Tips and Tricks – Hell is Us Guide

Not Everything is Tracked

Seems like an obvious inclusion considering the core concept of the game, but it can be a little easy to forget from time to time. While various in-game elements will tell you when an interaction is available or an item holds particular importance, other times it can be far more vague than the things surrounding it.

Everything in the game has a purpose, so if you’ve retrieved an item or read a document that doesn’t explicitly connect to a Good Deed, Mystery, etc. then you’ll want to keep an eye out for relevant NPCs or locations where those things can be used, whether you’ve encountered them before or not.

Pay attention to environmental clues as often as possible, and carefully examine each location that houses a puzzle – you’ll always find something to help point you in the right direction, even if you can’t complete it right away.

Use the APC Often

While you might feel inclined to keep pushing ever onward, it will almost always behoove you (even if it’s entirely optional) to backtrack to previous locations via the APC’s fast travel system.

Several Good Deeds and Mysteries will require you to head back and use newly acquired items in prior areas, often unlocking new interactions with NPCs there. You can also interact with Tania in the APC after she joins your journey partway through Act 1 to gain additional lore, and unlock access to Vaults of Forbidden Knowledge via Research Items.

Check Your Compass

An underrated tool in your arsenal available from the start is the Compass. While traditionally part of the HUD and relatively easy to ignore in other games, NPC’s will frequently reference cardinal directions (north, east, south, and west) in conversation when directing you to an objective or point of interest. As such, keep it equipped as a usable item at all times, and orient yourself often!

Master the Healing Pulse

If you want to make it out of most encounters in the game alive, you’ll need to get to grips with the Healing Pulse mechanic. You can heal with consumable items, but these are comparatively rare to other games’ healing items, and should only be used in absolute emergencies. Keep in mind that in Hell is Us, if your Health goes down, so does your available Stamina.

As such, whenever you attack you’ll want to pay attention to the white particles surrounding Remi. Hitting RB/RT at the right time will absorb those particles and heal you for a percentage of the damage. For full details, check out our How to Do a Healing Pulse page!

Block and Parry

While plenty of your attacks and abilities are potent in Hell is Us, you can quickly be overwhelmed in combat scenarios and left vulnerable in recovery animations. As such, be sure to block (LB/LT) often. Not only does this mitigate the damage you take, but it also diminishes the enemies stagger meter. As you might expect, once these meters are depleted, the enemy will be left wide open for attacks and you can even perform a special finishing move.

Parrying is also entirely possible with a little bit of practice, and paying attention to enemy attack patterns. As the enemy begins to glow red just before certain attacks, time a block and you’ll parry the attack – negating damage, and dealing heavy stun damage to their stagger meter.

Use Drone Skills and Glyphs

As you get into the game proper, you’ll not want to neglect the tools at your disposal. Find Drone Modules throughout the world which you can equip to your drone that lets you execute special moves/attacks, each with an individual cooldown and use case. Whether you’re distracting an enemy, performing an AoE spin to clear groups of hostiles, or charging full-force at a foe, it’s worth it to use these skills as often as possible. You’ll find equipped Drone Modules in the bottom right of the UI.

Additionally, Glyphs are equippable items that you can attach to your weapons that enhance them in different ways. Depending on the Glyph, you’ll have new opportunities in combat, including:

• Feed on Fear drains enemy vitality when they’re struck with terror.
• Some abilities reduce stamina loss, launch shards at enemies, or even chain foes and pull them closer.

Glyphs (and your weapons in general) are also upgradeable via Victor the Blacksmith in Jova, so return to him often and make sure your loadout is as strong as possible.

Look Out for Timeloop Guardians

Timeloops are the giant pulsing domes dotted throughout the various regions of the game, often surrounded by enemies. Their presence ensures that creatures in the vicinity will continually respawn whenever you return, so it’s absolutely in your best interest to close Timeloops as soon (and as often) as possible.

You’ll meet Gildas Brom in Act 1 of the story, in the Watcher’s Nest in Vyssa Hills. Gildas will give you the Guardian Detector item, which you can equip and use to point you in the direction of the nearest Guardian in that area – massively improving your efficiency in being able to shut down Timeloops for good.

Keep in mind that you’ll need an Amine Prism to close each Timeloop, and certain Timeloops require a specific type of Prism, so be on the lookout for these as you explore.

Report to Tania

Near the end of Act 1, you’ll encounter Tania the Journalist. She will join you on your adventure, and can be found in your APC. She’s not just company though – you can bring her any of the ‘Research Items’ you’ve discovered thus far to receive additional lore and insight into the various regions and characters of the game.

More importantly however, you’ll see a bar filling with each Research Item you provide her. Once that bar fills, she will pinpoint the location of one of the Vaults of Forbidden Knowledge in the game, along with providing you the correct symbol code that you’ll need to input in order to unlock the door once you reach the vaults. These Vaults contain very important (and very powerful) items, so these should absolutely be a priority. With that in mind, continually check in with Tania and see if there’s anything you’ve collected on your travels that she’d be interested in.