I spent 30 minutes walking around a forest trying to find my way back to the main road by observing my surroundings. I can't believe I was actually looking at the environment and not ten pulsing HUD elements. There was no yellow paint on the road, either. There was no yellow paint anywhere.

Hell is Unreal 5 The performance isn't that great for me. Whoever came up with the whole "you lose as much stamina as you lose health" mechanic should have kept that thought to theirself. For it being an exploration game, my issues with that are: you can't jump, can't crawl or crouch and water kills you. The total lack of enemy variety killed this as a day-one buy for me. Refunded.

Game is alright. Nothing mind blowing outside of real depictions of heinous acts that can occur in wartime scenarios. Combat is underwhelming. There are systems in place which would suggest an increase to it's depth but those systems are mostly superficial. - As you progress you will primarily focus on 1 or 2 weapons. This is due to both the materials required to upgrade them (without significant farming) and also the fact that you gain experience in the single weapon not the weapon type and as that weapon levels so does its damage. Meaning if you want to swap weapons you will not only need to gather more upgrade materials but then spend time grinding EXP for that weapon as well. -- You will also eventually be able to stop enemies from spawning permanently in zones/maps which further reduces your ability to grind lower tier materials/xp weapons against lower tier enemies. - When you first upgrade a weapon you choose between Rage (Red), Ecstasy (Yellow), Grief (Blue), or Terror (Green). These types/colors don't correspond to anything else besides limiting the color glyphs you can use. - The majority of Glyphs are bad. Rage (Red) has 1 good glyph and Neutral (Grey/White) has 3. The rest aren't even worth using. - Enemies don't change much through out the game. You'll be fighting the same 5 enemy types and the only difference is occasionally 1 might spit out more balls to destroy before you can defeat them or there might be several tied to a ball to destroy. - The drone offensive moves are basically completely garbage and one of the enemies has the ability to deactivate your drone making it unreliable as a combat tool. - You can have 2 weapons equipped (requires swapping between and cannot use the same glyphs), 2 defensive pieces of gear equipped, 1 active relic and 1 passive relic. - All of the defensive pieces of gear do the same thing as far as defense and HP (called endurance in this game) goes. They all have a 3rd bonus modifier most requiring specific conditions to be met for activation. The two best defensive pieces of gear I've found thus far have no specific condition requirements and are by far way better than the rest. With very minimal trade off between defensive gear options become very shallow. - Active Relics have interesting effects and you may be swayed into picking one that best suits your play style but some are clearly much better than others. - Passive Relics are mostly junk imo with one of the best ones, in my opinion, being obtained near the beginning of the game. Combat doesn't even seem to be secondary in nature to this game. There is also a decent spike in difficulty (read: damage) between the enemy tiers. Exploration is good*. Each map has puzzles to solve. Maps very from small to large and the only progress blockers on a map is usually related to knowing a code combination or finding a key (so many keys). The issue becomes very apparent when you spend 20 minutes running to 5 different points on a map to do a puzzle correctly on the first go for nothing burgers. There is plenty to do and backtracking becomes mandatory at points if you are trying to uncover everything a map has to offer and sometimes because you have to in order to progress story. - One key issue I have with exploration is tied to progression. When you hit certain mile markers the maps will progress their states. Now you'd think this is a no brainer but when you've hit 3 maps and map states haven't been progressed it lulls you into a false sense and then you do something and BAM map state progression and now you need to replay the game if you want to obtain an achievement. Puzzles. - They range from pretty simple to oh I need a part from a different map and then will need to come back. Sometimes the part you need will be much later in the game. The hardest puzzles for me were because I misunderstood what it was asking of me instead of taking the clues at face value. Once I stopped trying to add in perceived notions I come across one that was that difficult. Sometimes a puzzle is required to progress but you might not find the clue, thats okay a majority of the progression puzzles are smaller combinations that can be brute forced and the more difficult ones with much harder combinations are generally optional. - Puzzles aren't seeded or generated in any way so if you know the combinations from your first playthrough they aren't changing on your next playthrough. Great for speed runners but not so great for replayability as you can skip a lot of exploration by just punching in the combination without needing to find the clues. The story still hasn't made a lot of sense to me. I'm nearing what I believe is the end of the game and nothing is really explained to you in cutscenes but I can make some educated guesses as to what I believe is going on base on all the clues you pick up and put in your inventory. As for our MC, his story so far is pointless and he is not very interesting. The land of Hadea is probably the most interesting thing and the MC could have literally been anybody. Overall this is a game that I'll beat* but I most likely won't replay it at least not immediately. This game is worth $40 at best. I'd honestly wait for a discount. tl;dr Nothing is particularly bad about this game but nothing is great either. * I'm on an i9-9900k + 2080 TI and the game runs great on medium settings with only minor stutter due to what I presume is background caching/loading areas even though I'm on an NVMe. However I can only play between 1 - 6 hours, typically 2.5 hours, before I get a crash to desktop. Never says what the crash is just prompts me to send the report in. It is starting to grate on me and if I don't finish the game before my patience runs out I'll probably just never finish it. Review written after my 4th crash today.

