| Hell is Us | |||
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| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | Pre-Order & DLC | Review |
Hell is Us is an upcoming action-adventure game that looks to explore the worst demons the world has ever known: humankind. Read on to learn everything we know, our review of the demo, and more.
Everything We Know About Hell is Us
Hell is Us Plot
Hell is Us revolves around the fictional country named Hadea, which is in the midst of a civil war. In the midst of it all, the country saw the appearance of monsters, supernatural, chimera-like creatures that have risen and are impervious to man-made weapons. Players take on the role of Remy, a Hadean native who was smuggled out of the country as a baby to be raised in Canada. He returns to the country armed only with his drone and sword, developed from a bygone age, to reunite with his parents and discover the truth behind the chimeras.
The creative director pitches the central theme of the game by stating "human violence is a perpetual cycle fueled by human emotions and passions."
Hell is Us Gameplay
Hell is Us is an open-world action-adventure game in the third-person, where players will have no maps, no compasses, nor any modern quest markers as they explore the ravaged world. They must seek out their goals as they tear through chimeras roaming the land, using their drone to gain a height advantage and then plummet and strike them down with their weapon. Remy possesses a device which can transform into a variety of melee weapons, from a big greatsword to an axe. Players must avoid the monsters' deadly attacks and strike back by performing melee attacks at opportune moments to claim victory over the supernatural creatures.
Hell is Us Release Date
Hell is Us is slated to be released on September 4, 2025 for the PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
According to its PlayStation Store page, it will come out at around 3 a.m. EDT / 12 a.m. PDT.
Hell is Us Review (Demo)
It’s no surprise that video games have become a more popular form of media to use for social commentary. Especially when the purpose is to educate about the danger of war and violence done by the worst offenders known to Earth: human beings. That being said, you can be able to package it in different ways. In the case of Hell is Us, however, it’s in an action-adventure game where you look to find the mystery behind the monsters and the ongoing war.
If This is Hell, Then It's Weird
The game starts with the main character, Remy, being interrogated for his reason for going back to the fictional war-torn country of Hadea, his homeland. Immediately, you could tell that the vibes of the game will be heavy, serious, and unsettling, with how everything progresses just from the opening cutscene. After the intro cutscene, you finally get to play the game. It controls similarly to most action-adventure games and does not let up on the heavy atmosphere. It is a war zone after all.
It’s a weird fusion of investigation, exploration, and action-adventure gameplay. While the demo is still lacking in content, it teases just enough for you to get an idea of what Rogue Factor is trying to get at. It’s a semi-open-world action adventure focused on three things: exploration, investigation, and combat.
A Mixed Bag of Action Adventure
The gameplay is sort of a mixed bag of the latest Tomb Raider franchise, Nioh, and maybe a little bit of Uncharted. You’re not exploring a full-on world, but rather relatively big areas with tons of secrets and things to discover. The game even tells you that it will not have any quest markers, specific steps to follow, or something of the sort; they want the player to piece together the story and the result on their own.
So, given the objective of trying to get back to your home, you are now left to your own devices to find clues and hints as to how you’re going to get there. You’ll come across other characters whom you can ask for directions and other helpful things, but mostly you’ll be walking around by yourself. Nothing in the exploration aspect is groundbreaking; if anything, it’s surprising since the only thing you have for guidance to walking around the map is your usable compass that shows which direction you’re going in.
The combat of the game is inspired by Nioh’s use of the Ki Pulse
mechanic, albeit a heavier version of it. It has a basic parry-block-dodge system, where you can use parries to set up finishers, blocking to keep yourself safe, and dodging to reposition. It’s a very heavy game, and one can even say that it’s clunky due to how sluggish everything is. After several attacks, you’ll be able to use the game’s version of the Ki Pulse to both heal your HP and Stamina, making it a more aggressive-centric combat system.
With combat pacing being a crawl, the game lets you use the drone to isolate enemies and turn fights with multiple enemies into duels instead. This becomes incredibly helpful, especially when you encounter a situation where you’ll have to fight more than two enemies. Throughout the demo, it feels like the combat does pick up a bit, especially when you get to use a different weapon. But it still lacks a more engaging flow, since the heaviness just anchors the combat to a slog.
Lastly, the investigation. As explained earlier, the game does not have any quest markers, a minimap, or even a permanent compass to show you where to go. There are NPCs for you to talk to so you can get a bit of guidance on what to do next, but regardless, the game does not tell you what to do specifically. There will be locked doors for you to find the correct key to find, locked boxes with varying rewards, and even puzzles for you to solve by looking for details from the different items and notes you find lying around. This is where I compared it to something like Uncharted 4’s side quests, where you don’t have a guide to getting the other collectibles.
Heavy Atmosphere With a Lack of Context
The presentation of the game is top-notch. The graphics are definitely up there in terms of quality, and the use of the bleak tones along with the sinister music makes the game a lot more menacing than I thought it would be. There’s no doubt in my mind that one of the big focal points of this game is the presentation, and I would say they nailed it. From the characters, expressions, monsters, effects, and the rest, you could see that they wanted the game to look and feel good.
And then there’s the story. While this is a demo, there’s a severe lack of context when it comes to the game’s worldbuilding. A specific example is the game’s first cutscene, where you encounter the first monster. There’s a big fight cutscene where Remy’s gun doesn’t work against the monster, and another character comes in armed with her glowing sword and drone to fight it. It’s a pretty good spectacle, right up until the end, where the character just ups and falls prey to the monster. At least they took down the monster with them.
What adds to the confusion is that Remy just picks up the sword, drone, and equipment and then uses them against the other monsters. There’s absolutely no explanation for how Remy knows how to use these things or if he knew about the existence of the monsters beforehand. Since he is a military man himself, why isn’t he armed with the same anti-monster equipment? It feels a lot like Connor Kenway becoming an assassin just by donning the hidden blade from the corpse, and it’s very confusing.
Hopefully It Isn’t Just Confusing
Given that this was just a demo, there’s still much more to Hell is Us than meets the eye. There wasn’t much of the anti-war commentary yet, but I’m expecting it to be more apparent in the full release. For now, it’s a confusing game that wants to be more than what it seems to be. An engaging action-adventure game, sure, but several things about certain aspects leave more questions than answers. Does the exploration get even bigger since the demo already contains some secrets? Does the combat become a lot more engaging with other weapons to be introduced? Will the game allow you to finish and do the main objectives in your own style, since it doesn’t tell you what to do? So many questions, yet we can only hope for the best.
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Hell is Us Product Information
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| Title | HELL IS US |
|---|---|
| Release Date | September 4, 2025 |
| Developer | Rogue Factor |
| Publisher | Nacon |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S |
| Genre | Action, Adventure |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | M17+ |
| Official Website | Hell is Us Official Website |
