Painkiller: Black Edition on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Painkiller Black Edition includes the expansion pack Battle Out of Hell, featuring 10 additional single-player levels and many new villains.
Painkiller: Black Edition is a gore, action and fps game
developed by People Can Fly
and published by Prime Matter.
Released on January 24th 2007 is available only on Windows
in 4 languages: English, French, German and Spanish - Spain.
It has received 2,040 reviews of which 1,823 were positive and 217 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.5 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 9.99€ on Steam, but you can find it for 1.37€ on K4G.
The Steam community has classified Painkiller: Black Edition into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Painkiller: Black Edition through various videos and screenshots.
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Win 98/2000/Me/XP
- Processor: 1GHz
- Memory: 256 MB RAM
- Graphics: DirextX 9.0 64MB Video Card
- Storage: 3.4 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
I'm surprised that this game isn't talked about more. Playing Painkiller for the first time in 2025, I noticed how much of its DNA is in the new wave of fast-paced shooters: the level structure and challenge system for power-ups came back in Doom 2016, the simplified bunny-hopping for speed came back in Dusk, the system for collecting enemy souls to activate a special mode where you're overpowered came back in Amid Evil... This is a super fun game that has aged remarkably well. Coming out in 2004 it may have been overshadowed at the time by Half-Life 2, when people started becoming more interested in "mature" fps with integrated story-telling, but Painkiller represents an equally valid alternate path toward optimizing fast-paced 3D fps action the PVE games didn't pick up on until over 10 years later. Awesome find; I'm excited to play all of the DLC. Hopefully the new installment coming later this year can maintain the irreverant and arcadey spirit of the original.
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you boot up the game and immediately start decimating an entire skeleton warrior army in a gothic cemetery in the first 5 minutes 10/10
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bunnyhoping at 50km/h to annihilate clown demons with a makeshift double barreled shotgun is the most fun I've had in a long long time. very fun yet simple movement mechanics, nothing out there is quite like it. requires tinkering with to get it working properly, just a few mods to drop in your folder and copying text into configs, nothing complicated. just go to its pcwiki page
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This game is in my opinion a forgotten gem that should be left alone. Though quite old, it still is far better than many modern shooters today. This game takes the style of a doom style shooter in which you are placed into a level, are given a marker of where to go either through the checkpoints that show you where to go next via the arrow at the top or simply being a bit linear. Throughout your journey of a level you are given swarm after swarm of unique enemies, this adds on a factor of bloodshed as you go through levels destroying everything like they're made of paper. There are a total of 35 levels throughout the game including the expansion and secret bonus level if certain requirements are met to access it. There are also 6 boss fights placed in between every couple sets of levels, all being towering beasts that you have to take down through strategy. It may be a great game, I feel if remade would fail to recapture its audience, as it may be too simple for the people it would sell to. What the game does right: +The weapon variety is wonderful with around 8 weapons to collect throughout the game, each feeling greatly unique and pack quite a punch. +The levels are mostly very unique and feel great to play through, some of my favorites being the Asylum, Orphanage and Loony park. +Each level has an add-on extra challenge that you can attempt to do, such as collecting all the ammo or finding every secret, this also awards a power-up known as tarot cards once completed. +The movement feels good, as if you string together a couple jumps, you can go much faster than walking. +The variety of enemies, though many of them act similar is wonderful, it's always fun to see a completely new cast of enemies throughout almost every level to fit the environment. +The sound design is wonderful for the guns and make them feel truly satisfying to wield, I can still hear shotgun noises while writing this. Things it does wrong or just meh: -The characters have not much to talk about, we have the badass who kills everything, the guide for the badass and a villain who has motives that boil down to wanting power. -Certain levels are at some points a pain or a slog to complete, the worst offender in my opinion being in the expansion with a mine themed environment with long minecart sections without saves. -Some game breaking bugs near the start of the game, I only experianced these during the first chapter, the two I encountered were at some point a bridge didn't load in to continue the game and a boss in one of the boss levels didn't spawn. -Difficulty spikes are quite large. The first three chapters are quite easy, but when you get onto chapter 4, the enemies start having more HP and feel less like weak minions, minibosses start being introduced during the swarms and the boss of this chapter is massively painful for multiple reasons. I am not complaining on difficulty, I just feel it could've been more eased into it over time, instead of a massive difficulty spike at one point, this continues in the expansion too, especially in the second half of it. Conclusion: Though this game was greatly enjoyable for me, I am not exactly the target demographic as I am not well versed in shooters, maybe my complaints are entirely due to my lack of prior experiances in this genre, I still thought it was very worth the asking price of 10 euros, I feel any gamers who enjoy shooters or something like doom will find this enjoyable too, as it seems to take many inspirations from its predecessors.