This game is kind of boring.

Before you downvote: read and pay attention. My review might have a reward at the end. You like rewards, don't you? Bla bla "exploration," bla bla "it rewards you," bla bla "pay attention." Every mystery, as the game calls it, starts out with you wondering: a. if you even should come back later, because you are missing key items b. If your solution is simply about thinking it out c. The missing key item is somewhere near. It is fine as is, but the problem lies within solving it. You may never know if you can solve it right from the beginning or if you should come back later. This issue highlights, in my honest opinion, the biggest flaw in Hell is us: Hell is time-being-lost-running-around-like-an-idiot. So what are you doing when you are not actually solving any mystery? You run, like, a lot. Combat is easy even on the merciless setting. If you know your way around an action game, you are set. There are no different builds or enemy variety. There is none. There are about 4 enemy types, 4 "Lymbic Sphere" assigned to them, 4 weapon types. One is slower than the other. Pick your weapon, and you might use it until the very end. That's called fun. Yes, exploration is so grand and massive, and it's rewarding! But why should I care? Those rewards are some random ahh relics, which I won't even need because the combat is already so easy. So why should I care about collecting more relics if I am already set for the whole game? You simply upgrade one weapon to tier 2 and tier 3 and tier 4, etc. The best example would be comparing two different kinds of rocket launchers with each other: One does 300 damage, but reloading takes 2 seconds, but the other does 250 damage and reloads in 1.5 seconds. People may try to tell you this is variety. But they won't tell you, regardless of what you choose, the enemy dies in one hit. So the variety falls flat because there is no reason to use and experiment with relics. If combat were more diverse and challenging in the right ways, I might be more motivated to look for relics. So what does this tell us? If you enjoy exploration for the sole reason of doing it rather than being rewarded, then be my guest. But if you think the reward SHOULD matter, then maybe your best course of action is to simply look elsewhere. This game tries so hard to be different, but it falls on its head even harder. The story and the lore are all kind of interesting, but they never go beyond being kind of interesting. . . . . Here is your exploration reward: SUPER RARE NON-AVERAGE RELIC OF EXPLORATION +100 stamina +5% stamina regen -5% stamina cost ABILITY: While your HP is kept above 90%, your stamina cost is further reduced by 5%.

If you're at all like me and you saw a soulslike and good reviews, STAY AWAY. This game, despite its clear Souls/Nioh influence, offers three enemy types, ZERO real bosses (not an exaggeration, there's tougher versions of regular enemies but they're not bosses in the slightest), and more stupid key-finding/puzzle-solving than actual gameplay. You will be standing in front of NPCs vomiting pages and pages of exposition at you while moving from multi-paragraph textbook lore dump item to lore dump item and picking up keys dropped on the ground wondering where the FUCK they even go to because the last chest you saw was a 25 minute walk ago all while occasionally having to spend three seconds fighting enemies that offer no challenge even on the hardest difficulty using abilities that have 90 second cooldowns and wondering why the fuck the world is so massive when there's NOTHING IN IT AND THERE'S NO MAP, something they want to brag about but don't understand that your maps have to be, you know, NOT A GIANT FEATURELESS CIRCLE if you want to be able to navigate it satisfyingly! The puzzles aren't satisfying, the combat isn't enough of a focus to be thoroughly enjoyed, all of the game's story is tucked behind items with walls of text and NPCs that are all willing to spill their guts before Adam Jensen can say that he never asked for this - it's just. not. fun. This feels like a game made for the people who thought Gone Home was the peak of gaming back in 2013. AKA: Not me!

