September 2025 could very well be the month where the RPG genre gets quite the shake-up, with Hell Is Us making its way to its players’ hands.
Rogue Factor’s attempt to bring a new way to create immersion in its gameplay loop is sure to be quite the action-adventure game, bringing its protagonist to a land filled with horror, mystery, and an insightful spin on how war can tear apart the lives of those whose lands it touches.
If you’re on the fence about diving into the adventure next month, here are a few things to keep in mind before you dive in.
1. A Story of Strife and Self-Discovery
Hell Is Us follows Remi, a United Nations Peacekeeper who goes rogue, travelling to the country of Hadea to learn more about the fate of his parents. However, Hadea has been ravaged by a war, and things an event called the Calamity has caused further havoc within its borders.
Reme’s quest follows his attempts to make sense of what has happened to his homeland while uncovering clues as to his parents’ whereabouts. Along the way, he must fend off terrifying enemies while learning more about their origins from surviving NPCs he encounters as he travels.
2. Exploration
Reme’s efforts are achieved by exploring Hadea and finding clues that explain its current dire circumstances. The land is littered with things to find, dungeons to uncover, secrets to tease out, and lore drops to dive into.
Rogue Factor has been emphatic about creating a world in which each playthrough can be largely different from another, with its players having a lot of agency in controlling how their adventure unfolds for them. Moreover, the game encourages you to keep your eyes and ears open as you go along, ensuring that you do not miss out on subtle hints it is trying to give you.
3. Excellent Visuals
Those subtle hints form a major part of the game’s excellent graphics, with the environments you explore becoming a character on their own, and an important one at that. Early previews of the game showcase a haunting world filled with ethereal beauty contrasted against the devastation that Hadea’s conflict has wrought.
It’s a world that speaks to its players not just through its stunning landscapes but with details in its environment that are designed to indulge your curiosity and have you wondering what taking the path you see in front of you could dig up.
4. Hadea Wants To Be Discovered, Not Just Explored
Rogue Factor’s determination to revamp how action-adventure games are explored ensures that the visually stunning world encourages you to pay as much attention as you can to every detail that you find in its nooks and crannies. Hadea is a land that hides all of its secrets well, sometimes in plain sight, or in obscure corners of its territory.
Remi’s adventure has been designed from the ground up around a concept called “player plattering”, which Rogue Factor describes as every player loading up their plate with discoveries essential to their experience and progress. It’s an approach that does away with waypoints, markers, and the like, requiring you to find your own way through Hadea as you learn more about its complicated past.
5. Secret Dungeons To Discover
Making your way through Hadea is likely to bring you to the doors of secret dungeons, which contain loot, lore drops, bosses to take on, and so much more. Rogue Factor insists that each of these dungeons brings something unique to the table in their showcase, and we’re inclined to believe them.
However, finding them all is sure to be a challenge considering just how opaque the game’s map is designed to be. Remi certainly has his work cut out for him if he wants to learn every little detail about what happened to his homeland in his absence.
6. Every Conversation Has Potential
You’re going to want to pay attention to every NPC you meet and what they have to tell you as you explore Hadea. That’s because each line of dialogue has been crafted to include important information about the world, and perhaps point you towards a new objective or side quest.
NPCs in Hell Is Us aren’t just there to provide exposition. They are an important part of Remi’s journey and an added layer of immersion in a world that already has it in spades.
7. “Reddit-Tier” Puzzles and Secrets
In a conversation with But Why Tho, the developers were quite enthusiastic to elaborate on how environmental puzzles could vary in their difficulty, coming in four tiers. While puzzles in the lower tiers could be quite straightforward, the highest tier was internally referred to as the “reddit-tier”, a tongue-in-cheek allusion to how gamers lean on each other to solve obscure mysteries in modern gaming.
It could be a good idea to join the game’s subreddit when you begin your adventure, and enjoy it with the rest of the community that could thrive from Hadea’s many mysteries.
8. Approach Combat With Caution
While Rogue Factor has been quick to assert that Hell Is Us is not a Soulslike title, its combat certainly resembles the challenging loop that the genre is known for. You will need to master your weapons while managing your stamina when facing down its various threats. The lower your stamina in battle, the weaker your attacks and possibly defences.
While there is variety in the weapons you can wield, the game’s many threats could make using them effectively very challenging, but rewarding. It’s safe to assume that combat in this game is likely to come with a learning curve that could be well worth the effort.
