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Hell is Us is a big move for Montreal-based studio Rogue Factor and creative director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête. It's the developer's first original IP to be released after Modheim: Cursed City and Necromonda: Next Nest War. They finally finished the huge Warhammer peripheral licensing game and developed their own work. Jacques-Belletête previously spent nearly 12 years at Eidos Montreal Studio, best known as artistic director of Deus Ex: The Human Revolution and Deus Ex: Human Division, and had just finished the art design for Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy. Currently, in a more important role on the Hell is Us team, he will be responsible for shaping the overall style of this new dark adventure.
I recently spoke to Jacques-Belletête about this new project, an action RPG set against the backdrop of a conflict of reality that ultimately leads to supernatural catastrophic consequences. We discussed the dark themes of the work, the main character and his connection to the world, and the team's hope that experienced players will be able to explore the world on their own with little guidance.
Find your way back
Rogue Factor has not officially named the protagonist of Hell is Us, who was born in an unnamed country at the center of the story. Jacques-Belletête says the mountain-secluded area has existed as a paradise for nearly 2,000 years, officially recognized as an isolated country after the united Nations was founded at the end of World War II. Fast forward to the 1990s, when Hell is Us, when a dictator was ruling the country with an iron fist.
The 1990s were chosen because of the upheavals in many countries around the world, when people in places such as Kosovo, Bosnia and Rwanda faced armed conflict, wars of independence and genocide. "The theme of this game is that human violence and brutality is largely a perpetual cycle driven by human emotions and passions." Jacques-Belletête said. "For example, the most tragic and brutal acts we have committed are caused by human emotions and passions."
According to Jacques-Belletête, the team took the topic seriously. But while war and its tragic aftermath are central to Hell is Us, the work's thrust is more about the fight against the supernatural, which is also the main threat in the game.
Jacques-Belletê mentioned other places and countries that suffered similar difficulties but little known. Our conversation quickly turned to the recent wars and the pain and tragedy of those wars.
"What's happening in Ukraine is actually happening every day in some other parts of the world. This is the truth, and it is also sad. This utter madness and tragedy, this act of violence. That's what we do with each other." He said so. "But we don't realize that many people on the planet are living like this." We live in stability and certainly don't understand such a thing. Fear comes from many things."
The protagonist of the game will not side in the civil war of the plot, and you will not be able to solve the crisis. "One thing is certain, there is no way to stop the civil war in this country in the game," Jacques-Belletête said, "there will be no heroes to solve the problem of the civil war, and then everyone will get a happy ending, and such a plot arrangement does not make sense."
The protagonist boy has moved countless times since he was a child, and the Canadian foster family system has arranged his accommodation for him, but he has never been able to grow up in any fixed place, and there is no family that makes him feel like his home. After joining the army, he discovered the organizational structure he had lacked since childhood in an unstable family. During his service, he was sent to the world on many peacekeeping missions, often hoping to return to his isolated country.
During his uprooting, he tried to go back many times, hoping to meet his parents who abandoned him and to know the answer to everything. For example, who his parents were, why they abandoned themselves, and why they sent him out of the country. The civil war also meant an opportunity to knock out the country's indestructible shell. He found himself able to take the opportunity to find his parents and ask them questions that had been bothering him for a long time.
After learning that a peacekeeping force will be sent to the territory, the protagonist manages to join the mission, not to help, but to sneak back to the place where he was born. "Therefore, he is not affiliated with the forces that have the right to enter." Jacques-Belletête says, "However, the protagonist has planned everything, and his goal is to break away from the army on a dark and windy night of the month and sneak across the border."
Exotic adventures
After embarking on the adventure, the protagonist finally sets foot in his homeland for the first time in decades of absence. It is here that the plot of Hell is Us begins. The protagonist doesn't know where to look for his parents or who might know who he is. He didn't know that a supernatural thing was in control of everything, and it was the real enemy.
Jacques-Belletête hopes to leave some plot introductions. He didn't want Hell is Us to tell players what to do, where to go, who to talk to, and what to see. "Not only do we want players to discover for themselves what they have to do, but we want them to figure out how to do it for themselves." He said so.
