Painkiller

Painkiller

Steam Deck Playable

Anshar Studios · Shooter · Oct 21, 2025

It depends on what you're after.

At $39.99. It has been as low as $7.99.

56%
Mixed
1k player reviews
Medium confidence
Buy it if you like
  • Co-op: 108 reviews raised it, mostly praise
  • Graphics: 44 reviews raised it, mostly praise
  • Performance: 40 reviews raised it, mostly praise
Think twice if you dislike
  • Crashes: 15 reviews raised it, mostly criticism

Based on 1k player reviews · updated 5 days ago

What players think

The recurring themes across 300 analysed reviews: what players praise, what divides them, and what to know.

Why players love itThings to know
33% of themes are praise59% are divided8% are caveats
Co-op
Players who bring up Co-op mostly praise it.
For being a Co-Op Campaign Shooter, it is 100% playable on solo and offline.
108 of 300 sampled reviews raised it
Graphics
Players who bring up Graphics mostly praise it.
-nice graphics and well optimized game with high frame rate;
44 of 300 sampled reviews raised it
Performance
Players who bring up Performance mostly praise it.
I'm currently running an AMD RX 6750 XT as I'm writing this review, and this card performed flawlessly on high settings without any stutters, with up to 90-100 fps on average, and yet it still looked really good, even on the smaller aspects like Anti-Aliasing and Shaders.
40 of 300 sampled reviews raised it
Optimization
Players who bring up Optimization mostly praise it.
When we talk about optimization, this game has been very well done on that part since launch.
23 of 300 sampled reviews raised it

Theme by theme

Every theme is scored by what reviewers actually said about it, not just whether they recommended the game.

LovedMixedComplained about
Players love4 themes
Co-op108 reviews
Graphics44 reviews
Performance40 reviews
Optimization23 reviews
Divided opinion% still recommend
Combat143 reviews
62%
Story and characters105 reviews
47%
Gameplay96 reviews
66%
Difficulty40 reviews
60%
Multiplayer26 reviews
58%
Audio19 reviews
63%
Servers and matchmaking16 reviews
50%
Players complain% still recommend
Crashes15 reviews
40%

Ranked by how many sampled reviews mention each topic. A topic sits in a column by what reviewers said about that topic; the percentage beside it is how many of them recommended the game anyway.

Should you buy it now?

Crit’s read on the price, from Steam price history.

Prices have been lower

Currently $39.99. The lowest we've tracked is $7.99.

3 points recordedtoday · $39.99

The data behind the verdict

For the players who want the receipts.

Player review score
56%
Mixed
Playing right now
Achievements
41
total to unlock
Rarest-achievement stats coming soon
Average playtime
Not tracked yet

We’ll surface hours-played once playtime ingestion ships.