Hell Is Us Review

If there’s one thing you can confidently say about Rogue Factor’s Hell Is Us, it’s that it’s an incredibly odd beast. From its “Don’t you dare call me a Soulslike” gameplay, to the aggressively curly hair of the protagonist and the synthwave fantasy sci-fi world he inhabits, I really didn’t know what sort of game I was playing until well and truly into the second act. But the weirdness got right under my skin until it was living rent-free in my brain, and the uniqueness paired with the solid combat and ever-present intrigue end up making it easy to endorse. That endorsement comes with a small asterisk, with one of game’s only crimes being one of its core design tenets.

Trenchcoats was yes

Hell Is Us has you take control of Rémi, a peacekeeper soldier who smuggles himself back in to the secretive country of Hadea. Hadea is essentially a European-style North Korea, with movement of people and information in and out of the country highly restricted. Rémi is a born Hadean, who was smuggled out by his mother as a child in order to escape the brewing civil war. Returning to track down his parents, Rémi discovers this civil war in full swing, not to mention an infestation by ghoulish white creatures called Lymbic Entities. As he navigates a country consumed by the small-minded cruelty of its warring factions and crippled by the faceless monsters that roam its expanses, Rémi must unlock the secrets of his ancestry and potentially lift Hadea from its misery.

The story and setting of Hell is Us is incredibly well realised, and is experienced as a retelling of his tale under the influence of a truth serum by a shadowy government outfit who have captured our protagonist and his luscious mop of curls (this guy absolutely ate all the crusts as a child). The main vibe is probably best described as present day sci-fi, with plenty of the normal trappings of modern life such as cars, computers and guns. But there’s also a significant dash of fantasy added into the mix, with ancient ruins and monuments hinting at Hadea’s long and troubled past. This future fantasy vibe is helped along by the fact that the creatures terrorising the populace are only able to be felled by the use of special Lymbic Weapons, so your only chance of survival is to ditch guns for a series of fancy axes and swords. The expert world building should come as little surprise given the project is led by Jonathan Jacques-Belletete (whose last name literally translates to Jack-Beautiful Head), who is none other than the art director on the modern Deus Ex games.

Cop that

…a large drawcard in Hell Is Us is combing through its environments for clues and treasure, and while combat is fun it’s never allowed to get in the road of exploration.

The action-adventure gameplay of Hell Is Us splits itself between a deep and satisfying combat system and some exploration-based puzzle solving. The hardcore hack-and-slash stamina-based combat might on the surface invite some comparison to the Soulslike genre, but for the most part enemies don’t respawn if you bite the dust. This is refreshing, as a large drawcard in Hell Is Us is combing through its environments for clues and treasure, and while combat is fun it’s never allowed to get in the road of exploration. As mentioned, the third-person combat is melee focused, with a standard array of upgradeable swords and axes slowly becoming available offering different stats in terms of speed, power and blocking ability. There’s a light attack, a heavy attack and a parry system – so far, so familiar. Where things get a little spicier is in the form of your trusty drone companion that you gain access to early doors, that can activate various powerful abilities on cooldowns. You’ll unlock several such abilities as you explore the world, and it becomes an essential bit of kit able to distract, stun or enhance your movement as you take it to the white nightmare fuel trying to put you down. Couple this with equippable abilities tied to weapons called Glyphs and you’ve got plenty of unique ways to do it your way. The final mechanic core mechanic is a big fedora tip to Nioh’s ki pulse, where channelling Lymbic energy from smacking enemies around allows you heal yourself if you time it right, and nailing this is the key to success, as healing items are finite.

Puzzle solving is the other main aspect of the gameplay, and encourages a slow and thoughtful approach to figuring things out. There are plenty of multi-layered puzzles that require you to use your noggin to decrypt clues and figure out codes to unlock Hadea’s many doors and the secrets they hold, and the game does a superb job of urging you forward and giving you room and reason to think about what you’re doing. There’s a weird love I have for games that force me to pull out the old pen and paper, and this is certainly one of those. Even if the overall puzzle design generally boils down to finding the right key for the right door, the forms these keys take and the intrigue behind the doors makes for a compelling drive. Even side activities, such as shutting down timeloops that allow the Lymbic enemies to respawn or helping Hadean citizens through Good Deeds are great fun to tackle, and are the source of some of the best weapons and Glyphs in the game so you are always handsomely rewarded.

Forever doomed to waiting for a mate

Herein lies one of my criticisms however, which is likely subjective and may not bother others, but I feel the core design ethos actively works against the desire to uncover all of Hadea’s secrets. The game makes it quite clear that just like that girl who rejected you at the high school social, it does not want to hold your hand, and you are never given explicit instruction as to what to do next. This is fine and the game does a decent job of shuffling you through the story in an organic way, but with no map and obtuse tracking of side activities, I had to rely heavily on my memory to backtrack and complete Good Deeds and Mysteries that you sometimes don’t get the means to complete until hours later. A misspent youth and terrible sense of direction ensure that my memory isn’t the sharpest egg in the attic, and I was frustrated on several occasion because I had some vague recollection of where I had to use a key item or find an NPC, but no way of finding it or them easily. There is a sprawling menu that allows you to sift through the millions of shreds of paper with cryptic clues on them and key items for completing Good Deeds, but it can quickly become overwhelming to find the one you specifically need in the moment. I feel like having a map à la Elden Ring could maintain the game’s mystique but allow a bit better orientation and tracking. Backtracking is also made more painful than necessary because you can’t fast travel to the various checkpoints in each self-contained area, only to a main hub that might be miles from where you want to be.

While we are on the subject of criticisms, despite my love of the setting and tone, the ending is a bit of an anti-climactic fizzer which doesn’t do the rest of the experience justice. The ending does hint at a new threat, and I hope Hell Is Us 2 becomes a reality that expands this intriguing universe.

Reject civil war, return to nature

Final Thoughts  

Hell Is Us really snuck up on me, and after 50 hours traipsing about the war-torn country of Hadea I can safely say I’ve played something I haven’t played before. There’s a great unity of vision to its execution and a compelling bizarreness that never wavers. Solid combat and rewarding exploration round out the experience, an experience that’s only slightly soured by the game’s insistence on not having a map and making me use a compass. Despite this, Hadea’s secrets are many and varied, and the game gives you every reason to want to persevere and uncover them.

Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher

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