A standout presentation in Sony’s September State of Play was Hell is Us, coming from fledgling Montreal headquartered studio Rogue Factor. The entirety of its inclusion was a fifteen-minute gameplay reveal trailer whereby the game’s Creative and Art Director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête took us through the third-person action-adventure’s unique concepts surrounding exploration and combat, intriguingly surmising players will need to follow their nose and trust their instincts to navigate and survive the serene yet disturbing world of Hell is Us.
Set in the early nineties inside the fictional country Hadea, we’ll assume command of Remi as he absconds an O.N. peacekeeping mission to infiltrate the hermit state. This is a land ravaged by brutal civil war; Remi is returning to the country of his birth for the first time since his mother smuggled him out at the age of five, him having grown up within Canada’s foster system without his real mum or dad. He yearns to learn the fate of his parents, perhaps see them again, to rationalise their decision to eject him from Hadea whilst confronting the resulting trauma of their abandonment. From this premise we’re expecting mature themes but there’s more lurking in the landscape’s woodland. Whilst Hadea’s glistening pools, forests, and marshland seem quiet and idyllic Remi is soon confronted with the pitiless effects civil war has tolled upon the nation and the cruelty humanity has enacted on each other. Mass graves pile with rotten corpses, slain citizens hang from tree branches, a surviving populace display exhausted fear in their eyes. Before Remi’s confronted with the visceral horrors of war though, he stumbles upon a dilapidated farmhouse, and its tired occupant resting in the basement.
It is here Belletête proudly presents an overview of Hell is Us’ exploration, it’s reluctance to hold your hand, its refusal to offer points of interest or even objectives on a silver platter. Remi is told to trek northwards through the farmhouse’s surrounding woodland, and whilst he’s equipped with a traditional compass in his inventory (although we don’t get a glimpse of it during the gameplay trailer) the basement dweller suggests following the sound of windchimes that he’s hung from tree branches to reach the other side of the forest. See, the story is he hung those windchimes in those woods when his children were young, the intention being to provide an auditory signpost to stop them getting lost. Without the benefit of on-screen UI, maps, waypoints, markers, stuff flashing up on screen to guide and distract you, Remi – and thus you the player – must use his senses to find a way through without getting lost. It’s a more organic, natural way to explore for sure. Belletête belies an unenthusiastic approach to those more traditional waypoints and such too, exclaiming that in other games “when you find something it’s not really your discovery.”
It’s hard to disagree with the concept Rogue Factor have opted for here. If we truly put ourselves in Remi’s shoes, we’re lost in a country with no knowledge of the land and very little understanding of the tribulation lying in wait. Deploying this organic form of exploration supports this notion perfectly. We’re an alien in a hostile land, the sense of uneasiness compounding as our need to explicitly engage with our surroundings increases.
Remi has two memories with which to start his investigation: his home village is Jova and his father was a blacksmith. That’s it, although he isn’t thrust into the midst of a civil war without any help whatsoever. He possesses a tool with which he can archive information gathered: his mind map-esque data pad. This digital screen provides an overview of Remi’s knowledge, tidbits of info harvested from NPC conversations and environmental world building, although the data never presents a complete picture of what he’s been told or discovered. If there’s something not in the mind map, well, you’d better be sure to remember it.
There’s some Resident Evil style environmental puzzles to solve; ancient glyphs to decode, primeval language to decipher, and here is our first glimpse of Remi’s drone companion as it scans archaic scrawl to reveal riddles which correspond to the misaligned glyphs on a locked door. It’s all very routine stuff, but Belletête assures us that there’ll still be no hand holding. We’ll have to search environments for clues, but the example here doesn’t break the mould as much as open world exploration might.
However, exploration, as outlined by Belletête, is only 50% of the experience. The rest is combat, and whilst Belletête is clear to point out that Hell is Us is not a Soulslike he advises there’ll be a deep, nuanced combat system, one with challenge and a learning curve, yet not too difficult to master. Remi wields an arsenal of medieval weaponry – swords, axes, and the like – but he’s not getting stuck into the ongoing civil war ravaging the land. No, there’s something altogether more supernatural stalking Hadea’s landscape, and we’re treated to numerous bouts between Remi and gangs of ghostly bipedal enemies dubbed Hollow Walkers in the gameplay reveal. These faceless ghouls are flanked by umbilically attached floating hazes which Remi will need to figure out how to destroy to kill their connected Walkers.
There’s a raft of special manoeuvres he can unleash – twisting typhoon attacks, forward charges, and super dashes – plus limbic skills which perform much like magical attacks, attained via collectable augmentations that can be attached to Remi’s melee weaponry. All these tools must be utilised, according to Belletête, if players are to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of Hollow Walkers and haze-like entities. Remi’s drone also possesses upgradeable skills to utilise on the battlefield, with the examples shown encompassing crowd control. Remi can send the drone onwards to distract an enemy, break a Hollow Walker away from its attachment, and generally ease any desperation felt when battling outnumbered. From the gameplay preview, it certainly looks like Rogue Factor have balanced difficult combat without the possibility of it becoming too punishing. Enemies will obviously become more powerful as Remi himself grows his arsenal and skillset, but the battles shown in the fifteen-minute presentation never look too taxing.
As for this supernatural threat, we’ll learn the origin of the Hollow Walkers as we play through Hell is Us. For now, it’s hard to overlook their similarity to The Hiss in Remedy Entertainment’s Control, who themselves are a sentient force capable of possessing living things, objects, and even locations. The Hiss also deploy non-violent clusters which serve as healing forces for its battle-going soldiers; the Hollow Walker’s haze-like entities perhaps perform similar functions? Belletête is understandably tight-lipped on the Hollow Walker’s purpose and meaning, but we could surmise this supernatural force is something older than mankind itself given the propensity for subterranean bunkers stuffed with unfathomably old architecture dotted throughout Hadea’s fields.
Altogether, Hell is Us looks to be blending a mysterious, lore-rich universe with a demand for engaged exploration and meaningful discovery. Its combat looks decent, although not utilising as much of a unique concept as the game’s exploration if the gameplay trailer’s alpha footage is anything to go by. Still, there’s heaps of promise here, and given the passion elicited by Belletête during the presentation, there’s no reason to think this one won’t stick its landing.
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