lockpicks break too
Basic locks open with a lockpick, and a lockpick can snap. There are numpad locks as well.
🔫 Five firearms
Pistol, Shotgun, SMG, Revolver and Assault Rifle. Each can be upgraded with attachments.
🪙 Zora's shop
Zora buys what you want to sell and sells you items for coins; some firearm attachments are bought rather than found. The first shop matters for two trophies: see the missable trophies page.
⚗️ Crafting
Recipes are made from materials you find; one trophy guide counts 12, and warns that the game does not reliably show which recipes you have already crafted.

Habits that pay off

  • Sneak when you can. Ten stealth kills on cultists without alerting anyone is a trophy on every platform, and on Steam a single stealth takedown is an achievement of its own.
  • Some threats are not fights. The Chatterer chases you three times and the Sister of Mercy has to be sneaked past before she can be beaten: run, hide and keep moving.
  • Pick everything up as you go. There is no chapter select and no free roam after the story, so a firearm, recipe or pillar left behind stays behind.
  • Save at every save point you pass and keep several slots in rotation rather than overwriting one.
  • Difficulty: one guide lists four settings (Easy, Normal, Hard and Hellraiser) and reports that Hard turns off autosave and that Hellraiser, which can only be chosen when you start a new game, saves only by spending Save Tokens. We found no second source of standing for these rules; no trophy depends on difficulty either way.

Cross-checked

Cross-checked on 20 October 2026 against the Steam achievement list and store page (app 1551980), the PlayStation and Xbox lists as mirrored by Exophase, PSNProfiles and TrueAchievements, the Steam store page, Gematsu's report of Saber Interactive's overview, and the guides of PowerPyx, FandomWire and AllThings.how. Not from a playthrough: nobody here has played it.
← Back to Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival Guide

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