Hell Is Us Reviews
Hell Is Us takes some welcome risks by refusing to resort to handholding in its mechanics, and is made all the more enjoyable for the trust it puts in its players. This brave design choice — alongside an exceptionally crafted and well-realised setting — more than warrants a visit for players looking for an immersive, lovingly crafted adventure through a bleak but compelling world. An enigmatic story and compellingly written characters round out the pros, but disappointingly shallow combat, a lack of enemy variety and an uneven final act ultimately let it down. Regardless, Hell Is Us is a labour of love, and the passion that’s gone into its creation shines through despite its weaknesses.
Hell is Us thrives on exploration, offering a world that feels mysterious, untamed, and rewarding to uncover. By stripping away waypoints and traditional maps, the game encourages players to navigate by instinct and curiosity, making every discovery feel personal and earned. Its atmosphere pulls you in from the very first moments, and the sense of isolation amplifies the thrill of finding your own path. Unfortunately, the combat lacks the same depth and polish, leaving exploration as the true centerpiece of the experience, an aspect that will deeply resonate with discovery-driven players, even if it may not captivate everyone.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Although Hell is Us' combat system isn't very efficient, integrated, or enjoyable, the game is worth experiencing thanks to its wonderful narrative, captivating music, and magical atmosphere.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Hell is Us is a game that offers something unique, but that same challenge might turn away a lot of players looking for something with a more streamlined experience.
With its sometimes chilling civil war setting and general lack of guidance, Hell is Us isn't a game for everybody. Those who embrace its hands-off approach, however, will likely find it an incredibly compelling experience providing they can tolerate its occasionally frustrating combat. And it's ever so rewarding being a force of good in such a dark world.
While we don’t envy it going up against Hollow Knight: Silksong, Hell Is Us is one of the best games we’ve played this year.
Hell is Us is a game that stands out for its boldness in making you think. It breaks from the norm and manages to captivate you in a way that perhaps other similar titles in the genre couldn't. With a well-told narrative and top-notch exploration, the title is worth every second of your attention.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
I can add Hell is Us to the list of games that took me by surprise. I was expecting another overhyped mediocrity with unfulfilled promises. What I got was the complete opposite of my expectations.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Hell is Us is a game based on exploration. It invites you to discover the story and secrets of its world at your own pace, without a single mission indicator in sight. The result is a challenging adventure that constantly rewards the player with very positive feelings. Although the combat system does not reach the expected level, Hell is Us stands out for its immersive atmosphere, complex story, and clever puzzles.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
By the time Hell is Us reaches its conclusion, its greatest strength and its most significant weakness have become one and the same: Rogue Factor has made a game unwilling to compromise on its vision. This is not an action-adventure designed to remove every obstacle between the player and the next objective. It deliberately steps away from the conventions that have made modern exploration increasingly frictionless, placing observation, memory, and discovery at the heart of the experience. The result is distinctive, occasionally frustrating, and, at its best, remarkably rewarding. The decision to dispense with a conventional map is perhaps the clearest expression of that philosophy. Hadea has to be understood rather than simply traversed. Conversations become directions; landmarks become reference points; seemingly incidental details can acquire significance much later. The player is not asked merely to follow information, but to retain and interpret it. When that design clicks, even something as mundane as finding the right road becomes meaningful. You are not reaching a destination because the interface told you where it was. You are reaching it because you understood the world well enough to find it. That sense of ownership is one of Hell is Us’s most compelling achievements. It also exposes one of its more persistent weaknesses. The game occasionally mistakes withholding information for creating mystery, and there are moments when directions are too imprecise to provide a meaningful path forward. Retracing an area because you genuinely missed a clue can be satisfying; retracing it because you cannot determine what the game expects you to have noticed is considerably less so. The line between encouraging curiosity and creating unnecessary friction is a narrow one, and Hell is Us occasionally crosses it. Combat is more conventional, but it provides a reliable counterweight to the slower pace of exploration. The different weapons, dodges, parries, and enemy patterns create a system that is straightforward without being entirely superficial, while the drone adds another layer to both combat and traversal. The Chimeras are most effective when encounters require the player to understand their behaviour rather than simply overwhelm them with attacks. The combat rarely feels as distinctive as the exploration, but it rarely needs to. Its role is to support the wider adventure, and for the most part it does so competently. The boss encounters are where that system comes closest to matching the ambition of the rest of the game. They give individual mechanics greater purpose, demand a better understanding of enemy behaviour, and create some of the adventure’s most satisfying confrontations. But if combat is the foundation, atmosphere is the soul of the experience. Hadea is an unusually evocative setting, balancing melancholy, unease, and beauty across landscapes shaped by war, abandonment, encroaching vegetation, and the presence of the Chimeras. Rogue Factor’s art direction gives these spaces a character that extends well beyond their technical construction. Even during quieter stretches, there is a persistent sense that the landscape has a history: that something happened here, and that the environment has retained traces of it. That atmosphere is reinforced by the narrative, which is similarly