Clive Barker's Jericho

Clive Barker's Jericho is a PC first-person horror shooter built around a supernatural military unit, close-quarters firefights, and rapid control of multiple operatives. The original game remains known by the same title; no verified replacement name, remaster, or definitive edition has taken its place. Its former Steam listing is unavailable for purchase, while GOG currently presents the game as a Dreamlist request rather than a live store release.

That storefront status matters because Jericho is now a preservation-minded recommendation rather than a routine digital purchase. The PC version was developed by MercurySteam with support from Alchemic Productions and published by Codemasters, while Clive Barker provided the story concept and creative identity behind its grotesque occult setting.

A squad shooter with a possession-style control loop

The campaign follows the Jericho Squad as it enters Al-Khali, a city built over layers of lost civilizations and distorted by a temporal rupture. The team descends through different historical realities while pursuing the Firstborn, an ancient entity tied to the game's central mythology.

Combat is presented from a first-person perspective, but Jericho is not structured like a conventional lone-soldier shooter. Devin Ross functions as the squad's spiritual link, allowing the player to jump between team members and use the operative best suited to the immediate threat.

Every member of the seven-person unit has a distinct weapon profile and supernatural toolkit. Abigail Black can manipulate bullets, Frank Delgado combines heavy weapons with destructive occult power, Simone Cole uses temporal abilities, and other operatives specialize in healing, ranged fire, crowd control, or close combat.

The result is a constant cycle of shooting, switching, reviving allies, and combining abilities. The artificial intelligence controls the inactive squad members, while the player can issue basic orders to the Alpha and Omega groups. It is closer to directing a moving combat cell than managing a traditional pause-based tactical party.

Where the supernatural abilities change the firefight

Jericho's strongest design idea is the way its characters turn familiar shooter situations into ability-selection problems. A heavily armored enemy may favor one weapon, a clustered group can be disrupted with a special power, and a vulnerable target may become easier to eliminate after switching to an operative with the correct attack.

Character switching is therefore more than a novelty. It determines which weapon, range, movement style, and paranormal skill the player brings into the next few seconds. Cole's time-based powers, Delgado's fire attacks, Black's guided ammunition, and the squad's healing skills create different solutions even when the surrounding arena remains narrow and linear.

Team survival is another central system. Fallen allies can be revived, and the player can change perspective when the controlled character is incapacitated. That structure makes squad awareness important, although the inactive characters can also create pressure when they become overwhelmed or require repeated rescue.

The campaign also uses environmental interaction and scripted traversal sequences rather than relying exclusively on gunfights. These moments reinforce the game's cinematic horror direction, but players looking for open exploration or a flexible immersive-sim structure should set expectations accordingly.

Occult horror across Al-Khali's fractured history

Clive Barker's influence is most visible in the creature design, body-horror imagery, and the idea that historical layers can become physical manifestations of violence and damnation. Jericho moves between a modern city and warped visions of earlier civilizations, giving each major section a different visual and narrative texture.

Al-Khali is not an open-world location. It works as a sequence of directed combat spaces connected by story scenes, squad dialogue, and discoveries about the Jericho members and their enemies. The structure keeps the action focused, but it also means that backtracking, optional exploration, and alternate mission routes are limited.

The game's horror is action-oriented rather than purely survival-focused. Ammunition, weapons, and paranormal attacks are central to the experience, so Jericho is better described as a squad-based occult shooter than a slow, resource-starved survival horror game.

Players who enjoy modern cooperative horror shooters should note the difference between atmosphere and structure. Cooperative first-person horror shooters like Sker Ritual emphasize replayable waves and teamwork, while Jericho delivers a fixed single-player campaign built around narrative progression and operative switching.

Content, editions, and storefront reality

The PC offering is the original single-player campaign. There is no verified modern free-to-play transition, season pass, or current live-service content model attached to Jericho.

No official paid expansion or separate modern edition is currently confirmed through the major PC storefront records checked for this guide. References to “Special Edition” in community databases do not establish a current official PC store product, so they should not be treated as a present-day rebrand.

