Hell is Us

My first hour with Hell is Us felt genuinely disorienting, and I mean that as a compliment. There is no minimap. There are no waypoints. The game drops you into Hadea, a fictional Soviet-Bloc-flavored nation cracking apart under civil war between the Sabinians and the Palams, layers that supernatural catastrophe called the Calamity on top of that, and then steps back and says: figure it out. You play as Remi, a UN peacekeeper who goes AWOL to find his missing parents, and his personal search threads through a much larger political and supernatural mystery. The creative lead here is Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, art director on Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, and his fingerprints are all over the tone: oppressive, architecturally striking, and quietly literary in its influences. Exploration is the game's clearest strength. Rogue Factor built what they call a "player plattering" approach, where discoveries are shaped entirely by observation rather than objective markers. You read NPC conversations carefully, pick up items and notes, and hold all of it in your head (or in actual notes, which some players will genuinely need). Landmarks, ruins, and shadowed alleys all hide leads or resources, and the absence of a fast-travel system means you feel the geography of Hadea in a way most open-world games never let you. It is slow, it can be backtrack-heavy, and occasional fetch-loop design grates when you realize you need something from the other side of the map you just crossed. Patience is not optional here. Combat sits in a complicated middle ground. Rogue Factor says it is not a Souls-like, and technically they are right, but the toolkit borrows liberally: stamina management, parrying, stance-breaking, riposte attacks, and an optional Death Penalty mode that resets enemies and XP on death for players who want that FromSoft sting. The healing ring mechanic, which restores health with well-timed hits, adds a risk-reward rhythm that keeps fights from feeling passive. Weapons can be attuned to one of four emotional alignments (terror, grief, wrath, and others), which locks their ability slots but shapes their visual identity and combat role against the two main enemy factions, the Hollow Walkers and the Haze. Three difficulty presets called Lenient, Balanced, and Mercyless give newcomers a gentler entry point. The criticism that lands is that enemy and weapon variety thins out over the campaign, and combat difficulty spikes near the end feel less like intentional design and more like the budget running out. Remi's drone companion is a quiet highlight: it illuminates dark zones, distracts enemies, and makes both exploration and combat feel less lonely without tipping into hand-holding. Sound design does heavy lifting throughout, and the visual bleakness of Hadea is consistent and genuinely impressive for a mid-budget production. What does not land as well is Remi himself, who is a fairly inert protagonist given how much dramatic weight the story asks him to carry. The narrative builds real atmosphere around its themes of civil war, grief, and supernatural collapse, but the personal story beneath it can feel underwritten compared to the world surrounding it. This is a game for players who voluntarily write notes while gaming, who find a blank map exciting rather than anxiety-inducing, and who can tolerate a third act that arrives and ends faster than it should. If you need waypoints and fast travel and a game that tells you what to do next, Hell is Us will frustrate you within the first hour. If you want something that trusts you to be curious, it delivers an experience that almost nothing else in 2025 attempts.

Alex · Scout Team

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