Content Warning: Hell is Us is a dark and heavy game. This preview contains descriptions of the results of incredible violence, including the death of a child.
Within three hours ofHell is Us, I watched a father cry with his deceased child in his arms as he sat in front of a mass grave and spoke with a little war-orphaned girl who expected me to kill her. That, in so many ways, summarizes the recent time I spent withHell is Usbut also every thought I’ve had about the game since then.Hell is Usknows how to get its claws into players, how to leave a lasting mark, and how to strike at its players when they least expect it. After all, the opening hour of the game didn’t even hint to me that it would become so harrowing so quickly.
Hell is Us' central motif is not entirely unique; as the title implies, it is about reconciling the hell seen in the entire world with the fact that we, us, humans are the ones capable of creating this hell. The Walking Dead made this motif a slowly-dawning realization across its seasons, that the undead were not the most dangerous thing in its world but other humans.Hell is Us, meanwhile, strikes its players out of left field. In the game, the protagonist Remi travels to thefictional country of Hadeato find his mother and father amid a civil war, which should play second fiddle to a great calamity that has unleashed supernatural horrors born from emotion into the land. But it doesn’t. It wasn’t what these creatures were capable of that left a lasting mark on me, but what the other humans in the game demonstrated about the real world.
All the while,Hell is Usdoes not hold its players' hands. Both its story and gameplay ensure, instead, that players are forced to carry everything it gives them.
Hell is Us Lulls Players Into a False Sense of the Familiar
Hell is Us' story has several layers. The outermost layer is the fact that everything happened in the past; players see Remi speaking with a mysterious man about what happened in Hadea, with this being the sole indication that Remi survives these events. There is, of course, this threefold main story about the calamity, the civil war, and the internal strife that brought Remi home. It introduces players to the basics: Remi was born in Hadea before being smuggled out as a child. As a United Nations peacekeeper, Remi goes AWOL to venture into Hadea before the UN’s full exit as a result of the calamity. He seeks to find his parents, and I started this search when I gained control of Remi.
Remi begins lost in the woods and is directed toward the town of his birth by a man who clearly lives in these woods. The dialogue options are a bit widespread, as players can constantly ask about key terms in the region, but they can also develop new options when speaking with someone. This man cites the other faction in the civil war as the main culprit for all the problems in Hadea. It implies, in no uncertain terms, centuries of these people killing each other because of their ethnicities. Continuing to explore, I eventually found some UN soldiers who had an armored vehicle. Unfortunately, the keys were on a higher-ranking soldier within a dungeon. This dungeon obviously served as a tutorial for dungeon delving but alsocombat inHell is Us.
Hell is Us' combat and exploration has some fans comparing it to a Soulslike title, and while I recognize that some of the inherent difficulty and the sense of triumph is similar to a Soulslike game, the design differences are too big for me to ignore. Soulslike games force players to overcome incredible odds, all of which are notably external.Hell is Usforces players to overcome incredible odds, all of which are notably internal. Stay with me.Hell is Usis not a Soulslike game, but the combat loop isn’t too unfamiliar. Players have a few basic attacks, blocks/parries, dodges, and all the combat mechanics players love in 2025. Players also unlock a drone which, at this point, can distract an enemy because fighting more than one at a time is practically impossible. It also introduces players to the Healing Pulse, which allows players to hit a timed input, almost like a QTE, to heal at the end of a combo. In this way, it encourages the same kind of aggression asBloodborne, but it is a lot at once - especially as the game develops.
The Evolution of Combat
Near the end of our session, Rogue Factor loaded us into the first major dungeon of the game. I won’t go into spoilers about its narrative consequences, but the full weight of its combat loop was evident at this point. The core combat elements, combined with the Healing Pulse and the general difficulty of the enemies, are enough to be asatisfying and challenging game, but then more is loaded on top. The drone can carry four abilities at this point, which is one set of inputs, and then abilities are bound to weapons, another set of inputs following a weapon swap. Players, to use the most effective ability, need to know which weapon they are on, which weapon is most effective against the enemy, and keep the proper input in mind. There is also the layer of recognizing which enemy does what, how they behave in combat, and what to expect from their combos. There is also plenty of enemy variety inHell is Us,especially because of the way these enemies engage in combat. Now, with these abilities, I can do much more in combat earlier against even more enemies, but it’s a lot to juggle all at once. It’s intentionally designed to put a heavy load on the player in gameplay because the story will do the same.
