Hell is Us

Hell is Us was provided by Nacon for review. Thank you!

Leading up to the Hell is Us release, I tried to avoid any spoilers and discussions about the game. I loved the initial trailer, and I wanted to go into the game as blind as I could. Honestly, I think this was the best decision I could have made. I went back and watched the other trailers after I finished the game for this review, and I would have thought it was way closer to a soulslike. Instead, Hell is Us is a third-person action-adventure with little to no hand-holding and intense combat, and I loved it.

The story is one of the biggest elements of the game, and I grew to love it the more I played. We take control of Remi, an expat who has returned to his home country of Hadea to meet his parents and learn why he was sent away. However, he is met with these ghoulish monsters and thrust into a fight for the country to not only save the people there, but also learn about what happened in this desolate land that made it so horrifying in the first place.

On the surface, a mysterious calamity caused some big event that unleashed supernatural forces that are impervious to modern weapons, but deep down, Hell is Us is a look into human nature and how evil we can be. Hadea collapsed not just because of these monsters but also because of the civil war that erupted across the land. Most of what happened in the past is told through the environment, conversations, and discovered items, which makes it more interesting. There were some moments I was confused at the time, but the more I ran around and read and listened to audio logs, the more it all made sense.

This way of storytelling does mean it could be easy to miss some optional logs that help tell the story, but there are many benefits to exploring beyond lore, so I found many reasons to run around. Learning about the world this way makes it feel more fulfilling overall, since we are making a ton of effort to figure the plot and history out for ourselves. It's a deep tale about how evil humans can be, how religion can incite conflict, and how important it is to piece together the past.

If you enjoy games where you have a map, quest markers, a journal with a list of side quests, and the game gives a general idea of what you have to do next at any given time, this won't be for you. Hell is Us prides itself on giving you all the clues within pictures you pick up and notes you find, and you have to figure out what to do with all of them. There is no guide on where to go next or how to unlock new locations to progress the story; it's all implied or told through the objects you find around the world.

I have a love-hate relationship with this kind of emphasis, but it's ultimately why I fell in love with the game. It forced me to pay more attention to the world, clues left around buildings, details hidden in notebooks, and information from conversations, and it made me feel more connected. When I could piece a puzzle together, I felt so satisfied. Every document, monument, slab with cryptic writing, and computer could contain important information necessary later to complete a puzzle or go to a new location. Of course, it could just be lore as well, but it motivated me to listen, read, scan, and engross myself in the world of Hell is Us.

Now, while I found a lot of enjoyment, there were also some moments of frustration. There were multiple times I found myself at a loss on where to go next or how to complete a puzzle, and I found myself going around the entirety of each location just searching for the next clue. On one hand, this added hours of playtime that I could have been spending keeping the story moving. However, I also found other secrets and tools like Limbic Rods to open Limbic Chests and get new weapons, armor, and glyphs. Even if it was frustrating not to know where to go next, I never felt like it was wasting my time. Each location, even if it doesn't seem like it, has its purpose and secrets to discover.

Luckily, I wasn't completely navigating blind. Hell is Us has an Investigation window that shows us key information we learn from findings and conversations with people we meet, and an exploration tab to show where some Limbic Chests and other findings are. It never says exactly where they are, and there's no map or minimap to look at for your position, but that's a big part of the game. It compiles the clues we find to give us some idea of where to investigate next, but leaves out enough to make us search out our next objective.

Besides the hands-off exploration, we will also participate in many fights against these mysterious creatures. I would consider it a mix of soulslike combat, but it has some Action-esque mechanics snuck in there. Like soulslikes, it's slower-paced and difficult, and monster attacks can get overwhelming and kill you, but the actual progression system is more like a regular Action or RPG game. We have a multitude of unique weapons we can find, each of which has a different moveset with a light and a chargeable heavy attack. We will have to utilize dodges and blocks to help us survive these encounters, finding the right time to strike and take them down.

To mix up combat, we have different abilities we can use as well. Our trusty drone can have four different skills that can be equipped, while our weapons can have three different glyphs equipped that give it its own abilities. Ultimately, you will have seven skills to use at any given time, and each one has a variety of effects. I attribute the drone skills to being similar to physical abilities, while the glyphs on the weapon are closer to magical abilities. They all have their own benefits, and I found a use for them as the game progressed. It made fights feel much more engaging and made the more difficult fights much more enjoyable.

There will still be some frustrating fights, with a few I noticed where the camera angle was near impossible to get to an optimal spot, but the majority of fights are great. There is a small variety of enemies, but each has three different ranks and can sometimes summon an internal emotion that manifests as a more powerful foe that must be defeated first. Having to navigate each encounter that can change pretty quickly keeps combat interesting, but one wrong move can result in death pretty easily.

Unlike soulslikes, Hell is Us' progression is much closer to a less-intense action RPG. Weapons each have their own level that gets experience and becomes more powerful as you defeat enemies. Defeated foes drop shards, which are used at the smithy to upgrade its Grade, letting you choose one of four emotions to imbue into it and increasing its max level. It's a great balance between the two, and it takes away a lot of the frustration with progression that I have found in soulslikes with trying to collect and keep souls to level up. It does take a little long to get new glyphs, since a lot of them are in these Limbic Chests, where you have to remember where they are and what rods go in them, but the combat is satisfying enough to keep me entertained until I get them.

