Hell is Us removes traditional hand-holding like quest logs, maps, and objective arrows and trusts players to discover solutions. The game follows Remi as he returns to Hadea to find his parents amid civil war and otherworldly invaders. Hadea’s zones function as open hubs filled with hidden dungeons, environmental puzzles, and citizens in need, encouraging clue-driven investigation through letters, relics, and conversations. Puzzle design emphasizes logic and reward, making problem-solving fun and approachable without being obtuse. Combat quality and narrative cohesion are inconsistent, but exploration and level design provide the game’s strongest moments.
For many triple-A video games, appealing to a wide audience often means ensuring players can see a game to its conclusion. That sometimes translates to sanding down combat, exploration, and puzzle-solving to make it approachable as possible. But this can sometimes veer into making games too guided for their own good. Hell is Us tosses all of these conventions out of the window. Goodbye quest logs, maps, and objective arrows telling you where to go. By trusting players to figure things out, Hell is Us' smart level and puzzle design shine to create compelling and rewarding discoveries, despite middling combat and uneven storytelling.
The game follows Remi, a soldier who sneaks into Hadea, a mysterious country isolated from the rest of the world. Remi returns to his homeland to meet his parents and learn why they smuggled him out of the country as a child. But with little memory of his parents, nor knowledge of their current status or whereabouts, Remi must rely on his wits to piece together answers within a nation gripped by a brutal civil war and invaded, for some reason, by otherworldly monsters.
The absence of traditional forms of guidance forces a genuine immersion in Hadea's open hubs that feels refreshing and rewarding. While not a true open world, each zone offers a strong assortment of hidden dungeons, environmental puzzles, and distressed citizens often begging for aid. Unraveling mysteries becomes an engrossing exercise of finding clues, such as curious letters, ancient relics, or lost keys, while gleaning information from dense character conversations inspired by classic point-and-click adventures.
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