Earlier in the game, I found a bridge and a tunnel in an open-world area. These two areas, to me, demonstrate the major design differences in how they work inHell is Usvs. how they would work in a Soulslike game. This small bridge featured a handful of enemies, and in a Soulslike game, every time I cross that bridge after resting I know to expect enemies. I am facing that external threat every time I cross the bridge. The tunnel was absolutely swarming with enemies, more than I had encountered to this point. I would run in a Soulslike game or potentially grind there, but I would know getting through that tunnel required me to be strong enough to eliminate this external threat. Meanwhile,Hell is Us' gameplayis focused on the internal. After dying or resting inHell is Us, enemies do not respawn. That, alone, does not take a game out of the Soulslike running to me, but it’s howHell is Usutilizes this.
Because if I want to cross that bridge inHell is Us, I have to get to it, defeat an enemy, avoid death, and potentially die. I have to revisit it; I have to overcome the internal fatigue of clearing this area. I have to keep finding my way there, slowly clearing the enemies, and make that bridge somewhere I mentally catalog as safe. That tunnel? If I am going to make it through at this point in the game, I have to drag them out one at a time, beat them, and repeat that process several, several times.Hell is Us' enemies are literal manifestations of emotions gone wild, and the game design forces players to internally deal with emotions of anger, sadness, or frustration to overcome these challenges. The enemies inHell is Usare not the real threat; it’s how far I am willing to push myself and how much I can cognitively handle that becomes the driving threat ofHell is Us.
By this point, the familiar start of the game is gone, and I am lost in the heavy emotions it evokes.
There will be difficulty options for the launch of Hell is Us.
Hell is Us' Gameplay is Not the Only Challenge
For this overall combat and gameplay design to work, the story has to do the same. It has to create an equally evocative sense of emotions, and it does that well. That didn’t happen by the end of the tutorial dungeon. That didn’t happen when I exited the dungeon to find the soldier I just met dead. That didn’t happen when I loaded into the armored vehicle and drove to the town of my birth. It happened when I stepped out of that vehicle and took my first steps into the town.
As I emerged from the tree line, the first thing to catch my eye was the bucket of an excavator. Following that down, I saw a mass grave filled with limbs and body parts. It wasn’t the cartoony, mentally safe kind I once escaped inFar Cry 3; this mass grave looked disturbingly realistic, almost as if it were something out of a black-and-white history documentary. Then I heard the cries. I saw the man leaning down before it, crying for those he lost, before I realized in his arms was a child. I stopped because this was the first moment in the game, the first real moment of its story, that hit me in the gut. I am a father of 3, and as any father would know, there are some things you don’t even remotely consider as a possibility. It was so realistic, so heavy I actively had to push away the intrusive thought that this was one of my little ones.
He mentioned something about not being able to bury them properly because of their culture and their town’s destruction; he was missing something. I didn’t know if this was a quest because the game doesn’t exactly track them, but even with this fictional father, I wasn’t NOT going to figure this out. As I searched the town for whatever he needed, I saw its destruction. The bombed and destroyed town was not as pungent as the father, but it still seemed more like something out of a historical documentary than a grouping of video game assets. I also met many folks at the time, including the occupying military. As I gathered, this town belonged to citizens of one culture and this occupying culture wanted them gone. I did find what the father needed and took it to him, but not without encountering other horrors: stationed soldiers, firing squads, the remnants of a town once filled with love. That led me to something I was not prepared for.
I happened upon a priest who described, loosely, what happened to the town. He also gave me a few potential leads for quests or events, even explaining why he was still alive, but then he mentioned why he was fine being kept prisoner in the town.
His niece was alive, but alone.
Following the priest’s instructions, I located the treehouse marking her house and made my way in. Half of it was missing, with what must have been harsh and cold winds blowing in. It was a mess, but luckily, it seemed structurally sound. I made my way up two flights of stairs to what must have been the attic at one time. There, I saw a little girl hiding beneath a scratchy cover, and speaking with her brought up the image of a little brown-eyed, brown-haired girl with equal amounts of brown mud on her face. “Are you a soldier?” was the first thing she asked me; “Are you here to kill me?” was what I heard. As I spoke with her, she detailed how she and her little brother were in the treehouse when the bombings began, and in fear, her little brother ran to her parents at the house as the bombs hit, killing all of them in front of her. She’s been hiding ever since, waiting to die. “I’ll get you out,” Remi says, but that requires me to save the priest.
