James DavieAn atmospheric “AA” action title from developer Rogue Factor, Hell Is Us is a temptingly ambitious curiosity as it treads perilous paths and slathers itself in intrigue and the fascination of player discovery through exploration. Hell Is Us appears like an amalgamation of video game greats, and with its mysterious and brooding undertones, manages to captivate with a unique presence and identity, creating one of the most alluring games of 2025. Does Hell Is Us bring a new vision of a hell we’d want to spend hours and hours invested in, or is the “Hell” in the game’s title an apt descriptor of poor quality?
Set in the fictional European country of Hadea, the story of Hell Is Us follows Remi Letam, an ON Peacekeeper who is desperately searching for his parents in his homeland. However, Hadea has become infested with a scourge known as Hollow Walkers, and Remi’s search is thrown into further hardship due to a ravaging civil war that plagues the land. Hadea is a dangerous place, seemingly cut off from the civility of surrounding nations, and trapped in a bleak authoritarian landscape that truly puts the “Hell” in Hell Is Us.
A Hell Of A Time
Hell Is Us does an impressive job bringing the world of Hadea to life with a backstory scarred in war, and a country decaying in unrest and malevolence. Hell Is us raises many questions for you to discover as your journey through its perilous and desolate landscapes. Who is this burly monstrosity with a flabby face interrogating Remi? What is Remi’s history and what were his parents like and how does Remi get along with them? And, how on earth can Remi go from looking like a Silent Hill protagonist jogging through forests, to a badass who dons a cloak and can operate a drone?
Not many big modern games put in the effort, but Hell Is Us goes beyond the bog-standard to provide you with reasons to care. There are plenty of folks Remi will encounter on his quest with their own stories and turmoils, which add flavor and insight to the overall story, and some encounters are haunting and upsetting-showing you just how harrowing and grim Hadea’s situation truly is.
The way Hell Is Us handles its taut themes of hatred and war do much to entrench you in its thick and uncompromising world building, which compels you to care about the story and characters.
When so many AAA games give you stories that refuse to emotionally engage players, Hell Is Us and its “AA” experience shows the gulf that exists between the two breeds of video game. Gamers champion AA games because of emotionally engaging titles, and their desires to prioritize art over money, and Hell Is Us proves itself as an exemplar of that mentality.
There is a sense the early goings of Hell Is Us are slapdash. Remi is under interrogation with a truth serum to force him into telling the truth about his story in the lead-up to his capture. However, it’s jarring that Remi is at first a regularly clothed man exploring the forests of Hadea, but when he sees a female cloaked figure fall in battle, he seemingly dons her cloak, works a drone somehow, and can wield weaponry like a badass. More explanations are needed to contextualize Remi’s empowerment because the set-up is a mess, and is quite a significant downside to an otherwise really impressive story and atmosphere.
Letting You Off The Hellish Hook
Hell Is Us prides itself on letting players off the leash with minimal guidance, meaning you’re encouraged to investigate and find the solutions to problems yourself. Hadea contains many citizens you can have meaningful conversation, who besides giving you more awareness of the history of Hadea and its people, are often in desperate need of your help due to the calamitous situation the country is embroiled in. Early on in the game you find a severely wounded soldier who is in urgent need of a medical kit, but he also vaguely knows the whereabouts of a key to a hulking APC. What you do next is search the nearby area without directional arrows or any markers, but you do receive assistance in other ways.
One of the most striking nuances in Hell Is Us, is that despite the game’s refusal to tell you what to do, environmental clues bring you closer to the answers and whereabouts of objective items. Whether it’s following a string of wind chimes or trees marked with the letter X, Hell Is Us doesn’t keep you helpless, but uses visual and sound cues to guide you towards solutions. What this means, is that you’re given the tools to be your own investigator inside the harsh expanses of Hadea, and this more than anything is why Hell Is Us is such an absorbing and rewarding experience to play.
Interactions with the different characters you’ll come across as you explore Hadea will offer various insights and quests; they may also trade items with you as well, which may prove useful as you wade through the ruined lands. Participating in these conversations generates a sense of comfort that offsets the hell and the danger found in the wilds, which you’ll very much appreciate whenever you get the opportunity to interact with others.
The way characters look and how they stare at you during conversations are reminiscent of Bethesda’s RPGs, which goes for the high-tech inventory screen too. This reinforces how integral the personalities and the inventory are in the Hell Is Us experience, and the information as well as the items you pick up are meaningful when you encounter the game’s puzzles and finding the assortment of collectibles strewn throughout the game.
As insistent as developer Rogue Factor are for you to find your own answers in Hell Is Us, they do recommend that you play with tutorials on to acclimate to the Hell Is Us gameplay experience. If you enable tutorials, they will pop up every now and then to instruct you on how to utilize the various mechanics of the game and how to best deal with these illusive creatures.
A Hollow Walk In A Devastated Wasteland
Once you’ve donned the black poncho and gain access to the drone, it’s time for Remi to take the sword and eviscerate Hollow Walkers. These unpredictable white-bodied hostile beings lunge into you with dangerous swipes, and to defend properly you’ll need to block and parry their attacks to get the drop on them. If you find yourself attacked in numbers, you can use your trusty drone to distract one while you deal with another, which is a very useful way to weed out enemies and single them out. You can also regain a chunk of health by consuming the energy hollow walkers leave behind after an offensive attack.
Hell Is Us looks and feels like yet another Soulslike, as you find yourself waiting for the perfect opportunities to strike while timing blocks and parries to ward the scourge, though despite its blatantly unoriginal look and feel, Hell Is Us is held aloft by the sense of mystery and the steady evolution of challenges posed by these mysterious entities. As you proceed through Hell Is Us, you’ll encounter new types of Hollow Walker, including variants with huge wing-like limbs, and another type that has a link called a Haze attached to it by an umbilical chord, and will the Haze will need to be destroyed before you can take out the now-vulnerable Hollow Walker.
The empowering essence of the foe also applies to Remi as well. Remi can pick up various weapons on his journey like axes, a Lymbic Polearm and a Greatsword, and he can deliver devastating finishers that looks quite sick in motion. You can apply glyphs to weapons that augment them with emotional heft like Rage, Terror and Grief, which grant a massive and satisfying boost to attacks. The visceral feedback from these attacks makes them exacting to perform, and you’ll feel a sense of power usually reserved for hack and slashers like Devil May Cry, so Hell Is Us has done an exemplary job of transferring its particular aura in every way that matters.
A Deliciously Decayed Dystopia
Hadea is a gloomy wasteland and admittedly Hell Is Us doesn’t stand apart too much from its contemporaries. However, this does not mean Hell Is Us doesn’t look fantastic because it is impressively detailed with dark brooding environments, as well as a suitably uninviting allure that allows the game’s hellish vibes to come to life. Everything from the green smog, to the wide-open expanses unfolding in front of you will convince you that Hell is Us is more than merely a “AA video game.”
The sound design is fantastic as well from the gargling screams of the Hollow Walkers, to the enticing slashes of blade as it delivers repetitive swipes into their haunting bodies, there’s an attractively delicious tone to the sounds of vanquishing enemies in Hell Is Us that conveys the game’s disturbing ambiance very well. Likewise, the character voices do a brilliant job of capturing all the turmoil left behind by Hadea’s fractured remnants, and you can hear their innermost feelings in every conversation. Overall, the visual and sound design in Hell is Us is excellent.
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.