The old cliche is that war never changes, but what happens when the hellish actions of war manifest as monsters that trap people in time loops of their worst deeds? Well, even then it turns out the cruelty of mankind itself are still worse than any supernatural destruction, and Hell is Us uses its fantastical near-future setting to take a dark, authentic look at the horrors of war. While the actual act of fighting your way through the monsters of this devastated nation isn’t doing much that’s new to the action-adventure genre, Hell is Us kept me entertained throughout my 38-hour adventure nonetheless. Its combat is simple but satisfying and its world is full of puzzles that push you to really pay attention, which makes for a campaign filled with intrigue, grief, and sometimes a little frustration.
Hell is Us is equal parts exploration, combat, and puzzle solving. It’s a familiar formula if you’ve played games like God of War or Resident Evil before, but roaming the fictional country of Hadea as Remi, an exile smuggled out of the country as a child, proved to be a different kind of challenge. You’re told upfront that there is no map, waypoint system, or indication of where to go next. I had to retrain my brain in the early hours of Hell is Us as I adapted to how it does things, like I was riding a bike without training wheels for the first time. While frustrating at first, that annoyance seemed to fade away around the midpoint of Act One, and I could feel myself more quickly pinpointing the necessary clues I needed to progress.
What starts as a quest for answers about Remi’s missing family, his whole reason for returning to Hadea, quickly becomes a series of puzzles and scavenger hunts that reveal a bigger picture. With both that mystery and a large number of items to collect, the lack of a traditional map or waypoint system meant I found it almost mandatory to keep physical notes on what I had seen. That was especially true as I assembled a lengthy list of puzzles and NPCs that required specific items I had yet to find, with some items that wouldn’t even become available until later portions of the story.
At first, I was caught off guard by how front and center the puzzle component is in Hell is Us – not because I disliked that, but because it just wasn’t what I expected going in. There are plenty of puzzles to solve with all the usual suspects represented: aligning symbols to open doors, delivering specific items to NPCs, deciphering safe codes, finding color-coded keys, stepping on pressure plates, and more. While I’ve only solved about three-quarters of them so far, most solutions have ranged from obvious to mild head scratchers – this is nice place for them to land because there are a lot of things to keep track of on your own at once, but I never got stuck in one place for too long (and the rewards typically were worth the effort).
The only mildly frustrating part of some puzzles is that you don’t always know upfront if you have everything you need to solve them, or if certain key pieces are even available yet, as many items don’t show up until you progress further. That would usually be such a minor inconvenience that it wouldn’t even be worth mentioning; however, because Hell is Us takes pride in not automatically tracking the specifics of stuff like quests and puzzles, if you don’t keep detailed notes or if you happen to take a few days off from playing, it can lead to running around in circles searching for an unknowable solution.
Speaking of running in circles, while the first act is initially pretty straightforward, I found myself getting a bit lost after a few hours. Without a map, it was tough to figure out where I had and hadn’t been. You can’t progress to new locations without uncovering specific clues or NPCs that give you information about those zones, so I began to lose steam towards the midpoint of Act One. However, this pain point completely went away in the following two acts thanks to the combination of more characters that reliably offer information about the quest and my own acclimation to how I was meant to decipher the bread crumbs of the story.
As Remi, you are a firsthand witness to Hell is Us’ themes of hate, violence, brutality, and humanity being its own worst enemy. They are seen in every NPC conversation, location, and piece of lore you find on the search for Remi’s family. You would think that the worst of what you have to face are the Hollowed monsters plaguing the streets and countrysides of Hadea, but if history has told us anything time and time again, our worst enemies are always ourselves. It wasn’t those haunting enemies that stuck with me past the credits, but the imagery of the world, the harrowing events described by its survivors, and the vitriol characters often had for one another.
It’s almost impossible not to draw parallels between the horrors portrayed throughout Remi’s journey and current events happening in the real world. Hadea’s towns are ravaged by war, filled with imagery of civilian executions and propaganda as two fictional races of people, the Palomians and Sabinians, constantly blame the other for everything wrong in the world. Add in the rise of those terrifying new Hollow creatures, which are impervious to traditional weapons, and it culminates in a believable alternate history with horrors rooted in our own.
