Rogue Factor Dives Into Hell is Us Dungeon Gameplay in New Trailer, and How Dungeons Were Built “Like Old-School Video Game Challenges”

Hell is Us is due out on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in less than two months from the time of this writing, and in its latest gameplay trailer, developer Rogue Factor showcases more of its dungeon crawling and exploration-focused gameplay, once again touting how the studio's goal with Hell is Us is to remove any of the hand-holding featured in other modern games, and make the experience of playing Hell is Us one where players are truly solving everything on their own.

Rogue Factor's creative and art director on Hell is Us, Jonathan Jacques-Belletête, narrates the video, and boasts that "Hell is Us is not your typical action-adventure game. There's no map, no quest markers, and no hand-holding. Just organic exploration asking you to trust your senses."

"We didn't design these dungeons as mere set pieces," Jacques-Belletête continues. "We built them like old-school video game challenges. Tight, crafted, deliberate. Every corner, every obstacle, every encounter, is there for a reason."

"If you missed the days were exploring a dungeon was memorable, this is for you."

In an interview on the PlayStation Blog, Jacques-Belletête goes further into how every dungeon has a theme and emotion that's also tied to the larger story in Hell is Us, and to why the dungeon exists in the first place.

He also talked about how different dungeons will focus on different aspects of gameplay, so players shouldn't expect the same sorts of challenges when entering a new dungeon.

"Some of the dungeons have a lot more puzzles than others, some are more about combat, and some have a lot of environmental changes, like the one in the trailer where you have to play with the water levels and things like that. So they’re all different and tied to lore, which you sometimes need to understand in order to solve a puzzle. One of our themes is ‘history always repeats itself’, and even though you figure out these artefacts from ages ago, you realize that it relates to what’s going on right now. There’s lots to discover and play around with."

Interestingly, Jacques-Belletête does point out that players should pay attention to a rocky hill in the middle of the dungeon shown at the 1 minute and 45 second mark in the trailer. He tells players to "See what's there" and to "imagine how many things it represents."

Whatever it represents will be something solvable only by playing the game, but even still, it is interesting how so much of Rogue Factor's marketing for Hell is Us has relied on the studio emphasizing that players will need to pay attention to the details in the game's environment and to everything around them.

Even today, claiming that the game presents an "old-school" type of gaming challenge feels like the kind of promise the studio better be prepared to deliver on if they want it to carry any water with players. We'll see if players agree with Rogue Factor when Hell is Us launches on September 4, 2025. And in the weeks after, we'll see if Rogue Factor is being pressured by players to scale back the challenge it has presented in Hell is Us, and to add the kinds of features that it has called out as antithetical to the kind of game it is trying to make.

After all, FromSoftware has famously had to scale back the difficulty of its bosses after players found them too difficult. It wouldn't be a surprise if players give Rogue Factor the same kind of pressure, though the changes required for Hell is Us would be far more substantial than a few tweaks to a boss fight. We'll see how September goes.

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