Hell Is Us is an action-adventure video game played from a third-person perspective. In the game, the player assumes control of a soldier named Rémi, and fights against supernatural beings named "Hollow Walkers".[1] Players can combat these creatures using a variety of melee weapons such as swords, polearms and axes, with each having their own attack style and speed. Rémi is also equipped with a drone which can be used to distract hostile creatures.[2] Players need to manage both the health and stamina of Rémi. Stamina will gradually regenerate but health will not, though Rémi's maximum stamina at a given moment is limited by their current health level. Fighting in an exhausted state mean that the player character attacks weaker and is more vulnerable.[3]
Hadea was described by the team as a "semi-open world", and the game tasks players to gather clues to find Rémi's parents.[4] The game forgoes features commonly found in other games such as waypoints, quest logs and map markers. Players must listen to Rémi's conversations with other non-playable characters in order to find out the locations of their objectives.[5]
Premise
A United Nations peacekeeper named Rémi goes absent without leave and venture into the war-torn country of Hadea to find his parents, only to discover that the region is infested with supernatural beings following a mysterious event named the "Calamity".[6][4]
Development
The game is currently being developed by Rogue Factor, the studio behind Mordheim: City of the Damned. The project was led by Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, the art director for Deus Ex: Human Revolution and its sequel, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.[7] According to Jacques-Belletête, the game was inspired by the 2018 film Annihilation, and the Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer.[5] The game adopted a minimalistic head-up display as the studio was influenced by games released in the 1990s and wanted to create an immersive experience in which players receive information in an "organic" way.[8] Jacques-Belletete compared the combat system to those commonly found in hack and slash games, one that is neither overly easy nor hard.[9]
Hell Is Us was first announced by publisher Nacon in April 2022, and was scheduled to be released in 2023.[10] The game resurfaced in September 2024 during Sony's State of Play livestream event, and is currently scheduled to be released in 2025 for Windows, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S.[7]