Hell is Us wears its grim view of a collapsed civilization and its struggling population on its sleeve. Every major NPC can be asked about Hadea, the war, peacekeepers, the Hollow creatures, and both the Palomians and Sabinians. And unlike the obscure puzzles and riddles throughout the world, the characters speak plainly about their feelings on each topic – be that a young girl who wishes everyone on the other side would die or a member of the military who has no issues whatsoever with collateral damage. While these conversations won’t progress any storylines or assist in sidequests, they all help to paint an effective picture of the current state of the world and how it came to be.
These conversations were enlightening, but they were also tough to swallow in today’s world, especially when myself and many others use video games as a means of escapism. There were times when it often felt like too much, but the thought of ignoring these kinds of experiences felt cynical and disrespectful to those enduring similar tragedies daily. Even minor NPCs struck a chord as I encountered small settlements of survivors, many of whom have lost families, limbs, and more. Hell is Us never strays away from showing the cost of war, and it’s better for it.
These tragedies aren’t just there for show, either, as they also feed into the important time loop mechanic. Time loops appear as concentrated spheres of negative energy derived from truly heinous actions such as public executions, murders, and other tragic events, and they can only be cleared by removing an area of its time loop guardians. Though most are optional, clearing them provides rewards like key items for certain puzzles or NPCs and various weapon upgrades, and also stops enemies from respawning in that vicinity, which was enough incentive for me to tackle them when convenient. The guardians appear as regular Hollow enemies at a glance, but are slightly tougher fights due to their higher health and attack power – although, more often than not they were still so easy I would only realize I had just faced a guardian after the fact, so they didn’t stand out as meaningful or memorable fights to match the somber moments around them.
Combat not quite scratching the itch I hoped it would was a consistent theme throughout most of Hell is Us. It has all the staples you’d expect in an action-adventure game: attack combos, charge attacks, parries, dodges, and special abilities that improve both your weapons and a drone that fights alongside you. But while it has the ingredients of a great combat system, they never come together to make something more impressive than the sum of those parts. That isn’t to say combat is bad in any way, because is can still be quite fun – but it never really wowed me, either. Even the special executions for certain enemies, which shift the camera perspective in an attempt to punch up the stylishness of those moves, didn’t amaze me despite being functionally useful.
Early on, Remi learns that standard weapons are useless against the Hollow enemies and quickly builds up an arsenal of limbic weapons with special properties – swords, twin axes, polearms, and more, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. As you explore and solve various puzzles or help the citizens of Hadea, you unlock glyphs that can be equipped to weapons to augment them with properties such as Rage, Ecstasy, Terror, and Grief. Upgrading weapons with different properties will not only change their appearance, but also change which abilities they can equip. I was a big fan of Rage as it supercharged my aggressive playstyle, allowing me to stagger enemies and giving me some range options. Meanwhile, Terror ended up being the augment for my second weapon as it allowed me to drain enemies of their health at a safe distance.
Hell is Us also takes a different approach to healing while in combat: dealing damage refills your health, but only if you cash in after landing an attack or combo without taking damage. This was a double-edged sword for me, as it’s an interestingly unique system, but one that meant I would often not worry about how much damage I was taking because I knew that landing one or two combos would be enough to heal me back up in a pinch. It allowed me to be more aggressive in the hopes of outhealing any damage I took, but occasionally my bravado would get the best of me and lead to either death or finishing a fight with critical health. My strategy had to change as I reached the later acts, with specific enemies that could chain attacks to interrupt or stagger me, preventing me from retaliating or causing me to get overwhelmed by a group.
That said, Hell is Us lacks enemy variety overall, with only five types of visually distinct Hollow enemies. That is a letdown, because I really liked their designs – which range from a humanoid with an eerie black void of black in place of its face and chest, to a mage with large ribbed wings that creates damaging zones on the ground – and was hoping to see the team behind them flex their creative muscles even more. It is similarly lacking in the boss department, with only two traditional bosses across the three acts. It does have a few gauntlets of enemies to fight through that act as pseudo bosses for certain areas, but they just don’t have the same impact after delving through multiple floors of a dungeon.
Thankfully, the roster is padded out with 12 Haze-type enemies in addition to the Hollows. These don’t have the same cool, distinct designs, instead looking like more generic shapes or creatures made of smaller colorful blocks. But what they lack in visual flair, they make up for in challenge, as these enemies were often the ones to either overwhelm me or give me a better fight. Early on, Hollow enemies become entwined with each other and various Haze enemies, preventing them from losing health until the attached Hazes have been subjugated. This creates a small dance of taking down the Haze and then attempting to defeat the Hollow before that Haze could respawn, adding a nice layer of complexity to the otherwise simple combat.