9. The Healing Ring
If you’ve seen any of the game’s previews, you might have spotted a white ring around Remi whenever he manages to land a hit on an opponent. That is the Healing Ring, a unique healing mechanic similar to the Ki Pulse from the Nioh games. Instead of the latter’s restoration of your stamina, however, this mechanic is a great way to restore your health in the midst of battle with a well-timed button press.
It could be a very nifty addition to the game’s combat loop, considering its utility, and we can’t wait to see how it plays out when the game is in our hands.
10. Your Drone Companion Is Your Best Friend
While Hadea’s denizens may not be the best fit for tackling its many threats, that does not mean that Remi is alone on his adventures. Rogue Factor has given him a drone that is at his side in the field, with a lot of useful functionalities befitting the game’s sci-fi elements.
These include lighting up darker areas, which there are a lot of, and also acting as a distraction in combat, drawing the attention of enemies while Remi dishes out some damage. The drone is sure to expand its capabilities the more you explore Hadea, and perhaps be the only friend you need as you discover more about the calamity.
11. Deadly Enemy Types
If the game’s previews are any indication, there are a ton of enemies in the game, each with their own unique animations, attacks, and vulnerabilities for Remi to exploit. We were quite impressed with the ways in which every enemy managed to stand out as a threat and reflect the Calamity’s surreal effects on the world.
It’s highly likely that many of them hold even more secrets about the world at large, requiring that you take them down in order to uncover the mysteries surrounding their origins. That’s an excellent incentive to get into a few fights and engage with the game’s combat mechanics, although their designs could be an even bigger draw on that front.
12. Mystery Baked Into the Audio Design
An early mission in the game requires you to find an abandoned APC by following the sound of wind chimes to the north. That’s a perfect showcase of how the game’s audio design works hand in hand with its visuals to present an immersive experience in which you will need to listen for sounds that lead you down a path to new content.
The developers have been quite enthusiastic about the subtle clues that the game’s soundstage presents you with while you explore Hadea, with even its music adapting to the situation at hand to increase the immersion that it offers.
13. The Hollow Walkers and The Haze
Hell Is Us includes enemy archetypes that are largely spread across two categories: Hollow Walkers and the Haze. They are interconnected, with the Haze being the “physical manifestation of a human emotion” such as grief, wrath, and so on. The Hollow Walkers act as vessels for the Haze, with their attacks likely being influenced by the emotion they are driven by when you encounter them.
Those emotions play a part in other ways, other than influencing what an enemy brings to the fight as well.
14. Emotion-Aligned Weapons and Upgrade Glyphs
Just as enemies could be driven by various emotions, your weapons come with strengths and weaknesses tied to specific emotions. A unique upgrade system introduces Glyphs that could perhaps boost your weapon’s effectiveness against a particular emotion, making build variety an impressive addition to the game’s systems.
It will certainly be interesting to see how these emotion-aligned systems play out in the game, and to witness what its players manage to create as a result.
15. System Requirements
If you’re looking to play the game on PC, the minimum requirements that Rogue Factor recommends for Hell Is Us include a 64-bit processor, Windows 10 64-bit, an Intel Core i7-7700K/AMD Ryzen 3 3300X, 16 GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 8GB/AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB graphics card, 30 GB of SSD storage, and DirectX Version 12. That should get you 30fps at a 1080p resolution.
The recommended specs include a 64-bit processor, Windows 10 64-bit, an Intel Core i7-11700k/AMD Ryzen 5 7600, 16 GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB/AMD Radeon RX 6750 RX 12GB graphics card, 30 GB of storage, and DirectX Version 12, and an SSD if you want to play with upscaling enabled. You can achieve 60fps at 1080p with this setup.
The specs for a high level of detail and performance take things up a notch, requiring an Intel Core i7-11700k/AMD Ryzen 5 7600, 16 GB of RAM, and a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 10GB/AMD Radeon RX 6800 RX 16GB graphics card while all other specs remain the same which should net you 1440p at 60 fps with high settings enabled.
To achieve similar results with Very High settings enabled, you will need a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Ti 24GB/AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT 16GB graphics card under the hood.
Finally, achieving 4K resolution at 30fps with Ultra settings enabled will require that your graphics card be a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Ti 24GB/AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24GB.
We must note that many early preview builds of the game on PC did suffer a few performance issues, although it’s likely that Rogue Factor could iron out those kinks in time for the final release.
If you’re a PS5 Pro owner, know that the game is PS5 Pro Enhanced, although there is no information on what those enhancements are at the time of writing this article.
And that’s a wrap on the most important details you should know before you decide on whether Hell Is Us is an adventure you would like to take on. Will you be diving into Remi’s adventures as soon as you can? If yes, we’ll be sure to see you in Hadea!