Loses its appeal really fast. Everything is so arduous is mentally exhausting to the point it feels like a chore to do anything. There is so much crap you can find for NPC's it's ridiculous. There is so much crap you can find that you have no idea what it's for. Go here, go there. Find this, find that. Need something to open that door? Don't have what you need? Better remember what you need and where you are along with all the other places and things you need. I dread seeing an NPC. "What useless crap does this NPC need"? I ask myself. *sigh* I'm just over 12 hours in and am having to push myself to play, just to finish it because I paid for it. Also the combat is bad.

So, I just can't recommend this game. It's combat gets kinda stale fairly quickly, they make a big deal about "we don't give you maps or quest markers or anything" but it's pretty much just talk to the first person you come across and follow the threads. It's listed as "open world" and it has got some open areas, but it's not like an Elden Ring or Spider-Man where you can go anywhere and do anything, it's more of an open stage that has a few quests to go around and do in. You clear out one, then go to the next when you unlock it. Now, I only have 6 hours in it, and I have only completed act one. I have only fought one boss so far, and it was just a buffed up normal enemy. SO it's possible my opinion will change, but right now, I can't say it was worth the price tag, especially buying the deluxe for the 3 day head start. It is important to note that it does have positive reviews right now, so maybe I'm the oddball here.

Ultra settings, 1440p, DLSS Quality, with 3090 ~80 fps. No stutters. Impressive graphics and atmosphere, responsive movement. I stop buying AAAA+ games if this kind of quality gets delivered from smaller studios. EDIT: After 3 hours i can say i am hooked. Totally. I count the minutes when i can play again. Atmosphere: is so dark. Really dark. Its what the title says. And so thick you could slice it out of thin air. It confronts you with the human abyss that peeks deep into your soul. The stories you experience are dark, twisting, and what matters most; believable. Authentic. It just fits. The immersion is perfect. They know storytelling and in these times its one of the most outstanding traits there can be. Gameplay: Combat is nothing special but very well executed. Block, attack, special ability, dash/roll. But the focus is more on exploring/story. And that is what really shines. I walked through the same areas thrice, back and forth just to not miss anything. Without getting annoyed. But rather satisfyed that i saw and experienced every inch of the map. I talked to every NPC just to be impressed on how diverse their personalities are and what they tell me about this world. Usually i in RPGs i just rush through to get to the next weapon/eqipment, not in this game! Soundtrack: Fits perfectly into the world. Not more or less. It pulls the strain, underlying the tension, making you dive deeper with every new situation just to never let you go when you think you now can relax or take a step back. Play with good headphones and enjoy getting soaked in!

Lost and Loving Every Second

10/10 – For people who love wandering around like headless chickens and actually enjoy it Okay, so I bought Hell Is Us right after pre-ordering Lost Soul Aside and immediately regretting that choice like a bad haircut But this game? No regrets at all. It just tosses you into this gloomy, war-torn mess and basically says, “Good luck, Sherlock, Find your own way.” And honestly? I did. Sort of. After walking in circles a lot

No Map, No Clue, No Problem

This game is the king of giving zero help. No maps, no arrows, no glowing lights pointing where to go—just you, your bad sense of direction, and a whole lot of confusion You’ll wander around like a lost puppy sniffing every corner, hoping you’re not retracing your steps for the hundredth time SPOILER: You probably are. But that’s half the fun. Or half the headache. Depends on your mood.

Sadness Everywhere, And I’m Here For It

The world looks like someone forgot to turn off the “depressing war movie” filter It’s dark—but also kinda beautiful in a “wow, this place really hates me” way If you like your games like your coffee—dark and bitter—this one’s got you covered

NPCs Who Could Win at The World’s Most Boring Tour Guide Contest

Forget friendly chatty people The NPCs here are more like, “Go over there. Solve that thing. Don’t get killed. Bye.” No emotional backstory, no dramatic speeches Just blunt directions like your least helpful friend who still somehow gives the best advice Sometimes they drop puzzle hints, but mostly they sound like they’d rather be anywhere else

Fighting That’s Actually Fun (Surprise!)

