Use our Hell is Us: Beginner’s Guide to get a head start in unraveling the mysteries of Hadea.
Hell is Us is third-person action-adventure game that aims to “return to the roots of adventure games” by getting players to rely on their instincts rather than way points and map markers. It’s ambitious and quite rewarding to make progress and discover stuff off the beaten path.
There’s a whole host of puzzles, mysteries and strange items to be found in the world of Hadea, where Hell is Us is set. Not to mention weird looking enemies too!
With that in mind, we’ve pulled together some guides which we hope are helpful. The Hell is Us Beginner’s Guide aims to give you some top tips of how to get the best start.
Think we’ve missed any? Drop them in the comments below!
Hell is Us: Beginner’s Guide
Explore!
One of the unique features of Hell is Us is that there are no markers or world maps to navigate yourself. You’ll need to use your own instincts and skills to find items, objectives, and key people. This is part of the fun of the game. So enjoy it.
Explore, go off the beaten path, follow your instincts, and discover things! Chances are, if you headed straight to where you needed to go, then you’d have to go away to find an item or complete an action anyway.
Watch for Collectibles
There’s a whole load of goodies to find in the world of Hell is Us. As you explore Hadea, you’ll find an array of useful items and objects that will help you or open up the world of the game.
Pick-ups are noted by glowing coloured orbs in the world. There are several versions that are all worth keeping an eye out for:
- White orb – usable items/documents, usually to help you
- Green orb – equipment, such as Glyphs for your weapons or defensive gear
- Yellow orb – key objective items, such as main objectives, good deeds, and mystery items
- Red orb – consumable items that can be used in combat
Pay Attention to Your Inventory
Keep an eye on what you’re collecting. It’s often the case that a document or item you collect may contain a clue to solving a puzzle. Take a bit of time to see where things are kept so you can refer to them easily. You will spend some time in your inventory reviewing documents.
Not sure how to open something, or where to go next? Check out the investigations tab, or look at the documents in your inventory. There’s a lot of information and things going on. Thankfully, the inventory (your datapad) is fairly easy to navigate.
Manage your Inventory
The Datapad is your inventory, and has multiple tabs of different items. Thankfully, it has some useful features to help you stay on top of all the things you’ll be collecting. Particularly, your clues, documents, and objective items. You can ‘favourite’ items so they appear at the top of the menu they’re in. You can also ‘archive’ items once you think you’re done with them, so they appear at the bottom of the items list.
Talk to NPCs
You are going to be doing some chatting in Hell Is Us. Not only do you get to meet some excellently voiced characters, but you’ll learn a lot, too. During conversations, options on the left are important, objective-related topics. Working through these will give you updates for your investigations, and you’ll usually gain helpful items too.
The topics on the right are usually world-building subjects that give you different points of view on the state of Hadea. These are interesting and well worth listening to.
There’s also an achievement/trophy for locating and speaking with all NPCs. At present, my thinking this is all the NPCs where you enter into a proper conversation screen.
Good Deeds
Pay attention to the other NPCs in the game too; a lot of them usually tell you a bit about themselves, and allude to an item they would benefit from receiving.
Good Deeds are additional side objectives in the game, where you can get rewards for completing objectives for people throughout the game. What these Good Deeds are isn’t known initially. There are 26 in the game and can be tracked in your datapad. However, they are blanked out until you discover an item / speak to a person related to it.
Even then, the datapad doesn’t tell you what you need to do, just that you’ve found it. You’ll have to chat to NPCs and use the ‘Trade’ option to look at items you can give to them. There’s no harm in trying them with characters; they’ll tell you that it isn’t for them.
YOU CAN FAIL GOOD DEEDS! So if you find an item you think can go to a character, take your earliest opportunity to do so. Just in case! But, bearing in mind that you may not get the thing you need until you reach another area.
Completing Good Deeds can earn you rewards in one of the areas in Vyssa Hills, the third location in the first main area of the game.
Mysteries
Mysteries are similar to Good Deeds, but usually relate to more puzzle-y type things in the world. Like a door or chest that needs unlocking. They can also be tracked in your datapad. There are a number of different mysteries in each area.
Good Deeds, as you uncover something related to a mystery, a prompt will appear on the right side of your screen. You may not get the thing you need until you reach another area.
Timeloops
Timeloops are located in most main locations in the game. They can be tracked in your datapad, and there’s usually one per main area, though some can appear within another location in that area.
