Hell is Us Demo Coming to Consoles - August 12th

I think this game is gonna be fire. Just beat the demo for the second time. I did itweeks ago. You got the misguided peace keepers, civil war factions and creatures.
I also love having souls like combat without it being overly difficult, however I think i may switch over to hard difficulty and see if I need to lower it.
I'm also just a big fan of this level of RPG elements to start with. Not too in-depth, but still some gear and upgrades involved.

It was a welcome break from Mafia, but heading back to that game, to finish it before this one releases.
 
Bojji said:
No wonder they added PSSR toggle in the menu, it's quite unstable with PSSR on:



Other than that performance mode looks fluid and is quite sharp (with both IQ options).
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I never noticed PSSR being unstable, myself. I'm not sure what I'm actually looking for in that video. Played the demo through with PSSR enabled, and it all looked fine to me..?
 
Played through the demo this morning.
Well made game. Robust combat system, intriguing story/lore [although there isn't much in the prologue]. Designed without map and quest markers in mind this seems to be a throwback to old school gaming but with modern elements/tech. I liked the atmosphere and music/sound design.
I'm sold, but I don't know if I'll be there day 1 or if I wait a couple of months until I have more time to immerse myself in this world.
 
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I played the demo and loved the setting, the aesthetics, the music, the graphics, and the gameplay/meele is very good... but the performance is a real letdown for me.
The 30fps quality mode is full of stuttering, and the 60fps mode is great in terms of fps, but the visual and graphical cutoffs are incredibly evident, especially in the forest sections. They should put effort into addressing this stuttering and consider including a 40fps mode as well.
 
Duchess said:
I never noticed PSSR being unstable, myself. I'm not sure what I'm actually looking for in that video. Played the demo through with PSSR enabled, and it all looked fine to me..?
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That's shit youtube compression. On console files are far better quality. Even at 4k details are fucked but look at this tree on both videos:

q1LItPElwFE0OiQp.jpg





It's flickering with PSSR on, and this can be seen all over the image in darker places.
 
I enjoyed the demo but it's definitely a game where I'll wait for reviews and impressions.
I guess my overall impression is that I like the ideas presented in the demo more than their execution. I like them focusing on exploration and puzzles but I want to know if the puzzles presented later on in the game are more interesting than the very basic stuff from the tutorial area. Same with the combat, it's ok but I want to know if there's a good enough enemy/skill/Boss variety to keep it interesting.

Some other impressions:
- It didn't look as bad as I thought it would on base Ps5. The IQ in performance mode isn't great but I've seen worse.
- The healing pulse mechanic is a bit OP, I don't need this to be super challenging but I never came even close to dying despite playing on hard.
- The menu to keep track of the clues and information you have gathered was nice, reminds of the way The Outer Wilds does it.
- The puzzles and even the way they are presented reminded me of Resident Evil more than anything.
- I think they just wanted to give the main character curly hair, but it literally looks like he has a zoomer ramen haircut which looks silly as fuck

Darsxx82 said:
The 30fps quality mode is full of stuttering, and the 60fps mode is great in terms of fps, but the visual and graphical cutoffs are incredibly evident, especially in the forest sections.
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I found some of the cutbacks in performance mode weird.
They remove a ton of trees and foliage from the background, not in the direct playable area but just from the non playable background. Many of the trees they remove are so far away they could probably have used low quality models or even flat 2D textures, so I can't imagine them being performance heavy.
 
Good thing I played the demo, but it sucks that you can't transfer your progression. Also this didn't catch me as I hoped it would, so waiting for a discount.
 
Played the demo for a bit, didn't finish it yet but really enjoyed it, really feeling the vibe and the atmosphere of this game. Enemies are pretty cool, combat seems decent. My type of game. I also like that you get to play as Adam Jensen, haven't heard that dude in a while.
 
I booted up the demo on PC last night to play on my 4k monitor, but I could only select 4k resolution in "Windowed" mode, at which point, thr game displayed, cut-off, across my two monitors. So I was stuck with 1080p, and so it didn't give a great first impression.