We also get two Relics to equip that can buff ourselves. One adds an eighth active ability, while the other adds a passive buff. These are nice little changes that can affect or enhance your playstyle, and I liked playing around with them. We can also equip two defensive gear to give us more health and absorb health, but they were tougher to find than I expected. We can enhance them at the smithy as well, which is nice, but it took me a while to find a second piece of equipment after getting the first one through story progress.

While there are a good chunk of different weapons to find, I found myself not caring much to try new types when I found two that worked for me. I did justify going through the weapons to choose two to fill out my loadout, but as soon as I found the ones I liked the most, I focused on leveling them up and not touching the others. There are some items we can find to add EXP to weapons, but trying to level up the others by grinding takes too much time.

Hell is Us also has a feature called Healing Pulse, where you can heal a part of your health and stamina with a well-timed button press. The amount you can heal increases as you attack enemies without getting hit, but as soon as you do, the pulse goes away. I found this mechanic to be wonderful, and it saved me many times from certain death as I would hit once and then dodge to heal. There is an assortment of items you can use, including med packs to heal quickly, but this is a great way to bring health back without any items.

Other than the fights against these creatures out in the open, there are side quests called Good Deeds to complete that may give some extra rewards, mysteries, and secrets across Hadea to discover, and Timeloops to disperse. Each of these gives more information about the world and what has happened in Hadea, while also sometimes providing benefits to help your journey. Nothing is straightforward, and some of these Good Deeds and mysteries may fail or be completely missed, so paying attention and exploring will be helpful.

If you have a notepad, marking down which chests need which Limbic Rods and where some of these Good Deeds are will be helpful. There is a window that shows all of these and lists how many there are in each area, but it won't give more information than that.

Hell is Us - Steam Deck Performance

When I first started playing Hell is Us, I was worried that it wouldn't run on the Steam Deck. This is a beautiful game with larger open areas, and with the minimum specs being on the higher side, I had my doubts. However, now that I have played through the game, I can say it's surprisingly playable on the Steam Deck, but it will require some compromises.

While there are a lot of areas that actually run very well, and can hit up to 40 FPS, there are many that drop it below. So, for stability purposes, I recommend keeping it at 30 FPS. It will stay at and above 30 in almost every area, with some slight drops to 27 or 28 when running around very crowded areas quickly. Most areas will stick to 30, with a lot of them keeping battery drain relatively low for a game like this (14W - 17W).

To keep this framerate, we will have to keep the game running on Low settings, but we can increase post-processing to Medium and the 3D resolution scale to 45%. They are small changes, but it does very slightly help with blurriness on further away objects. I did try both FSR and XeSS upscaling, but FSR was way too pixelated and shining when moving the camera around, and both upscalers were more intensive than just putting the 3D resolution scale down.

Usually, I would recommend setting Textures higher with games like this, but with how high the RAM usage is, I wouldn't change it. Textures usually influences how much RAM is used with the game, and it regularly hits around 12-13GB.

I did try using FSR 3 frame generation while in-game, but I don't recommend it. Not only does it have difficulty getting to 60 FPS, which I would consider necessary, but the camera movement feels extremely floaty. It doesn't have too much input lag, but it doesn't feel smoother at all. 40 FPS without frame gen feels so much better than the 45 FPS. I also attempted to try Lossless Scaling using the Decky Plugin, but it didn't work. Based on the performance with FSR frame gen on, I would not recommend using it.

Some of the UI and text can be on the small side, especially for researched items or checking out our investigations. It isn't unreasonably small, but keeping the screen further away will make reading much harder. Everything else plays and feels great throughout the game, so there shouldn't be many issues. With how big the game is, I would say expect to hit around 2.5-3 hours of battery life because of the larger and more populated areas, and some slight blurriness on faraway objects. It's still very playable, looks decent, and is pretty awesome to experience on the go.

Accessibility

Hell is Us does have an accessibility tab, which includes settings for camera shake, motion blur, three color blind modes for Deuteranope, Protanope, and Tritanope, and shows directional audio. We can also toggle auto target switching, enabling tutorials, shortening the datapad opening, changing combat difficulty, changing HUD elements, changing audio languages, and changing language and subtitle size.

The game does support 16:10 resolutions, cloud saves, and has controller support. The game does have HDR and recognizes the OLED screen.

Conclusion

Hell is Us is a fantastic experience that I ended up loving, even though I am not generally a fan of this style of game. The lack of hand-holding can be a little frustrating, but it encourages exploration in a way that feels rewarding in terms of general gameplay and the fantastic story. Figuring out where to go and completing puzzles to progress or discover secret items is so satisfying and keeps me wanting more. The combat combines its slower-paced soulslike feel with more Action-focused progression in a great way, with an assortment of skills to equip that help make combat feel more engaging. There are some nuisances with camera angles, but it is generally in good spots.

The game is also surprisingly playable on the Steam Deck. It does need compromises to the visuals and a 30 FPS lock to make sure it runs, but it's ultimately a great experience on the go, and it feels wonderful to enjoy wherever you are.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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