Hell Is Us finds an audience on Xbox Game Pass
2025 was crowded with major releases and inventive smaller games, making it easy for some projects to disappear from view. Rogue Factor’s Hell Is Us was one of those overlooked releases, but the semi-open-world action adventure is now attracting fresh attention through Xbox Game Pass.
The game launched on 4 September 2025, an unfortunate date that coincided with the huge attention surrounding Silksong. Nearly a year later, its Game Pass arrival in July has given it a significant second chance. At the time of writing, Hell Is Us was the service’s third most-popular game.
Microsoft does not publish additional figures for Game Pass downloads or streams, so there is no public breakdown of that ranking. However, the game’s developer announced in early August that Hell Is Us had been played by one million people.
A Soulslike built around discovery
In Hell Is Us, players take the role of a peacekeeper who returns to his homeland searching for his parents. The familiar rescue premise takes a different direction here: the country has been consumed by supernatural horrors, turning the investigation into a dangerous journey through a hostile, mysterious landscape.
Combat includes recognisable Soulslike features such as parries, but the game’s defining idea is its approach to navigation. A deliberately restrained interface leaves out maps, quest markers and other conventional guidance. The opening message makes that design choice clear, asking players to study the world and work out where to go themselves.
That emphasis on observation makes Hell Is Us particularly appealing to players who enjoy examining environments, following clues and uncovering objectives without constant prompts. Its semi-open world is designed to reward curiosity rather than simply pointing towards the next task.
Mixed reviews, but strong exploration
Critical reception has been mixed. Hell Is Us holds a score of 77 on Metacritic, based on 60 reviews.
The game’s strengths include a tightly balanced mission structure that is intentionally demanding and sometimes uncomfortable. Its main weakness is enemy variety, with repeated encounters making parts of the adventure feel familiar. Even so, the roughly 25-hour journey through Hadea has been praised for encouraging players to search areas thoroughly and continue exploring long after they intended to stop.
Another notable detail behind the project is its director. Hell Is Us is directed by Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, who previously served as art director on Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Players who appreciated those games’ richly constructed science-fiction settings may find familiar visual ambition here.
Where to play Hell Is Us
Hell Is Us is available on Xbox Series X through the Game Pass library. It can also be played on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is planned for release on 8 October.
For readers interested in the wider arcade and gaming landscape, RETROCADE’s Arcade Blog covers industry news, while the Arcade Videos collection offers more to watch. If you are planning a dedicated gaming setup, the Arcade Machine Buying Guide is a useful place to start.
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