interested in what can be left unsaid. Rémi’s personal journey is intertwined with Hadea’s history, and the story gradually reveals itself through conversations, discoveries, and fragments of information rather than constant exposition. Some threads are more successful than others, and the volume of material can occasionally make the narrative difficult to follow, but there is a clear confidence in allowing the player to assemble meaning rather than simply receive it. This is also where the relationship between story and exploration becomes particularly effective. Hadea is not simply a backdrop for Rémi’s journey; understanding the country is part of understanding the story. The places you visit, the people you meet, and the details you uncover gradually change your perception of the world around you. Exploration consequently has a narrative function of its own, allowing the player to uncover context rather than merely collect it. The experience is not without its weaker material. Some secondary activities lack the focus of the main journey, and certain puzzles can become frustrating when their intended logic is not communicated clearly enough. Combat would benefit from greater enemy variety, while the technical presentation is occasionally uneven, particularly in character animation and some secondary visual details. These are tangible shortcomings, not merely concessions made in pursuit of ambition. They prevent Hell is Us from reaching the consistency of the genre’s very best examples. What saves the experience from feeling uneven as a whole is that its strongest elements are united by a remarkably coherent creative identity. Hell is Us does not feel as though it is borrowing a familiar formula and adding a few unusual ideas on top. Its design choices speak to one another. The lack of a map reinforces exploration; exploration reinforces environmental storytelling; environmental storytelling reinforces the narrative; and the atmosphere gives all of it a distinct emotional character. Hell is Us is willing to let the player become lost, to leave a question unanswered, and to allow a discovery to remain a discovery rather than immediately turning it into another objective. Sometimes that makes the experience less comfortable than it needs to be. But it also makes its best moments feel more personal. And that, more than any individual mechanic, is what stays with me.
Rogue Factor set out to bring ideas and inspirations together, giving the game enough personality to set it apart from other action-adventures. You reach the end credits carried along all the same by the atmosphere and the strong themes, as well as by the curiosity to find out how the story turns out. The trip is not always a pleasant one, though, and more often than not it proves decidedly hard going.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Hell Is Us is a bold, ambitious title that succeeds in many of its visions. Great world-building, player exploration and complex puzzle-solving. Conventional, limited combat does detract from its loftier ideas, but Hell Is Us is so full of ambition that it’s a must-play for any gamer tired of traditional video game tropes.
Nevertheless, Hell is Us is a game that deserves respect for what it attempts to achieve. It is a title that deliberately goes against the grain, demanding more personal initiative and attentiveness from players than they might be accustomed to. For those willing to engage with it, it offers a dense, atmospheric experience filled with dark poetry and subtle storytelling. It is not a game for everyone, but for the right audience, it can become an unforgettable experience that lingers long after the game ends.
Review in German | Read full review
Hell is Us stands out through demanding exploration, with no markers or constant guidance, making every clue, puzzle and discovery feel genuinely earned. Its atmosphere in Hadea is superb, although combat suffers from limited weapon and enemy variety.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Hell is Us is a fascinating yet deeply ambivalent experience. It’s a game that deserves admiration for its courage to go against the grain and reject modern gaming conventions. Its world is incredibly atmospheric, mapless exploration is immersive, and the puzzles are cleverly designed. If you’re in the right frame of mind, you’re in for an incredible treat. The combat is also fun, though it can become repetitive over time—though that wasn’t really the case for me. I finished the game in twenty hours, which seems like too short a time to get fed up with it. If you’re looking for a unique atmosphere and aren’t afraid of a game that will punish you for inattention, Hadea will captivate you. But if you’re not particularly creative when it comes to navigation and are expecting something in the style of Assassin’s Creed, this isn’t quite for you.
Review in Czech | Read full review
Hell is Us turns the absence of maps and markers into its greatest strength, creating a dense, investigative sci-fi journey where war, grief, and monsters become reflections of the human condition.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Hell is Us is a great game, but not perfect. A game that doesn't reach out to those who don't want to listen and that offers a raw game world capable of making you think.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Hell is Us offers a blend of exploration and puzzles in a world free of maps and markers, which pushes you to truly care about exploration to find your way. While the game suffers from repetition and weakness in combat, it is considered an experience worth trying for fans of mystery games.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Hell is Us breaks away from conventional action formulas, placing the player at the heart of exploration, atmosphere, and puzzles. It stands out as an experience defined by its atmospheric coherence, exploration-driven storytelling, and artistic approach. It offers a compelling experience for those who love exploration, investigation, and atmospheric gameplay; however, it may feel a bit slow-paced for those expecting nothing but action.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Hell is Us could have been a very good game, had the combat been properly developed. It’s all too basic, with too little variety in the enemies and not even any bosses. Despite all that, I did manage to enjoy myself in Hadea, particularly the exploration of the various locations. The puzzle-solving is also well-designed. Still, I had hoped it would be a bit more challenging. Though this may just be down to me and my own expectations.
Review in Dutch | Read full review