The practical distinction is between the original retail PC release and its former digital listing. The retail version used SecuROM 7 DRM, while the Steam entry is now unavailable for new purchases. That makes ownership history, disc compatibility, and preservation tools more relevant than ordinary storefront installation.

For players comparing the structure with a broader exploration shooter, first-person science-fiction horror games such as Prey offer more environmental freedom, systems-driven problem solving, and build customization. Jericho is narrower, more linear, and more dependent on scripted squad encounters.

Who should play Clive Barker's Jericho?

Jericho is a strong fit for players who value Clive Barker's horror aesthetic, unusual squad mechanics, grotesque enemy concepts, and campaign-focused first-person action. Its best moments come from learning the identities of the operatives and switching between their powers when a battle demands a different approach.

It is less suitable for players expecting polished modern gunplay, deep squad commands, open-ended level design, or cooperative multiplayer. The campaign is single-player, and the inactive team members remain controlled by the game's AI rather than by human partners.

The game also rewards tolerance for older design conventions. Its combat arenas can feel compressed, its pacing moves between shooting and scripted sequences, and some encounters ask the player to manage several vulnerable squad members at once.

If those limitations are acceptable, Jericho remains unusual because few horror shooters combine occult military fiction with instant operative possession in quite the same way. Its identity comes from the combination, not from any single weapon or enemy type.

PC controls, language, and technical identity

The PC edition supports keyboard and mouse controls alongside controller input. Its settings include configurable key bindings, mouse sensitivity options, assisted aiming, subtitles, inversion controls, and other standard campaign preferences.

Controller support is useful for players who prefer the console-style layout, while keyboard and mouse remain the natural choice for precise first-person aiming. The PC release is not presented as a modern launcher-native product, so players should distinguish the original retail build from the unavailable Steam distribution record.

Available language options vary by physical or regional edition. The commonly documented PC releases include English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, with other versions adding languages such as Polish or Russian. Audio and subtitle availability should therefore be checked against the specific edition rather than assumed from a single storefront listing.

There is no verified mod-support ecosystem, dedicated server toolset, co-op mode, or competitive multiplayer feature that defines the PC version. Jericho is fundamentally a single-player campaign with a fixed narrative route.

Similar PC games and the closest audience matches

Players seeking a more traditional survival-horror campaign may prefer first-person survival horror adventures like Resident Evil Village, which place more emphasis on exploration, resource decisions, puzzles, and changing combat spaces.

Jericho's closest mechanical appeal is not simply “dark horror.” It is the combination of first-person shooting, specialized characters, supernatural abilities, and a campaign that repeatedly asks the player to change tools rather than rely on one loadout.

That makes it a useful catalog choice for fans of occult action games, squad shooters, and body horror who have already worked through more conventional military campaigns. It is also a natural curiosity for players researching MercurySteam's early work before the studio became associated with later action-adventure projects.

Clive Barker's Jericho FAQ

Is Clive Barker's Jericho still available on PC?

The former Steam product record remains visible, but the game is not currently available for purchase there. GOG lists it as a Dreamlist request rather than a live product, and no verified Epic Games Store edition was found.

Was Clive Barker's Jericho renamed or remastered?

No verified official rebrand, remaster, or definitive edition was found. “Clive Barker's Jericho” remains the recognized title, while community references to a Special Edition do not establish a current official storefront release.

Is Jericho a multiplayer or co-op game?

No. The PC campaign is single-player. You control one operative at a time and switch between the Jericho Squad members while the remaining characters are handled by the game's AI.

How many playable characters are in the Jericho Squad?

The squad is presented as a seven-person unit, with Devin Ross serving as the spiritual connection that enables control to move between the operatives. Members such as Abigail Black, Frank Delgado, Simone Cole, Xavier Jones, Paul Rawlings, and Billie Church have different weapons and paranormal abilities.

What makes the gameplay different from a normal horror shooter?

The defining feature is real-time switching between squad members. Each character has a distinct combat role and supernatural skill set, so the player can change weapons, powers, and tactical options without leaving the first-person viewpoint.

Does the PC version use DRM?

The original retail PC release is documented with SecuROM 7 protection. The former Steam version was a separate digital distribution record and is currently unavailable for purchase, so DRM behavior depends on the specific edition being preserved.