Timeloops are easy to spot as they are the big, pulsating spheres in an area (though some are inside structures). They are often spiky and are surrounded by enemies. Timeloops need to be collapsed, as they are moments of extreme violence trapped in a never-ending repeating loop.
To collapse them, you must seek out all the Timeloop Guardians that are in an area. These are usually just standard enemies. Once you’ve defeated them, a message on screen will say “Timeloop Guardian Defeated”. Once you’ve defeated all of them, there will be a noticeable audio cue that indicates the Timeloop is accessible.
To collapse the Timeloop you need a specific item, an Amine Prism. These are found in the world. You’ll be gifted your first one, with the instructions on how to collapse a Timeloop in Vyssa Fields. You get it from speaking with an NPC in one of the main locations. Some Timeloops and Amine Prisms will be different colours, and you’ll need to use the right one on the right Timeloop.
Head into a cleared Timeloop, approaching it and interacting with the ‘Enter the Timeloop’ prompt will tell you if you can enter. It’ll say “It’s too dangerous to enter Timeloop” if you are missing a Timeloop Guardian.
Once in, go into your Datapad and select the ‘Drone’ tab. Head to the bottom option on the left, which is ‘Collapse Timeloop’.
Collapsing Timeloops can earn you rewards in one of the areas in Vyssa Hills, the third location in the first main area of the game.
Combat
The combat in Hell is Us is pretty fun and satisfying, too. Your health and stamina are linked. Your health bar and stamina will be the same. So if you lose health, you lose stamina. This makes it tricky if you take a lot of damage, as you’ll do fewer attacks before running out of stamina.
The combat allows you to regain health and stamina mid-battle if you get your timing right. I would really recommend getting to grips with this mechanic, as health kits in the world seem limited. So being able to get your health back in combat is essential.
To do this, you need to press ‘RB’ (on Xbox) when a white circle appears around your character. You’ll have a small amount of time to hit this, and it can be easily missed. Please note that the timing and appearance of these vary based on your weapons.
Weapons, Defense, and Relics
There’s a good variety of weapons in the game. Swords, greatswords, axes, polearms, etc. There are loads to play with. You can have two equipped at once, so you can play around with what you like. I really like the two one-handed axes; they’re quick and do good damage. You get them fairly early on.
As you defeat enemies, your weapons will increase in XP and level up. There are level caps until you upgrade them at a Blacksmith. Find the Blacksmith learning materials (tomes) and he’ll be able to level up your gear (weapons and defensive gear) further.
You can also slot findable ‘Glyphs’ into your weapons (when at a certain level) to give you new abilities for your weapon.
Keep an eye out for relics, too; these give you additional buffs that can be equipped in your loadout menu in the Datapad.
Use Your Drone
Your drone can be used in combat too. You’ll find ‘Drone Modules’ throughout the world of Hadea, and these can be equipped to give your drone different abilities in battle. One of the earliest ones, for example, is using your drone as a distractor. This is very useful when facing multiple enemies.
Your drone also has a torch, which I would highly recommend using; it can be dark in Hadea.
That’s all for now. Leave your top tips in the comments. Check out more Hell is Us guides below.
Hell is Us Guides
- Unlock the “Lend an Ear” achievement / trophy – talk to all the NPCs
- Unlock the “Passion for Fashion” achievement / trophy – find and wear all caps
Mysteries
- Caddell Family Treasure Mystery – Senedra Forest
- Secrets of the Ram Mystery – Senedra Forest
- Captain’s Office Mystery – Acasa Marshes
- Martial Lineage Mystery – Acasa Marshes
- Lucky Break Mystery – Vyssa Hills
- Lost Keys Mystery – Lake Cynon
- Supply Chain Mystery – Talju
Puzzles
- Ancient Mechanism Pillars Puzzle – Senedra Forest
- Senedra Forest Circular Dials Puzzle – Senedra Forest
- Vitalis’ House Portrait Puzzle – Acasa Marshes
- The Watcher’s Nest Ceramic Flowers Puzzle – Vyssa Hills
- Blue Flower Scroll Puzzle – Lake Cynon
Good Deeds
- Asunder Good Deed
- Death’s Door Good Deed
- The Depths of Hell Good Deed
- The Golden Watch Good Deed
- Heart of Gold Good Deed
- Man’s Best Friend Good Deed
- Performance of a Lifetime Good Deed
- Samo’s Keys Good Deed
- Where the Heart is Good Deed
