Hell is Us is an interesting game, and will likely be analyzed more deeply once the dust has settled on Hollow Knight: Silksong, as well as the 2025 game release calendar as a whole. Indeed, although it has arguably been overshadowed by Team Cherry's sophomore outing, Hell is Us has quite a bit going for it, and one can only hope that it will wind up getting the appreciation it deserves.
Having said that, Hell is Us is far from perfect. It prides itself on its bold approach to exploration and overall structure—as it should—but it still struggles to be captivating on a basic level, at least after a certain point in a playthrough. For instance, while it may do exploration and semi-open-world design better than a game like Horizon Forbidden West, its combat is nowhere near as expansive and satisfying as Guerrilla's sprawling blockbuster. And although its world is far more exciting to explore than those of Red Dead Redemption 2 or God of War Ragnarok, its narrative doesn't touch those games in terms of emotional power or consistency. What's interesting is how these shortcomings meld with Hell is Us' stronger elements, making it a unique sort of mixed bag.
Hell is Us Has a Great Central Hook, but Fumbles Major Design Facets
Why Hell is Us Works
Before getting into Hell is Us' various shortcomings, it's worth touching on what it does right. As previously mentioned, it has great exploration, but delving into what "great" means in this context is crucial for understanding the game's identity: Hell is Us is repelled by hand-holding mechanics and ubiquitous adventure game staples like map markers, compasses, and waypoints. Exploration is an important part of so many modern games, whether they be open-world or not, but precious few games actually have the courage to let the player run wild. Instead, most games carefully guide players to each point of interest, ensuring that they never have a chance of getting lost, making a mistake, or missing an important collectible.
If there's no risk of getting lost or missing out on something valuable, then the process of exploration becomes neutered. Much like a combat-oriented game where death is next to impossible, most open-world or adventure games make their exploration ineffectual out of fear of frustrating their audience. In other words, most games never take the exploration training wheels off, and in a sense, this makes it so that they don't have true exploration mechanics at all. Hell is Us' freeform game design ensures that this isn't the case.
Hell is Us' Strong Exploration Gets Undermined by Weak Combat and Storytelling
It would be great if Hell is Us matched its great, nuanced exploration systems with equally compelling combat, but that's sadly not the case. While it's not horrible, Hell is Us' combat is ultimately rather shallow and lacking challenge—a strange contrast to its more engaging, demanding exploration systems. Similarly, while admirable and creative in many ways, Hell is Us' narrative fails to be as hard-hitting and evocative as it seemingly wants to be. It attempts to balance a harrowing depiction of warfare with more supernatural undercurrents, and the result is awkward. The story winds up feeling very video gamey, in the sense that it wants to be sober and serious, but winds up being too action-packed and flippant.
Hell is Us is a good example of how unwavering commitment to combat can damage a game's story.
Synthesizing all of these points, it's hard to walk away from Hell is Us with a clear verdict. On the one hand, it's exemplary in some areas, taking major risks that pay off, but at the same time, it seems to tack on other facets of its gameplay and narrative, diluting the overall package. It's a bizarre blend of high, medium, and low-quality elements, which only contributes to its uniqueness.
Hell Is Us
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 78 /100 Critics Rec: 79%
- Released
- September 4, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Rogue Factor
- Publisher(s)
- Nacon
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Genre(s)
- Action, Adventure, Open-World
