Hell is Us Demo Impressions
Hell is Us: it’s an evocative title and, given the world in which we live, entirely accurate. But I digress. Hell is Us is a new third-person action game coming to PC and consoles in early September. A demo recently dropped so I thought I’d check it out. Because while there are plenty enough ARPGs and Soulslikes, another good one is always welcome.
Set It Up
Hell is Us is set in a fictional European country called Hadea (Hadea…Hades…Hell…get it?) You play as Remi, a peacekeeper soldier who leaves his unit to search for his parents in the aftermath of the “Calamity,” an event that unleashed supernatural humanoids called Hollow Walkers. You wander for a while around a rain-soaked forest looking for clues until you stumble upon a creepy old farmer hunkered down in his ruined house. Said farmer has a lot of backstory to give you.
Not long after, you meet a badly wounded soldier who tells you the rest of his company is sure to be found in a nearby military installation. To gain access you can’t just open the door. Instead, you need to solve some environmental puzzles carved into stone pillars. I’ll admit right up front that these kinds of puzzles always seem like busywork and incredibly inefficient devices for, let’s say, opening a door. Find a medallion, rotate columns to locate a tool, and excavate a ruin. A lot of work when a key would do just fine.
Snark aside, Hell Is Us looks impressive, with sharp, detailed textures and evocative lighting. It’s accompanied by an equally unsettling, sci-fi accented, synth-drenched musical score.
Hellish Souls
It doesn’t take long for Remi to meet his first Hollow Walker, and for the game to toss the player into melee combat. Remi doesn’t have an arsenal of modern firearms. Instead, combat is up close with swords, spears, and axes, a la Dark Souls or a hundred other action-RPGs. Now, Remi isn’t entirely without modern technology. He has a drone that is primarily used for crowd control and distraction.
Combat follows the standard-issue Soulslike playbook with light and heavy attacks, dodges, and parries, oh my. Stamina management is a huge part of combat because while swinging a sword drains it, so does getting hit. Overall, combat feels pretty good, if not quite as finely calibrated as the best Soulslike. But this is a demo and there’s still lots of time to make some tweaks.
OK, Now What?
The Hollow Walkers are faceless humanoids with ghostly white stretchy bodies. Although they remain faceless, they take several forms and have a variety of mostly organic or supernatural weapons. In Hell is Us, enemies don’t respawn once dispatched. Usually this mechanic is an indication that grinding for XP or loot is a low priority. In any case, dead is dead and I appreciate it.
Hell is Us is built around a semi-open world, which means large discrete zones with a lot of freedom to explore. The developers have made a point of giving the player a ton of agency and few explicit directions. Remi is free to wander his little corner of Hadea looking for interesting encounters and information that will move him forward in the narrative. In reality the world isn’t as open, as it seems as there are lots of barriers.
Open-world freedom without much direction is both engaging and, if not done well, can be frustrating for the player. One of the cardinal sins of game design is wasting a player’s time. However, if the open world is well-made and full of stuff to discover it can be exhilarating and awesome. Even in the demo Hell is Us features some dull moments of aimless traipsing around in the rain with electronic moans and groans as a partner.
Save the Date
With its Soulslike combat and evocative world, Hell is Us is a game with potential. Some of the make-work puzzles and undirected exploration made me wish that it used my time more wisely, but I’m very much looking forward to seeing what the full game has in store on September 4, 2025.
***Preview based on public demo (PC)***