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This game is very awesome and might be one of the best shooter games I ever played. I played and finished it on both PC and original xbox and had a lot of fun playing it on both systems. The game has a large variety of enemies, including Monks, Amputees, Freaks, Zombie Warriors, Ninjas, Witches and more. The enemies range from ones using only melee attacks to ones using projectile attacks or special types of attacks. Each chapter in the game has different enemy types which makes them feel fresh, and while many of them are samey it's very satisfying to kill them. The weapon variety is also very good. There's things like a shotgun that is not only very powerful, but also can fire an ice projectile that causes most of the enemies it hits to freeze and instantly get killed with the next shot, making it powerful against tougher enemies. There's a gun that serves as both a rocket launcher and a minigun and both firing modes are very useful against hordes of enemies. The stake gun/grenade launcher is useful against lower tier enemies as well. The electrodriver fires a beam that can kill weaker enemies relatively quickly but also depletes ammo fast, so I don't use it often. The environments also are diverse. There's things like a a graveyard, an asylum, a theater, a ghost town, a snowy wasteland and many more. The game is similar to Serious Sam and Doom 2016 and Eternal in that it frequently locks the player into arenas that spawn in waves of enemies and said arenas open after all enemies die, and I really enjoy that style of gameplay. The combat is just really good. Weapons sound powerful, have satisfying hit feedback, enemies are sent flying with powerful blasts and the ragdolls are good. The gore effects are also some of the best I've seen in a shooter. The game also includes the Battle Out Of Hell expansion. It's even crazier than the base game. It adds new enemies like Clowns, Doctors that inhale gas and fart out said gas (yeah, that type of enemy really exists), Panzer Spiders, Lab Commandos armed with pistols, Butchers and more. There's two new weapons, a submachine gun/flamethrower combo and a powerful Boltgun with a sniper scope that fires many stakes at once and and some grenades. The areas are once again diverse, with things like a lab, an apocalyptic city, the loony park and a Colosseum. Despite all these additions the gameplay is mostly unchanged, and is still as fun as ever. There's also the Tarot Card system, but I never used it. Yo get the cards for completing specific objectives in each level like killing all enemies or finding all secrets. There's different types of cards, one that is active for the entire level and one that can only be activated for a limited time. The game isn't that hard without using the cards, which is why I didn't use them. The boss fights, unlike the rest of the game, are just bad. Aside from the Necrogiant all of the bosses can only be killed in specific ways that you can't easily figure out. For example you need to shoot bubbles to damage the Swamp Thing or shoot and destroy the Guardian's hammer first before you can damage him. The bosses also have attacks that are often difficult to dodge, and that combined with the tedious ways to damage them make them boring and frustrating. I highly recommend this game to shooter fans. It's very fast-paced, action-packed and filled with a lot of content. If you like Serious Sam or Doom 2016 and Eternal, I think you would like this game too as it's similar to them.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Painkiller: Black Edition is currently priced at 9.99€ on Steam.
Painkiller: Black Edition is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 9.99€ on Steam.
Painkiller: Black Edition received 1,823 positive votes out of a total of 2,040 achieving a rating of 8.54.
😎
Painkiller: Black Edition was developed by People Can Fly and published by Prime Matter.
Painkiller: Black Edition is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Painkiller: Black Edition is not playable on MacOS.
Painkiller: Black Edition is not playable on Linux.
Painkiller: Black Edition does not currently offer any DLC.
Painkiller: Black Edition does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Painkiller: Black Edition does not support Steam Remote Play.
Painkiller: Black Edition is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Painkiller: Black Edition.
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 03 July 2025 11:33 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 05 July 2025 18:28 |
| Steam price | 11 July 2025 20:45 |
| Steam reviews | 11 July 2025 04:04 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Painkiller: Black Edition, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Painkiller: Black Edition
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Painkiller: Black Edition concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Painkiller: Black Edition compatibility
Features
Online players
15
Developer
People Can Fly
Publisher
Prime Matter
Release
24 Jan 2007
Platforms
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