Looking to try again tonight and figure out the resolution issue.
 
rapid32.5 said:
Just finished it, I liked the world and ambience with Silent Hillish feel.
You're not supposed to open every door and the temple in this demo?
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No. You find keys and artifacts in other regions in the full Game, but you can open the door where you find the medkit for the soldier. But even that door you have to brute force into.

BgqZDy1.jpg
 
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Oh something I forgot, HDR seems busted in this, at least for me (Ps5, LG C1).
Looks really washed out regardless of which setting I use in the "calibration" menu.

The game instantly looks better disabling HDR in the menu.
 
After playing i m "confused" i liked the npc interactions and world exploration, but this action combat dosent feel right, idk its an odd feeling, like, a Xcon type of combat would fit perfectly imo.
 
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I do hope they have an appropriate difficulty level for souls vets.

I've been playing these nonstop for a decade so NG0 can't be victory lap easy with Alan Wake puzzles. Honestly a little concerned. Definitely interested to know more.
 
Fbh said:
Oh something I forgot, HDR seems busted in this, at least for me (Ps5, LG C1).
Looks really washed out regardless of which setting I use in the "calibration" menu.

The game instantly looks better disabling HDR in the menu.
Click to expand...

Not surprising.....i couldnt make it look as good as other HDR games either. The way they have 3 or 4 different sliders with very vague descriptions on what they do is the problem. Devs need to stop doing this shit and give us one slider for HDR with a description that is easy to understand
 
sloppyjoe_gamer said:
Not surprising.....i couldnt make it look as good as other HDR games either. The way they have 3 or 4 different sliders with very vague descriptions on what they do is the problem. Devs need to stop doing this shit and give us one slider for HDR with a description that is easy to understand
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Thank you. I really wish HDR sliders would become streamlined or at least explained in layman's terms in a more understandable manner. I have to believe that the vast majority of people out there just slide shit around until it looks acceptable enough.
 
So the game for some reason respects your Windows desktop scaling percent. I had mine set at 200%, so it would only let me use 1080p without spilling over across multiple monitors. I set scaling to 100% and it's working now.
 
Got to the end of the demo. I don't think I completed everything I could, but enough to smell what the devs are steppin' in with this one.

Cool concept and execution. Ngl, I'm intimidated by it not being hand-holdy, mainly in its story. I'd love to have the type of mind that can remember and stitch together connections between made-up proper nouns, but I've never been good at it. Real life is hard enough to parse in that way.

Anyway--I'm digging the soulslike nature, the setting, and I think the exploration and progression will be even more rewarding than most games (if I can refrain from going to an online guide every time I hit a progress wall).

Even if I'm not 100% sold, it's different enough from any other game I've played, made by former Deus Ex devs, and $50, so I'll probably Day One this. I want to vote with my wallet on this one.
 
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Punished Miku said:
I was getting Alan Wake vibes in the forest for sure.
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Love the Alan Wake vibes. Alan Wake 2 is one of the only games that I love that has very mediocre combat. The atmosphere is that good. I feel similarly here. Everything about it draws me in

The one thing this demo made me realize is that Souls like combat games don't need to 100% be about the combat. Give me good world building, puzzles, and well crafted quests. This demo nails everything except the combat being a bit janky
 
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Why on EARTH did they give the MC the curliest, shiniest hair of any human being to have ever existed!?

It's so distracting in the opening cutscene.

Looks terrible. Absolutely bizarre.
 
This was one of my most anticipated games of 2025 before I played the demo and it's even more so after the demo. I did everything I possibly could, found every secret afaik, love the atmosphere, air of mystery, lack of hand-holding, slick presentation, great DualSense haptics, sense of immersion, weighty combat, pretty much everything. Enemy variety will be a ? mark but that's true of most games and very few fully satisfy me, won't stop me from enjoying it.

I found the camera sensitivity to be way too high by default, one of the first things I did was play around with the sliders until it felt right. Disappointed that although there are multiple weapon glyphs to find (read: equippable weapon skills) there doesn't seem to be any way to upgrade your weapons in the demo to allow you to equip them. Was surprised combat took cues from both Sekiro with parry/posture breaking and Nioh with heal pulse (ki pulse), good stuff though healing might be OP. Drone is cool and I imagine will be a lot more fun once you get upgrades/modules for it.

