Hell is Us Review — A creative cocktail of Soulslikes and Tomb Raider

Hell is Us does many things well, taking a lot of inspiration from classic Japanese survival horror series like Resident Evil and mashing it up together with Tomb Raider and the Souls formula.

Its politically charged story, touching on themes of genocide, famine, war, and human nature, is gripping and haunting, while its action-packed gameplay is a visceral take on Soulslike combat. With countless puzzles, a branching world, and never-ending possibilities, Hell is Us provides an incredible action-adventure experience, if only it weren’t wrought with horrible design choices.

Here is our full review.

A war-torn, ruined land

Hell is Us gives you control of Remi, a man set on the path to discover his past, origins, and destiny. A born Hadean, he returns to his old country after years of exile, only to find it in the middle of a brutal civil war between two large ethnic groups, both of whom will stop at nothing to eradicate the other. The two sides are the Sabinians and the Palomists, who used to share a common nation but are now sworn enemies.

The game takes place on a fictional, alternate-history-infused Earth, where the nation of Hadea plays a central role. With rich historical heritage and deep secrets which should not be uncovered, Hadea is an incredible place, equally dark as it is beautiful. Much of its historical background is heavily influenced by the likes of Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones, only that Hadea’s past is almost entirely fictional.

Remi must traverse Hadea’s deep secret paths, its darkest corners, and combat supernatural threats to stop the apocalyptic Calamity, which had been foretold many years ago. From underground tombs to massive ancient sanctuaries alongside castles and dungeons forgotten by time, Remi must navigate it all and uncover the means to prevent the ultimate catastrophe.

Open zones and lots and lots of puzzles

Hell is Us is a game with a semi-open world approach, whereby you are allowed to traverse fairly large open zones, all of which are reached by means of your APC. The game features no minimap, map, quest markers, or Elder Scrolls-like compasses to show you the way. You are an investigator and essentially a treasure hunter or archeologist, and you must follow your own instincts to get through the game.

While the majority of the game is very well telegraphed, indicating more often than not where the “proper” way to go lies, the game’s massive zones, which are horizontally stretched a ton in all directions, can often cause you to become lost, confused, or to start running in circles.

This is mitigated simply by brute forcing the entire map and leaving no stone unturned, which can actually be a fun experience, but only up to a certain point. Add to that the frequent backtracking through these massive zones, whose enemies are sometimes respawned, and you’ve got yourself a pretty boring walking simulator.

The zones are quite varied, different, and filled to the brim with content (most of the time), so that’s a big plus that helps alleviate some of these issues.

Additionally, Hell is Us’ core gameplay revolves around solving puzzles. No matter how small or inconsequential a thing might be, Hell is Us turns it into a puzzle. Most puzzles are fairly creative and interesting to solve, and you actually have to pay attention to what characters are saying, what the documents you’ve picked up are about, and what that random computer log told you. It’s by no means an easy game, but it isn’t impossible either.

If you have ever played Resident Evil, the classic ones, or other classic Japanese survival horror games, then Hell is Us will be exceptionally familiar to you. If you were to put its puzzles and RE‘s ones side by side, it’d often be hard to tell which is which. This isn’t a bad thing, given how creative they are, but it’s something to consider based on what kind of puzzles you like seeing in games.

However, particular puzzles are too convoluted to be solved effectively, meaning you’ll probably be stuck on some more than once. On top of that, the game’s massive open zones and regular lack of proper telegraphing can and will cause you to miss that one thing you needed to complete a puzzle on the other side of the map. You’re then stuck in a loop, again turning every stone, or overlooking one small detail even when you do have all the necessary details. This happened to me on several occasions, and while it wasn’t game-breaking, it certainly did break my fun.

In general, the formula the game has gone with generally works, and lands when it should. With an incredible story backing it up, one packed with very serious themes and commentaries regarding our own state of the world, you’ll have more fun than frustration.

That is, until you’ve progressed a bit far into the story, which is when things start really going south.

Unfair enemies, worse spawns

Most of Hell is Us has pretty manageable combat. While definitely a Soulslike in its action, Hell is Us actually features no proper boss fights. Except for some Time Loop bosses that are more gimmicks than proper ones, Hell is Us does not go for what you’d usually expect from a Soulslike game, that is a boss-rushing approach.

While you get manual save points every now and again, which act as substitutes for Bonfires, and pretty much all the rest of the Souls mechanical suite (including Bloodborne‘s attack-savvy combat), Hell is Us remains an action-adventure game at heart. It plays as if you’ve substituted Tomb Raider‘s traditional TPS gameplay with Souls combat, which works fairly well.

What doesn’t work is the game’s horrible artificial difficulty, which spikes at random and with no warning, with enemies starting to one-shot you for no reason other than the devs deciding that’s how it’s supposed to be. You get used to playing a medium-difficulty game, and learn all the enemies’ patterns, and suddenly you’re in a new zone and that same enemy has three new attacks, each dealing four times the damage.

It’s incredibly frustrating. Enemies, the harder ones especially, tend to spawn in massive groups, each dealing ludicrous damage and attacking non-stop. You get ganked all the time in this game, and I cannot say I enjoyed that one bit. Some fights are also mandatory, while you cannot even take action (open doors, etc.) in combat. So if you’re stuck, tough luck.

The above could be fine for a proper Souls game, which are driven by combat and challenge, but in Hell is Us, it’s a massive detractor.

On top of that, ranged enemies, which have a special tendency towards one-shotting you, are placed and spawned at the most unfair locations, often out of reach until you find some special way to get to them, or on ledges when you’re trying to cross a narrow gap. Enemy variety is also very low, and you meet most enemy “types” not long after first launching the game.

Those unfair fights, the ultra-long walk-backs, and a lack of a proper fast-travel mechanic for select zones do take their toll eventually.

Despite all this, however, the combat, when it’s fair, is great. You have lots of weapon options to choose from, upgrades are easy to come by, and your Drone can be kitted out with some fairly OP upgrades. You can combo and chain attacks, restore max HP and stamina mid-fight by just attacking, and so on. The game rewards aggressive play and fast-paced battles, and I’m all here for it.

If progression was to be refined a bit, with these frustrations eradicated via addition of some sort of fast-travel between save points (even without adding a map or a visual representation, just the name) I think the game’d be much better and a lot less frustrating than it is.

All in all, Hell is Us remains the strongest where it matters the most in this kind of game: the story. Remi’s narrative, his background, and the world of Hadea are some of the most intriguing story beats I’ve ever played through, with the latter in particular standing high and proud among the greatest of video game nations, on par with Tomb Raider‘s most fantastic cultures. With overall solid gameplay, occasional frustrations, and interesting puzzles, Hell is Us is nonetheless a nice game, wrapped in a gritty, gruesome, and intriguing package.