Hell Is Us – Exploring Hadea With Technical Designer, Simon Girard

demo, gamescom, Hell is Us, simon girard, technical designer

This year, the GSC team flew out to attend Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, the largest gaming event in Europe, nay the world. With over 1,500 exhibitors from 72 countries, and attendee numbers surpassing 350,000, our toughest challenge was finding what to play in a sea of booths and bodies. Fortunately, we were able to book several appointments in the weeks leading up to Gamescom, ensuring we got time to see and play some of the games we are most excited for. As my next most anticipated game for 2025, I was thrilled to secure a one-on-one hands-off preview for Hell Is Us with the game’s Technical Designer, Simon Girard.

If you are unfamiliar with Hell Is Us, it is an upcoming third-person action-adventure game developed by Canadian game developer Rogue Factor. Set in the fictional European country of Hadea, a land torn apart by civil war and the sudden appearance of otherworldly horrors, you play as Remi, a man who has snuck back into Hadea to find the parents that smuggled him out decades ago. With melee-focused combat, a “hands-off” approach to storytelling and exploration, and its unique setting, I haven’t stopped thinking about Hell Is Us since I played the demo earlier this month.

First and foremost, Rogue Factor wanted to make a game where they could explore more adult themes like humanity’s brutal nature and the horrors of war. “The stories of Remi, the Civil War, and the Calamity are all interwoven,” explained Simon Girard, as he showed me some of the Acasa Marshes region that was teased at the end of the demo. This is evident through gameplay alone, with Hell Is Us’ unnerving supernatural enemies, called the Haze, embodying 4 emotions: Rage, Grief, Ecstasy, and Terror. Physical embodiments of the emotions that hang like a mist over war-torn Hadea and its people; manifestations of the game’s dark themes.

Luckily, Remi is wielding strange weapons that can be attuned to one of the four emotions, and is accompanied by a drone to assist in exploration and combat. “Depending on what emotion your weapon is attuned to,” continued Simon, “you’ll get access to different special moves.” At this point, he switched to his second weapon, a greatsword not available in the public demo, destroying a group of Haze enemies with a myriad of these abilities. No doubt the type of Haze you are fighting, colour-coded to an emotion, will affect each combat encounter, adding another layer of strategy to fights.

After a short abilities showcase, we head towards the nearby settlement of Jova, a clear landmark in the distance and the focus of Remi’s mission to find his parents. The town has been occupied by military forces of one of the warring factions, surrounded by makeshift battlements with soldiers posted throughout. While approaching the front entrance and walking up to speak with the commanding officer, Simon explains how they wanted to create easy-to-read environments, pointing out how they have positioned and lit this NPC to draw the player to them. While the developers want you to explore on your own using the information you have gathered, instead of relying on quest markers and maps, they do not want it to be obtuse. “Less is more,” says Simon, “and we don’t want to waste your time.”

This same ethos runs through much of Hell Is Us’ design, with NPC conversations and Datum recording (information you learn throughout your playthrough) as two of the best examples of this. Conversation topics are separated into two categories: Investigations, topics pertinent to the story and progression, listed on the left side of the screen, and General Knowledge, found on the right side, building out the game’s lore. Your Datum is archived on Remi’s tablet, filling out unknowns and linking them together, like putting a puzzle together piece by piece.

“We have over 160 NPCs,” explains Simon with a wry smile, “all fully voiced in English and French. You’ll want to talk to them to learn more about Hadea, the Calamity, as well as smaller stories and events going on.” To highlight this, he points out another NPC in the village, a man with a violin who only has one song to play. The game won’t highlight them with an icon above their head or list a quest that you can undertake for them, but you can find music sheets for them on your travels, increasing their repertoire to everyone’s approval, no doubt.

While likely to be somewhat divisive amongst players used to more modern, “hand-holding” game design, it’s this approach to exploration and discovery that has me so excited for Hell Is Us. According to Girard, the balance is about 60% exploration to 40% combat, with the intention of giving the player everything they need to find and do everything from the start. “We wanted to make a game that appealed to a mature audience,” explained Simon, “a game for people who wanted to figure things out for themselves.” That means no breadcrumb trails leading you to your goal, no chatty sidekicks or inner monologue revealing solutions before you’ve had a chance to work it out yourself. No map covered in icons, no markers floating on the horizon or compass wheel, it is up to the player to spot environmental clues, seek out Datum from people and items, and combine them all to find the answers. Simons summed up their design ethos as ‘People-Plattering’. “It’s like silver-plattering, but instead of the game giving you the tools to succeed, the player already has them. It starts with the player.”

With my 30-minute preview coming to a close, Simon took Remi back out of Jova village into the Acasa Marshes, explaining that Hell Is Us opens up in its second act with “12 or so” distinct locations to explore. Looking out across the haunting landscape dotted with interesting sights and crawling with the Haze, Girard ended our demo with a fun tease. Shielding my gaze out of respect and fear of spoilers, my guide teleports Remi to the start of one of Hadea’s dungeons. As he tells me how there are more dungeons and “micro-stories” throughout the game, he uses the drone’s torch to light up a set of ancient murals. It is a brief glimpse, and with a chuckle from Girard, my time with Hell Is Us at Gamescom is over.

Everything I have seen and played of Hell Is Us, from the hours I have played the demo across PC and PS5, to my hands-off preview with Simon Girard, has only made me more excited for the game’s release. It’s flashy combat, unique enemy designs, immersive exploration, and heavy, interwoven themes, all set in a harrowing and mysterious world, have me ready to walk into the mist and smoke of Hadea.