Hell is Us

Not many modern video games embroil you into an absorbing world and invites you into that visceral world by giving you a myriad of reasons to explore it while being encouraged to find your own way through it without the necessity of hand-holding, but Hell Is Us is one of those special games. You could deride Hell Is Us as a follower of the video game industry’s most celebrated action and RPG games, but by doing so you would be tearing yourself away from what is a very inspired, yet very gripping and robustly built action title. If you’re at all pleased with what you’ve seen from Hell Is Us, rest assured that it is one of the year’s most compelling AA games, and that the immersion this game builds will enrapture you in all the right ways.

Hell is Us delivers a distinctly unique experience through its approach to story and exploration, which does not guide the player at all and instead relies entirely on their intelligence and creativity to progress through the protagonist's odyssey. Its combat offers complexity, challenge, and enjoyment, enhanced by experimentation with various weapons. Only its suboptimal performance with extensive pop in, texture issues, and frame drops prevents it from reaching greatness.

Hell Is Us has a unique tone and setting that complements a deep combat system and exploration puzzle elements, but its complex layout and crisscrossing sidequests may have you begging for a map that the game proudly withholds.

Hell is Us still stands as a genuine piece of boldness, a gamble that Rogue Factor has mastered from start to finish. A cry of love for those who no longer wish to let their instincts be numbed on the altar of autopilot offered by most action-adventure games, Hell is Us empowers the player without mistreating them. It rekindles the taste for exploration, observation, and deduction, without ever tipping into elitism. Between those games that hold our hand without ever letting go and those that abandon us at the bottom of the pit, Rogue Factor has found a remarkable middle ground—both rewarding and accessible. Supported by a production quality well above the AA average and, above all, by writing that shines just as much when depicting human tragedies in times of war as when exploring the historical subtleties of a fictional country, Hell is Us has far too much merit for its combat limitations to be held against it.

Hell is Us is a sci-fi adventure with soulslike ADN with a great context, but its genre mix flaws.

Hell Is Us takes some welcome risks by refusing to resort to handholding in its mechanics, and is made all the more enjoyable for the trust it puts in its players. This brave design choice — alongside an exceptionally crafted and well-realised setting — more than warrants a visit for players looking for an immersive, lovingly crafted adventure through a bleak but compelling world. An enigmatic story and compellingly written characters round out the pros, but disappointingly shallow combat, a lack of enemy variety and an uneven final act ultimately let it down. Regardless, Hell Is Us is a labour of love, and the passion that’s gone into its creation shines through despite its weaknesses.

Hell is Us is an absorbing, nightmarish meditation on the horror of war, but divisive design choices prove tedious.

Highly underrated puzzle game soulslike crossover. Its pretty refreshing having to use your brain for a change in these times dominated by convenience. Sure the ending is a bit abrupt and many story strings remain mostly unresolved but the intense horrifying worldbuilding, the mostly pretty hard but fair puzzles and the truly bevlievable location (for a sci-fi game) edge it to 10 for me.

