Hell is Us Review – A Brutal, Beautiful Descent into Chaos

Hell is Us doesn’t beg for your patience; it kidnaps it. Rogue Factor builds a world that’s less “follow the waypoint” and more “try not to get lost in the fog of your own second-guessing.” It’s not a soulslike, not really—more a stubborn cousin who borrows the sharpness of Nioh’s duels and then throws away your map out of principle.

I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

I can say I kept playing, teeth gritted, heart weirdly full.

War stories and the uncanny

Hadea feels like a place you remember from a grim documentary you half-watched at 2 a.m.—late-1900s Eastern Europe by way of nightmare folklore. You’re Rémi, a UN soldier who goes AWOL to chase ghosts and bloodlines. The Sabinians and Palomists are busy destroying each other while the Calamity drops Hollow Walkers into the mix—vaguely human, wholly murderous. The bodies hanging, the charred towns, the hushed talk of gods and Vigil and Keystones—it lands. Not because it’s subtle (it isn’t) but because it commits.

I found myself pausing at quiet shrines just to breathe. Then I’d get ambushed and remember: this world is alive in the way a storm is alive.

There’s a lot of lore. Sometimes too much. On a good night, it’s a rabbit hole; on a bad one, it’s a filing cabinet tipped onto the floor. Still, the mythos has texture, and the way it frames cyclical violence—how people keep making the same bad choices with different flags—hits harder than I expected.

“Souls-unlike,” by design

If you live by minimaps, you’ll die by Hell is Us. No markers. No mollycoddling. A compass and some scattered hints, and off you go. It feels archaic in the best way, like someone dug up a lost PS2 game and gave it teeth. The loop is clean: explore, investigate, tangle with something that shouldn’t exist, repeat.

Combat? Weighty, timing-heavy, with a familiar rhythm: light and heavy attacks, stamina, parries that crack like a snapped branch. The Nioh comparison makes sense, but the healing pulse mechanic—gathering particles to trigger a burst that refills health and stamina—nudges you forward. It rewards pressure, which I love. I played greedy, got punished, learned, got greedy again. That’s the dance.

Weapons are a highlight. Dual axes nip and slice; the greatsword is a door you swing at someone; the polearm finds that sly mid-range sweet spot. Upgrades let you steer toward your temperament, not just your stats. I only wish the enemies kept pace. Five Hollow Walker archetypes, each in three tiers, sounds decent until hour eight, when patterns loosen their novelty and start feeling like a rut. Linking them to Hazes adds a ritualistic step to encounters, but repetition creeps in. It’s the rare action game where the puzzles will humble you more than the bosses.

 

The map that won’t love you back

Exploration oscillates between inspired and exhausting. Forests whisper secrets. Swamps punish impatience. Cities unravel in layers if you’re stubborn. And yet—no fast travel (beyond hopping back to your vehicle) plus vague directions equals treks that feel like penance. The datapad helps, cataloging your threads and discoveries, but I still kept a notebook nearby like it was 2004. Some will adore that. Others will bounce off it hard. Both reactions make sense.

I also hit stretches where the environment fought me: slick marshes, blind turns, routes that looked like routes until they absolutely weren’t. When the game is flowing, the world is a character; when it’s not, it’s a traffic cone maze dreamed up by a prankster.

Puzzles within puzzles (within your patience)

Here’s where Hell is Us shows its teeth. Puzzles are layered, sometimes cleverly, sometimes spitefully. You’ll hunt a key that unlocks a door that reveals a puzzle that points to a memory you didn’t know you were supposed to keep.

In closed spaces, this can sing; in open areas, it occasionally feels like you’re rearranging a room in the dark. Did I miss a clue? Is this for later? Am I an idiot? The game won’t tell you, and part of me respects that audacity.

Side quests—those “good deeds”—walk the same tightrope. Find the exact photo. Track down a bottle. Lovely when the trail’s warm, maddening when it goes cold, especially when you learn some are time-sensitive only after you’ve failed them. It’s a choice. It feels honest to the world’s cruelty. It also stings like a paper cut under salt.

The climax spikes everything. Tight corridors squeeze the combat. Maze-like sequences ratchet the stress. Lore puzzles demand you actually remembered names, places, dates, and the quiet things people whispered earlier. It’s thrilling and a bit padded, like a final exam that adds an extra section after time’s up. I pushed through, jaw clenched. It was annoying, but it was also impressing.

A beautiful contradiction

Hell is Us is a seesaw. The art direction is grim-beautiful, the soundtrack just creepy enough to crawl into your ribs. The confidence of the design—trusting players to figure it out—feels almost rebellious in 2025. Build variety helps the whole thing hum. But then: backtracking. Wandering. Staring at a puzzle while your tea gets cold. Rémi himself can swing from icily detached to surprisingly tender, and sometimes the gear shift grinds.

And yet, I kept thinking, this is the point. The game wants friction. It’s daring you to meet it on its terms, to accept that clarity is earned, not granted. When it clicks, it’s exhilarating. When it doesn’t, it’s sand in the gears.

Quick hits

• Best feeling: Landing a perfect parry, triggering the healing pulse, and melting a stubborn elite before your stamina drops.
• Worst feeling: Realizing your last 20 minutes were a scenic loop because the clue was on a crumpled flyer you walked past twice.
• Underrated bit: The hush between skirmishes, where the wind feels like it’s carrying rumors.

Verdict, with a wince

Hell is Us is stubborn, striking, and sometimes self-defeating—like an auteur film that refuses subtitles. It knows what it wants to be, and if you meet it halfway, it gives back: tense duels, thorny mysteries, a world that lingers. If you need clean lines and clear directions, this will drive you up a wall. If you can stomach the lows, the highs feel earned in a way most games don’t even attempt anymore.

I wouldn’t call it a must-play for everyone. I would call it a must-try for anyone who misses getting truly, productively lost.

What about you—does the no-hand-holding thing thrill you or make your eye twitch? Drop your take in the comments, share your best (or worst) puzzle moments, and follow VGamerz on Facebook and Instagram for more reviews that actually say the quiet parts out loud.

Did you know women aren’t just “cozy gamers”? Alyska proves it, as she plays horror and 600,000 watch her.

All images are from store.steampowered.com.