The combat is fast, brutal, and really satisfying The finishers are so savage I laughed and cringed at the same time—like watching a horror movie but with swords Plus, there’s a big bunch of weapons to choose from, so whether you want to stab, smash, or just mess stuff up, you’re covered

Puzzles That Make You Question Your Life Choices

The puzzles don’t hold your hand You’ll stare at a weird rock or some random thing for ages thinking, “Is this important or just a rock?” Then suddenly you figure it out and feel like a genius… right before the next puzzle makes you feel dumb again It’s confusing, annoying, and somehow addictively fun—like trying to assemble furniture without the instructions

Runs Like a Dream, Unlike My Life

Big shoutout to the developers because this game runs smooth No crashes, no weird bugs, no lag. The only thing breaking here is my brain trying to understand what the heck is going on

Final Thoughts: I’d Get Lost Here Again in a Heartbeat

If you’re into: Walking around totally lost and loving it Solving tricky puzzles that make you want to scream Fighting creepy monsters with brutal weapons Exploring a sad, broken world that’s basically a big emotional mess Then Hell Is Us is your perfect nightmare. 10/10. Got lost, got confused, fought monsters, solved puzzles, and had an absolute blast. Would happily get lost again and again

no yellow paint on walls and roads no following a glowing trail no quest markers telling you where everything is no npc's telling you what to do just good old fashioned "here is a digital world and story, go explore!"

0/10

I did not enjoy this game at all. My biggest complaint is right off the bat it states its highly recommended you use a controller for the game. And they aren't lying. I played it on mouse and keyboard and it was one of the most atrocious set ups I've ever played. I wasn't dying because fights were hard but because i was fumbling over the keyboard. I don't understand why you would sell a game for pc and expect people to use a controller. Keep it to console. On top of that, the game felt like another walking simulator with endless talking and reading with some fights sprinkled in. I mean, I got a little over 3hrs of gameplay in, maybe the story picks up, but I quite frankly wasn't interested in continuing.

I will change my review to positive once I'm able to remap the interact button. I want "Interact" on B and "Dodge" on A why this company is vehemently against the remapping of interact is bizarre.

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I like the no map no objectives no whatever but unfortunately all of the puzzles are just "read this and then put in the code" or "find a key item and put it here" and the combat sucks. On top of this you play a protagonist with the worst hair cut of all time

needlessly tedious , not adding modern quality of life features does not make a game good , it just disguises a bad game for a little while till people start realizing how bad it is, well maybe this game inst bad, but the difficulty and interest only come from the lack of modern features , in the past those features not being in the game freed up much needed memory so the game would run, they couldn't have as many features as a modern game with the amount of memory we can use on a computer , there were several games i can think of off the bat that were remarkable games that got around the limitations of the older computers and were still fun despite the lack of modern fetures, like legacy of kain: soul reaver , shadow man , and tomb raider 1 , i think some of the ramakes of the game added quality of life features ,but hte originals when they cme out didnt have maps ,quest markers, fast travel ,i remember how excited i was when i realized that soul reavers levls were unlocked inside levels you had already went through forcing you to go back and unlock them, kind of like modern souls likes, the souls games are examples of great games that utilize the same types of features , but add in enough quality of life features to not make it tedious, the new version of lords of the fallen give an interesting twist on this, as when you go to each new iteration of NG + they remove fast travel spots forcing you to utilize the interconnections that the game provides, sorry for the coffee induced rant i think i am done LOLz

Good graphic/Sound/Music/Combat/Puzzle. The best is the Story. The Story is about Todd Howard and his adventure in the chaotic land of Microsoft. Todd Howard is the hero of this story as he unite the missing members of Bethesda to save the land. A gripping story of struggles, turmoils, and heart wrenching tale to bring Elder Scrolls 6 into existence. If you like Todd Howard and are a fan of Todd Howard then get this game because this is his background lore. I give this a 200 out of 10 Starfield. "It just works" - Todd Howard

Sublime, story, atmosphere , gameplay. Must play and NO its not a Soulslike, you can tune quite a lot the difficulty of the game. And bless the exploration on this.

So the game tried something really cool, but it was poorly made. The no hand-holding approach is cool when the game design is good, but here you just waste time searching for something to unlock a door/box, only to rage quit, then keep playing 2–4 maps later and finally find the stupid item. So exploring feels like a waste of time and not enjoyable most things are lock to "find the item you don't know where, you don't know if you missed it or if you will find it later on the game". I think they really tried too hard not to hold your hand. Some characters don’t even act normally for example, someone says ‘help me, I’m stuck,’ but you can’t ask him something simple like ‘hey, any idea how to help you?’ I mean, you got yourself stuck, you live/work here, so you should have some useful info. Combat: the variety is really bad. You have 5 mobs with 3 tiers. ‘Bosses’ are just one of those 5 mobs with bigger stats. Tiers only add stats and maybe 1–2 skills. The thing that really bothers me is that a lot of stuff is locked 3–5 maps later. You just waste your time searching everywhere on the map for nothing and when you find something you need to go the the car take it to the other map with 30s load each time.