Um jogo com uma construção narrativa e de mundo muito atenciosa, mas que falha em alguns detalhes críticos que em muito prejudicam a experiência! Hell is Us é um jogo que se passa em um país isolado e desconectado do mundo exterior, que se encontra sofrendo com as tragédias de uma sanguenta guerra civil e enfrentando uma catástrofe sobrenatural ao mesmo tempo. Você como personagem principal, se encontra inserido nesse contexto, após burlar o isolamento e adentar o país na missão de procurar sua família de sangue, que te enviará para fora do país ainda criança, por causa de seu completo desconhecimento, sua principal função em Hell is Us é investigar! A partir de pistas no ambiente e diálogos com os personagens, aos poucos se vai coletando informações sobre o que se passa em Hadea, tanto no seu presente quanto no seu passado, descobrindo que a guerra e as criaturas não são novidades em sua história e que essas possuem uma ligação muito próxima e umbilical e que de algum modo sua família está no centro disso tudo! Essa é uma premissa muito interessante para um jogo de investigação, tal qual, Hell is Us se propõe a fazer, e que de certa forma é muito bem executada pelos seus desenvolvedores, pelo menos no começo do jogo, quando essas nuances nos vão sendo apresentadas pouco a pouco, o mundo parece único e os personagens vivos, mas isso infelizmente não dura por muito tempo! A questão aqui é que essa ótima ideia inicial, não parece ter sido seguidas por outras em volume e qualidade que fizessem a primeira ganhar vida e solidez, e as poucas boas ideias que se seguem muitas vezes estão escondidas (literalmente) em camada de puzzles que tem a função de te fazer andar e revisitar lugares do mapa sem proporcionar a menor recompensa narrativa, e recompensas de gameplay que são ridículas! Por mais que a interação com os personagens seja um ponto de enfoque, e que gera impressões positivas logo de cara, pelos modelos e o voice acting, logo essa também se torna frustrante pela ausência de profundidade e consequências nas histórias próprias de cada um, por mais que um personagem se mostre intrigante num primeiro momento, duas coisas estão propensas a acontecer, ou você esquece ele e sua interação na procura pelo item necessário, ou acha o item e volta no personagem apenas para receber um obrigado e um item de combate qualquer! Algo muito parecido acontece com a história de Hadea de um modo geral, depois que se estabelece a força motriz da história daquele pais, que de certa forma é muito obvia e se assemelha com uma história compartilhadas de todas as sociedades católicas medievais, mesmo que transmutadas por outros nomes, todos os outro vestígios que nos são apresentados, são apenas confirmações dessa mesma lógica, que nada ou muito pouco tem a acrescentar na história como um todo, o que acaba por resultar na perda de interesse pela lore de um jogo em que o ponto central suspostamente deveria ser a narrativa e o world building, já que claramente a gameplay foi desenvolvida em um segundo plano e o combate nem vale a pena ser analisado!

I found the first Act of Hell Is Us engrossing. The game starts with an interesting mystery, areas full of danger and collectibles, and a clear goal (to find my father) pushing me forward. The combat was basic, but I felt confident that it would grow in complexity as I forged ahead. The game began to sour for me when I started Act 2. Certain sidequests began to fail as I forged ahead with main quests because it was unclear that completing these main quests was going to trigger a change in the world-state. I'd already grown weary of backtracking and walking in circles in the first three areas of the game, never sure if I was missing something or if I was meant to forge ahead, and then five or six more areas open up where you have to keep doing this song and dance, fighting the same five enemy types over. By this point, I'd realized I'd seen everything that combat had to offer. The different “spheres” for your weapons have no meaningful difference except which abilities you can equip and I personally found Terror and Grief useless; it would have made more sense for the spheres to be a rock-paper-scissors weakness triangle. The backtracking would have been more rewarding if I felt like I was always growing stronger by doing so. In retrospect, this is a game that you should play with a notebook, because there are just too many mysteries to keep track of in the back of your mind, and too many areas to return to. There are far too many NPCs who offer nothing but dialogue, but they all have the “Trade” option so you never know who may offer a quest or be wanting something. It necessitates talking to everyone, even though 80% of the NPCs are meaningless.

For a game that praises itself so much for not giving you a map and letting you explore the world, the exploration is utterly linear and uninteresting and the game is always very explicit on what you have to do and where you have to go. Not having a map is only an inconvenience, not a challenge. Gameplay-wise the situation is probably even worse, with very scarse enemy variety and lack of engaging combat encounters. Story is ok I guess, but I don't play games for their story and this is certainly not a story game. I can't even say I'm disappointed cause the game already looked awful before buying it, but after giving it a shot I can firmly say that it is not worth your time

Okay i tried hard to like it playing 3 hours but the gameplay loop is just annoying. I like exploring and finding things on my own plus difficulty but everywhere I go and explore i need to insert something I need from somewhere else all of the freaking time. It's not smooth and awards exploration. It's just annoying at this point, had to put to put it down