Demo ends perfectly in that your teased with a vast new area to explore and you want to keep going! Can't wait for the full release, price is the icing on the cake, so many great games coming the next couple of months, 2025 continues to deliver and I've been here for all of it 👌
 
I just briefly tried this on steamdeck and camera is so weird. I dropped sensitivity but it still gives me a weird feeling like this will be headache inducing. Atmosphere is great. Definitely Alan Wake vibes. Characters are also very well done that you encounter. I am seeing alot of flickering going on.
 
Jesb said:
I just briefly tried this on steamdeck and camera is so weird. I dropped sensitivity but it still gives me a weird feeling like this will be headache inducing. Atmosphere is great. Definitely Alan Wake vibes. Characters are also very well done that you encounter. I am seeing alot of flickering going on.
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Trying to run a Unreal Engine 5 game on Steamdeck will never end well
 
Man, gotta say, seldomly you see a game "borrowing" from SO MANY other games at the same time to the point of feeling so disjointed and so derivative, the game doesn't know if it wants to be Death stranding, a generic as hell souls-like (or shall I say Nioh-like), Returnal or whatever the fook...
I always believed that THIS type of game has to have the appropriate budget behind it 'cause man, this one lacks one and it friggin' shows everywhere :
- Mediocre as hell graphics
- Mediocre as hell art direction
- Mediocre as hell animations
- Bad to mediocre combat
- super mediocre level design

One moment you're playing a generic 3rd person action adventure inspired by Kojima fuckery, the next you're playing something that it desperately wants to be Returnal with its "heavy atmosphere®" and sound design, the next you're playing a Nioh derivative with ki-pulses (lol) and then you're back again to a Kojima death stranding wannabe with its "weird", futuristic art direction, enemies and general "somberness" - it's this weird mishmash of ideas and NOTHING gels well...
Take for example the 1st combat encounter's "intro", it clearly apes those cyborg ninja/Gray fox moments from MGS in trying to look "cool" but...it falls completely flat, you just can't replicate the usual Kojima fuckery with a straight face and low budget and 1/10 of his expertise, you just can't, the whole "mystical girl with a pancho and sword" intro feels so out place, so badly directed , so tone-deaf that it just comes off as comically bad, and it's followed by some of the most basic, boring and badly animated souls/Nioh-like combat to boot ? Thank you but no thank you.

It feels like one of "those" low budget German open world RPGs and/or Souls-likes that lack everything good about 'em - soulless copies if you will.
The simple, RE inspired puzzles are meh, the level "design" is basically straight, fenced paths with some branching here and there, the whole Ghost of Tsushima "Not a GPS man !®" navigation system is also there 'cause...why not ?, the animations are terribad (press the sprint button while on a ladder, lmao), the camera system is all kinds of fucked, the combat is so idiotic and tone-deaf that I just can't (cinematic finishes anyone ? lmao), the graphics are incredibly mediocre especially after playing/coming from something like DS2), the art direction is outright bad (reminiscent of those ugly, German games I mentioned before) and it also doesn't run particularly well (30fps capped cutscenes/various framerate drops).

Gonna be honest though, since I'm a sci-fi nut, I could see myself playing this down the line - when it's down to 10-15 Eurodollars and/or "free" on a sub service, I just can't do soulless, derivative games anymore with mid budgets, this, judging from the demo at least, is a 6.5/10 game through and through since it doesn't have ONE original bone in its proverbial body...
 
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beat the demo. Somehow I can't download it, only stream so image quality really sucked but that could be the reason. I love all design fundamentals and while some things feel kinda on the budget, I hope the game succeeds to send the message against handholding.
 
They sold me on it with the demo... got very mixed vibes from the game... Sam Porter kojima vibes... silent hill 2 remake ambient vibes... alan wake 1 forest and even some ICO vibes 'cause it doesn't wanna be another soulsgame and wanna be more arcade not punishing exploration.
 
