Hell is Us (2025)

Article: Hell is Us Review - Brains Over Brawn by Marcus Stewart

Score Report: 8.25 / 10

Hell is Us feels like a modernized spin on the classic action/adventure game that, as a third-person game, feels obligated to include combat. The game’s investigation elements are much more fleshed out in comparison to the action, which is, at least, passable enough to endure while I enjoy the main treat of running around and solving puzzles. I’ll be deciphering the game’s remaining riddles well after I rolled credits, and I can’t wait to see what revelations await. Hell is Us isn’t perfect, but it’s a bold and respectable debut that largely delivers on its promise, laying a strong foundation for future stories in its fascinating world.

Dropping the game because it doesn't respect my time lol

I was actually enjoying the game. I like the settings of the game, the atmosphere, combat not bad.

But they cant have me running around like a headless chicken and keep checking the guide coz i have no idea where or what im doing lol. Frustrating really.

Was fun while it last, just gonna watch youtube walkthrough like movie, peace out.

I like that this game doesn't hold your hand.

I DON'T like that this game locks you out of a Platinum trophy with timed side quests that do not indicate whatsoever that they are timed.

I'm only now - more than halfway through the game - discovering that each area changes as you complete certain objectives in the game. I'm also now completely locked out of the Platinum trophy unless I completely restart the game because I didn't know the flares a random NPC gave me (when I was playing over a week ago) were to be handed out to other NPCs in the same area before I finished the main quest in that area.

I'm cool with no map, no quest markers, no magic holographic line that guides you to the next objective, no yellow paint. I'm not so cool with locking you out of a trophy without so much as a "Hey before you do that thing, make sure you hand those flares out."

Some sporadic thoughts:

• This game works shockingly well as a handheld experience on the PlayStation Portal. Pick it up for 20 minutes, whip off a couple little tasks, put it down, etc.
• I really, REALLY enjoy how much of this game can be brute-forced like real archeology. It doesn't use moon logic where it's like, "The answer won't work until your character has all the notes to give him the answer." No, sometimes you have 4 of 5 tablets, and you have to deduce what the 5th one might say. Because it's been gone for 1000 years. That I have been able to solve so many puzzles with incomplete info has been very fun.
• Combat is incredibly tedious, especially with the enemies that fart out a neon ghost thing. It's more of an annoyance than anything fun.

I'm still here— alive, and unexpectedly absorbed.

Hell Is Us has a way of closing around you, like a mist that never quite reveals its source. Five hours in, and I can feel the edges of its design pressing inward, shaping the contours of my attention in ways few modern games attempt. It doesn't clamor for me with the garish insistence of endless content or hollow systems. Instead, it invites - quietly, almost conspiratorially - into a world full of lived history.

Exploration here isn't a checklist; it's an unfolding. The map doesn't vomit icons in your face like a desperate carnival barker. Instead, the land whispers possibilities, and you lean in to listen. It rewards curiosity without degrading it into compulsion, and that distinction is rare enough to savor.

The story hums beneath the surface, not yet fully spoken but alive with tension. It promises something, though it refuses to say what in clear terms. And the combat - functional, unpretentious - doesn't strive to dazzle, but to serve. There is an honesty in that, a refusal to inflate itself with empty spectacle.

I can't say yet where this road leads. Maybe toward brilliance, maybe toward disappointment. But the fact that I wonder, that I care enough to wonder, feels like a small victory in itself. Hell Is Us has me in its orbit, and for now, I'm content to remain there, tracing its gravity, waiting to see what further revelations lie in the dark.