He likens the reduction guide to a series of explorations in The Legend of Zelda: The Triangular Power of the Gods. At the beginning of Triangular Power of the Gods, an old man tells Link that his missing son once played the flute in the forest. Following the game's plot, the player returns to a location in the game world. Here, players can find stumps that the boy plays for the animals and watch his soul play music there. Later, after obtaining this flute, you can use it to summon birds and allow Link to travel to various locations on the map, which is the game's cleverly designed fast travel system. Except for the old man's dialogue that tells the player about his son's deeds, there is no guidance in the game to tell the player to do so. The player himself strings together these bits and pieces of detail to finally figure out how to use them.
To give players this sense of exploration and discovery, Rogue Factor Studios wanted to balance the useful information gained by the environmental narrative with other characters in the game world. Jacques-Belletête believes that this also means that art and level design have become more important. In his view, many of today's mechanics tell the player everything like a nanny, weakening the significance of both mechanisms.
"You'll find a lot of level design and art styles, and while it makes the environment look good, it doesn't make sense except to make them look good." Jacques-Belletête said.
Many of the characters in the game who distribute quests feel very hollow, but Rogue Factor made these characters more worthy of player attention and listening in Hell is Us.
He hopes that after the similar design of "Eldon's Law Ring" is popular with everyone, the design of this game will also be successful. "People are starting to realize that if the game world could interact with players, I wouldn't need the superpowers that everything sees in RPG games." He said so.
Unknown threat
To solve the supernatural presence in Hell is Us, the player needs to use some weapons that do not match the setting era. The monsters that roam the land are mysterious and important to the story. But Jacques-Belletête gave no more information than a description of what he called "entities." He described the monsters as "almost painterly" in their shapes and moving in a very "cluttered" way. Some monsters look like a lump of slime, covered in red and black lines. These wandering entities in the world also have an umbilical cord-like tube connected to a pale humanoid monster. The latter, which should have been the head and abdomen, was only a hollow.
Modern weapons such as guns and artillery are useless for these things, and players can only use some special melee weapons, most of which are ancient equipment such as swords and axes, to deal damage to them. These weapons emit an unknown fluorescence, and this strange shape may be the reason why they can cause damage to these entities. This means that most of the battles in Hell is Us are solved by the player at close range. Why these weapons can fight supernatural things will be revealed as the game progresses, but that doesn't mean that modern technology can't fight supernatural threats.
Although Hell is Us takes place in the 1990s, Rogue Factor has added some very advanced technologies to the game, such as drones that can help the protagonist. Jacques-Belletête likens it to the technology in Hidden Dragon 3, a game set in the '60s, but Hideo Kojima chose to add some very advanced weapons that could not have existed at the time. Jacques-Belletête believes the same is true for the drones in this game. Although the timing of the game is a little advanced, the drone function in the game is not the same as the drone we use in real life now. The player first discovers the drone on an enemy, adding more puzzles to the world. Who are these people and where do these technologies come from? Just one of the many secrets surrounding these machines.
Drones can help players fight these mysterious entities. Since these enemies usually appear in pairs, weird-looking monsters and pale humanoid monsters act like a team. And if the player can have a drone partner, it will make the battle fairer. "Your drone can do many things to grab the attention of one of the entities and give you the opportunity to tackle another enemy." Jacques-Belletête said. He told me that this drone can be upgraded to get more skills and more uses in combat.
In order to move around this isolated place, the player obtains an Armed Transport Vehicle (APC) at some point in the game. This APC serves as a base, home, and mobile camp for the player to take you on adventures in different areas. Hell is Us is not a traditional open world, and many of the places you can go need to be known in advance. Whether it's information learned from the map or intelligence learned from the locals, players must accumulate enough knowledge to explore new areas. It all depends on the player's interaction with the world, as well as the choices that are decided to explore at a particular moment.
Play areas vary, ranging from tight spaces to open areas. Players explore new areas for a purpose, as you can learn about yourself from other characters, locations, and items. Whether it's a specific character to talk to, a landmark to look for, or a side quest waiting to be explored, each new area a player explores is designed to guide you for a reason. It also guides you to more locations and allows you to continue your adventures at your own pace.
Hell is Us isn't going to be released in the near future, and Jacques-Belletête doesn't give an accurate estimate. He said it could take years for the game to get into the hands of players. But after talking to him, I'm willing to wait to see what this ambitious game will end up like, exploring so many dark secrets in this eerie and terrifying location.
Translation: IbaHs
Edit: Tonkotsu ramen