Painkiller (video game)

Painkiller is a first-person shooter PC game released on April 12, 2004. It was published by DreamCatcher Interactive and developed by Polish game studio People Can Fly. It attempts to replicate the 'old-school FPS' gameplay of Doom and Serious Sam. It has 24 levels of seemingly unconnected designs that include medieval castles, factories and lunatic asylums. Five of the levels are 'boss levels' with some of the largest FPS bosses to date. The game takes place in Purgatory and Hell. It is notable for using the Havok 2.0 physics engine extensively. The main character, Daniel Garner, is voiced by Cam Clarke.

In 2006 the game was released on the Xbox as Painkiller: Hell Wars. While not a straight port, it is actually a mix of the game and its expansion, Battle out of Hell. Painkiller: Hell Wars has also recently been announced for Sony's PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2.

The Painkiller Special edition has slightly different features which include 12 levels from the original game. No multiplayer was included in this version. It does, however, show its award winning features on the front case including PC Gaming World Game of the Year, Game Informer game of the month and Gamespy's editor's choice. This could be quite misleading since the special edition was stripped of the multiplayer features that so many gamers held in high regard, thus limiting the overall value of this version.

The "Gold Edition" of the game is currently available on PC through Valve's Steam service. It is interesting to note that the game is listed as the "Gold Edition" in the Steam menu and store, however it becomes clear upon beginning play that the Steam version is actually the "Black Edition", as it says so in the introductory screen as well as featuring Black Edition bonuses such as the "Making Of" video and Level Editor.