NOTE: Creative director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête told me that any dev who was not comfortable working on such things was not required to. He also ensured me that some lines were not crossed, like actually seeing the death of a child in the game.
My time with the game ended before I could save the priest and his niece, and my mind has been trapped there ever since.Hell is Usdoesn’t give players a mini-map and what it tracks as a “quest” of sorts doesn’t include everything. I am not quite sure that this was even a quest, butwhenHell is Usreleases, I am saving that little girl come hell or high water.
As I tried to figure out what I needed to do to save her, I was able to explore the surrounding map of the town. It was absolutely littered with enemies, and I eventually found a roundabout that took me back to the excavator. I found a dead-end featuring a hermit-like figure who, Jacques-Belletête told me, offers a long quest spanning different maps. I found the aforementioned bridge, the terrifying tunnel, and a time loop (a distorted spot on the map). The priest mentioned a nearby chapel, and while I tried to make my way there, I never quite figured out the path. A soldier and barbwire fence prevented me from walking through the front gates. The overall area was big enough to pack in interesting locales, different paths, and various dangers, all while having me create a mental map of the region. While I think I had it down for the most parts, there were likely paths I had missed and any biggermap inHell is Uswould likely weigh heavily on my mental mapping.
Hell is Us does not hold its players' hands. Both its story and gameplay ensure, instead, that players are forced to carry everything it gives them.
Now, I am always going to look at a game that removes modern quality-of-life features like map markers or minimaps with a raised eyebrow. I understand the goal is to encourage exploration, but it often feels like a step backward to me. A minimap gives me the bounds of my exploration, while map markers can give me specific or broad areas within those limitations. I still don’t know what’s there and am hopefully rewarded when I go down an unbeaten path. That, to me, feels like exploration no matter what, but removing these features often adds to the frustration of getting lost or not knowing what to do or where to go. All of this is to say thatHell is Usjustifies their removal better than any game I’ve played prior, based on my limited time with it—at least from a design perspective.
Hell is Ushas a heavy cognitive load for any player. The core pattern of its combat loop is recognizable, but then players have to swap between their weapons to unlock new abilities, utilize their drone, recognize enemy behaviors, be aggressive, hit the Healing Pulse, and manage their health/stamina, which is locked together. Players cannot have more stamina than they do health. All the while, the surrounding atrocities are hard to ignore when confronting these enemies: the look of the girl waiting to die, the cries of the father who lost his child, and the dehumanizing efforts of two at-war factions. And layered on top of that is the mental map players must create of which path leads where, what they must do for NPCs scattered around the game, and everything other games would leave to UI/in-game tracking.
Hell is Usis a heavy, complex game, and it’s intended to be so. That heavy cognitive load is woven into and throughout the game’s core design, and from a design perspective, I can appreciate howHell is Usembodies its title in everything from its story to its gameplay. Its core design forces players to reckon with the atrocities humans are capable of, managing the weight of it all even during gameplay, while putting up sensible and protective barriers like not seeing the act of a child harmed or not harming another human being. The maps I played were not so huge that this cognitive load became extremely burdensome, but theneed to protect myselfby memorizing my surroundings could easily be expanded too much as players move throughout the game.Hell is Usis a “vast semi-open world” after all, and whether that adds to the sense of doom and destruction or diminishes the fun factor of the game remains to be seen.
I playedHell is Usfor three hours and have been thinking of it ever since, dealing with thoughts that I, as a father, would rather not deal with. If nothing else,Hell is Usknows how to get its hooks in players and force them to contemplate what most people would, quite frankly, be happy to ignore. There’s certainly something to be said about the wayHell is Us creates ludonarrative harmony through its story and gameplay, but after three hours withHell is Us, I’m not sure I would have the capacity to physically say ludonarrative harmony, much less articulate it well.Hell is Usis heavy and it expects players to carry the load, and how open players are to this internal challenge may ultimately determine how fun players find it.
Hell is Uswill be part of the June Steam Next Fest, with the demo going live earlier onJune 2 at 7 am PT/10 am ET.
Hell is Usreleases September 4 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Game Rant was provided travel and lodging for the purposes of this preview.