this is a must buy

Here's the thing about young, modern, mainstream gamers: they have a lot to say, and they're often wrong. A bunch of you were wrong on this one. Leading up to the release, I willfully poisoned my eyes and mind with the usual mainstream gamer nonsense chatter/assumptions. All of it was wrong. Even after the "early unlock" began, the nonsense continued: 'It's boring.' And my favorite: 'Everything is filler for no story.' The people who say this are the same people who gave Elden Ring a perfect score, a game that does the exact same thing Hell Is Us does narratively, revealing the story/situation as the player advances. I was gifted this on my Xbox Series X, but 3 hours in, I wanted to experience it on PC with GeForce Now, which I've been using for almost a year now. First off, I can't relate to the "UE5 is garbage" claims. I'm not saying people haven't been having problems, but I've been playing UE5 games on GFN Ultimate and the experience has been near-flawless every time. So my own verdict is this: your machine just can't handle UE5 games, or your configuration is off in some way. Of course, the beauty of GFN Ultimate is that no expense has been spared to put together machines with the best components that do not bottleneck, always have the latest drivers, and are tweaked just right. So UE5 has always been a dream for me. And that being said, the game is gorgeous. The character animations are a step above any other soulslike I've played. My one pet peeve about soulslikes has always been that the characters feel stiff, which I realize to some extent is a benefit for the action elements, but Hell Is Us strikes a nice balance of realism and fluidity with snappiness. So the action elements are satisfyingly visceral. You feel a real connection with attacks and defense, and it can get really chaotic with dual-wielding. As your "Lymbic" arsenal grows, combat becomes increasingly satisfying, and the drone (straight out of The Division) is a nifty strategic element, proving crowd control in the early game. What is this "Lymbic" stuff? I don't know. But therein lies the beauty of the narrative. The lore is faux-historic stuff that deliciously borders on biblical. The name Hell Is Us does refer to human beings being 'just the worst', yes, but it also refers to Hell in a literal sense, as in the place. And that's all I'll say about what I know of the story thus far. So not only are you going to be tasked with enduring the darkness of man, you'll be facing the darkness of Hell, or whatever Hell-like force these people are fighting. The music in this game is just beautiful. It reminds me at times of Jerry Goldsmith's score for ALIEN, that old, spare soundtrack that so often emulates creeping, crawling things. The work here is as much a part of the world as the physical textures are. If you removed the score or scored it in another style entirely, the game wouldn't be nearly as effective in imbuing a sense of constant dread. And the world is dreadful at every turn, even in broad daylight. Don't turn the music off, ever. You should be slapped on the wrist if you do. Some other things I want to point out: exploration is soulslike, yes, but you'll be reminded of Resident Evil when you find useable, examine-able items and weapons, and with the item menu opened on the fly by right trigger and the weapon menu opened by left trigger, everything you need in the moment is quickly accessible. TL;DR Hell Is Us is a beautiful, atmospheric game that takes advantage of UE5. The experience is a slow burn and declares in its introduction to have been designed to require your initiative to explore. All you have is a compass for finding your way around. Maps and magically-appearing waypoints are nonexistent. If an NPC (fully-voiced, all of them) tells you to find the ruins to the west, that's all you get. This is a game to be experienced layer by satisfying layer, in the most organic way possible. Enter and stumble about. And enjoy.

why did you give your exploration/investigation game such terrible combat? healing pulse mechanic is terrible, umbilical gimmick is ridiculous when you have 4 or 5 enemies linked. why not design something new for the later acts? lol you just keep adding an extra guy frequently crashes, no error log or crash report option, computer just shuts off in the middle of playing

Kind of boring.. feels like I'm doing something wrong. The style is great, love everything about the world but the gameplay is a slog. The combat seems like I always run out of stamina immediately so the intended counter is using the over-abundant Drone-Cooldown-Reset consumables I have every single combat encounter. There's more to the game but really it boils down to that's the loop for me: run into combat, run out of stamina, pop CDs, pop CD-refresher, repeat. (ZzZz..) I hope it gets better but so far it's such a by the numbers game with meh combat I'm struggling to want to continue to play this over pretty much anything else.

Its not souls like its a souls-lite (ok story though)

Hell is your quest designer, who the fuck in their right mind would force a side quest to fail (Death's Door) because you finished another one (Heart of Gold), no hand holding doesn't mean you can get away with stupid design like this.