The moment the enemies began appearing in every corner of the map, it felt like the game was degraded to a run-of-the-mill souls game, which was a bit disappointing to see after the initial section of demo. I do hope that the final game has more emphasis on exploration and puzzle solving rather than combat. Other than that, it looked and played great.
 
Darkkahn said:
The moment the enemies began appearing in every corner of the map, it felt like the game was degraded to a run-of-the-mill souls game, which was a bit disappointing to see after the initial section of demo. I do hope that the final game has more emphasis on exploration and puzzle solving rather than combat. Other than that, it looked and played great.
Click to expand...

Great thing is, they don't respawn. Once you beat them, they are gone afaik
 
Giallo Corsa said:
Man, gotta say, seldomly you see a game "borrowing" from SO MANY other games at the same time to the point of feeling so disjointed and so derivative, the game doesn't know if it wants to be Death stranding, a generic as hell souls-like (or shall I say Nioh-like), Returnal or whatever the fook...
I always believed that THIS type of game has to have the appropriate budget behind it 'cause man, this one lacks one and it friggin' shows everywhere :
- Mediocre as hell graphics
- Mediocre as hell art direction
- Mediocre as hell animations
- Bad to mediocre combat
- super mediocre level design

One moment you're playing a generic 3rd person action adventure inspired by Kojima fuckery, the next you're playing something that it desperately wants to be Returnal with its "heavy atmosphere®" and sound design, the next you're playing a Nioh derivative with ki-pulses (lol) and then you're back again to a Kojima death stranding wannabe with its "weird", futuristic art direction, enemies and general "somberness" - it's this weird mishmash of ideas and NOTHING gels well...
Take for example the 1st combat encounter's "intro", it clearly apes those cyborg ninja/Gray fox moments from MGS in trying to look "cool" but...it falls completely flat, you just can't replicate the usual Kojima fuckery with a straight face and low budget and 1/10 of his expertise, you just can't, the whole "mystical girl with a pancho and sword" intro feels so out place, so badly directed , so tone-deaf that it just comes off as comically bad, and it's followed by some of the most basic, boring and badly animated souls/Nioh-like combat to boot ? Thank you but no thank you.

It feels like one of "those" low budget German open world RPGs and/or Souls-likes that lack everything good about 'em - soulless copies if you will.
The simple, RE inspired puzzles are meh, the level "design" is basically straight, fenced paths with some branching here and there, the whole Ghost of Tsushima "Not a GPS man !®" navigation system is also there 'cause...why not ?, the animations are terribad (press the sprint button while on a ladder, lmao), the camera system is all kinds of fucked, the combat is so idiotic and tone-deaf that I just can't (cinematic finishes anyone ? lmao), the graphics are incredibly mediocre especially after playing/coming from something like DS2), the art direction is outright bad (reminiscent of those ugly, German games I mentioned before) and it also doesn't run particularly well (30fps capped cutscenes/various framerate drops).

Gonna be honest though, since I'm a sci-fi nut, I could see myself playing this down the line - when it's down to 10-15 Eurodollars and/or "free" on a sub service, I just can't do soulless, derivative games anymore with mid budgets, this, judging from the demo at least, is a 6.5/10 game through and through since it doesn't have ONE original bone in its proverbial body...
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What's funny is that I actually had fun playing and ultinately will buy it BUT I also somehow agree with basically all your criticisms. The biggest and most obvious to me is that the game really feels like a Lego set of SUPER obvious elements that don't necessarily fit together well nor are blended together to make them seamless.

Super weird game. I was down, then up, then kind of addicted to playing, then now I'm like yea this game is kinda ridiculous lol.

I said a 7/10 and yea, I'd also agree with 6.5.
 
Darkkahn said:
The moment the enemies began appearing in every corner of the map, it felt like the game was degraded to a run-of-the-mill souls game, which was a bit disappointing to see after the initial section of demo. I do hope that the final game has more emphasis on exploration and puzzle solving rather than combat. Other than that, it looked and played great.
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I love souls games but I have to agree with you there. The ambience and tension will hold up long unless they spam you with trash mobs to often.
 
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