Painkiller (video Game) - Professional Gaming

Professional Gaming

At the end of 2004 Painkiller was chosen by the Cyberathlete Professional League to be their official 2005 World Tour game. This was slightly controversial with many e-sports followers and competitors due to the fact that other games had proven themselves at least as popular online multiplayer games. As the tour had already been announced as a one-on-one deathmatch format competition, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Doom 3 were also fan favourites for this tour. However, since Unreal Tournament 2004 developer Epic Games was in the process of changing publishers from Atari to Midway Games and could not guarantee their full support throughout the year-long tour, it was not chosen.

This agreement between the CPL and DreamCatcher also meant that no other organization was allowed to use Painkiller in a gaming competition with prizes above USD2000.- without obtaining a license from the CPL. It also had effects on Painkiller beyond professional competition; a patch was released to add new features to the game and bring its quality up to competition standard. This updated version of the game also resulted in a special edition re-release of the game bearing the CPL World Tour logo, entitled Painkiller: Gold Edition in North America and Painkiller: Black Edition elsewhere. This new version contained both Painkiller and its expansion pack Painkiller: Battle out of Hell unpatched, among other additions including a video about the making of the game.

However, Quake 3 was selected as the one-versus-one deathmatch game of the CPL for 2006, replacing Painkiller.