How Hell is Us Holds a Mirror Up to the AAA Scene

by

In today’s gaming landscape, open-world titles are a common sight, but let me tell you, Hell is Us has managed to stand out among the crowd. While big names persist in rehashing the same old bland, repetitive, and generic elements of this genre, Rogue Factor with their game, Hell is Us, is taking bold steps that make it feel fresh, invigorating, and most importantly, captivating.

In more casual terms, Rogue Factor, being a compact team, has produced lesser-known titles such as Necromunda Underhive Wars and Hell is Us; however, Hell is Us stands out as their most audacious endeavor to date.

The game Hell is Us offers an intriguing take on adventure games: it delves into a semi-open world setting where traditional elements like minimaps, guided paths, and interruptive tips are abandoned. This game isn’t your typical open-world title like Far Cry; instead, it challenges players with a complex, unyielding environment to solve, almost like a colossal, intricate puzzle similar to a difficult Rubik’s Cube.

While the action and style remain engaging, players must rely on their analytical skills to advance, tackle puzzles, and discover key locations – setting it apart from its more mainstream counterparts that often follow a step-by-step guide. Essentially, Hell is Us sheds light on some of the AAA industry’s most common pitfalls by favoring a more thought-provoking gameplay experience.

How Hell is Us Puts Most Big Open-World Games to Shame

Hell is Us Turns Away from Most Open-World Design Tropes

It’s important to highlight and discuss some of the major problems that are commonly found in open-world games, which can sometimes feel repetitive or unoriginal.

  • Exploration driven by map markers rather than organic discovery
  • Too many variations of straightforward fetch quests
  • Neutered puzzles with too many hints

In the game Horizon Forbidden West, which is often praised for its high-quality AAA open-world design, players encounter an abundance of activities, locations to discover, collectibles to find, and characters to interact with. However, these elements are typically not integrated in such a way that challenges the player intellectually. Finishing a mission usually involves following a guide, accomplishing a task, and then following another guide to submit the mission. The game offers limited opportunities for unexpected or emergent gameplay because it often directs the player on where to go and what to do, making the multitude of open-world activities in Forbidden West feel more like an endless list of tasks to be completed rather than an immersive adventure.

In this realm, accessibility often collides with exceptional game design. While a challenging or complex game doesn’t inherently make it superior, video games have a distinct advantage in stimulating player creativity, problem-solving skills, and curiosity-aspects that justify the interactive experience. Games such as Horizon Forbidden West or Assassin’s Creed Shadows can diminish their appeal when they overly guide players, stripping away the game world’s mystery, charm, and enchantment. However, Hell is Us appears to grasp this concept, thereby preserving its magic.

In “Hell is Us”, spotting a building or unusual landscape in the distance can spark genuine, physical enthusiasm because you never know what hidden treasures that landmark might contain. This means that “Hell is Us” delivers an authentic taste of exploration and adventure as players are kept guessing about what lies ahead. Such a design strategy is crucial for evoking the sense of awe and vastness that open-world games aim to create, yet surprisingly few open-world games make the necessary effort to establish this template. Despite its flaws, “Hell is Us” stands out due to its daring concept, making it more captivating than many other, less risky games.

Read More

2025-09-11 21:04