Im 15-minütigen Trailer zu Hell is Us erhaltet ihr einen Einblick in das Gameplay des kommenden Action-RPGs auf Steam, PS5 und Xbox.
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00:00Hi everyone, my name is Jonathan Jacques-Belletet, I'm the creative director and the art director on Hell is Us.
00:21I hope you enjoyed the trailer that you've seen recently.
00:24Today we're back in the spotlight, we're going to show you a bit of gameplay, a bit more than what you've seen in the trailer.
00:29And I hope that you will enjoy this part greatly.
00:31Alright, so let's start with the basics.
00:34Hell is Us is set to be released in 2025.
00:37It's for pretty much everything, so Xbox Series X, Playstation 5 and PC.
00:43So the game is a bit of a take back to games from the 1990s.
00:47We're a team of passionate people.
00:49The average on the team is like 20 years of development experience.
00:53So we're from different generations and we have a lot of love for how the games in the 90s were made and how they were played and experienced.
01:00Especially the fact that there was no hand holding, there was no silver plattering.
01:05You kind of had to figure stuff out by yourself.
01:07You were really in control of your exploration and your own discoveries.
01:11And this is what we're trying to do in Hell is Us.
01:14Obviously with modern flair and kind of like modern knowledge of game design and whatnot.
01:20Very much puts you back in the driver's seat of your experience and of your exploration.
01:25And then the result and the joy of your discoveries.
01:29So Hell is Us takes place in a country called Hadea.
01:32Hadea is in the grips of a vicious civil war.
01:36You play the role of Remy. Remy is actually from Hadea.
01:39He was born there, but his mom smuggled him out at the age of five.
01:43Like it sometimes happens in those countries.
01:45And what I mean by that is Hadea is a hermit state.
01:47It's a turtle state. It's completely closed off on itself.
01:50Nobody goes out. Nobody comes in.
01:52And that's why Remy's mom decided to smuggle him out so he can have a better life.
01:56He grew up in the foster home system or the foster system in Canada.
02:00He's always wanted to come back to Hadea.
02:02He wants to find his parents again. He wants to kind of like confront them.
02:05He's got a lot of questions for them. He understands why they abandoned him.
02:08But yet, you know, abandonment is pretty much the biggest trauma that a child can have.
02:13And there's like a loop that hasn't been closed properly for him towards this situation and his parents.
02:18When the game starts, Remy has finally been able to infiltrate Hadea
02:23during the brutal civil war that I was talking about.
02:26Remy is a ON peacekeeper. He quit his post.
02:30He went AWOL, infiltrated the country, and this is where the game starts.
02:34Remy remembers two things, and that means the players remember two things.
02:38It's that his village of birth was called Jova,
02:41and his father was the blacksmith of Jova.
02:43Those are the only clues you begin the game with, and these are the only clues that Remy also knows.
02:47So equipped with this knowledge, with these clues, you begin the game and you try to find your way to Jova.
02:54You must be lost to wander around Sinedra Forest.
02:58I'm afraid I have very little to offer.
03:01A group of strange-looking soldiers arrived here last night in an APC.
03:07Perhaps you can ask them for help.
03:11It's not the first time I've seen them.
03:13They always seem to be snooping around here for something.
03:17They parked their APC just beyond the woods, to the north.
03:22Once in the woods, follow the wind signs.
03:27They will lead the way through.
03:30The gate to enter the woods is locked.
03:33Here, take this key to unlock it.
03:41Okay, so let's talk about this design philosophy that I've mentioned earlier,
03:45which is, you know, I said the word silver plattering.
03:48It's something that I had been thinking about for quite a few years, and the team as well,
03:52which is, if you look at modern-day or contemporary adventure games and RPGs,
03:56pretty much everything is given to you on a silver platter.
03:59What I mean by that is when you explore, everything appears in front of you.
04:02You know, you have your compass on top of you that's like a sixth sense, like a magical sense
04:05that detects, you know, all the caves and all the cool stuff around you,
04:09and the towers and this and whatnot.
04:11It just appears magically, and you have your map, and you have your mini-map,
04:14and you have your quest markers, and you have your objective markers,
04:16and you can drop your own markers, and you have your quest journals, and it just never ends.
04:20And if you think about it, what happens with that is that you're not truly, truly exploring.
04:25You're just kind of like flying by wire, and when you find something,
04:28it's not really your discovery. It was kind of handed to you on a silver platter.
04:32So what you're looking at now is we're having a discussion with a bloke named Ernest Cadell.
04:36He's telling us certain information, and then he tells us it's quite far.
04:40You need to hitch a ride. You might find people that are willing to give you a ride.
04:45It's up to the north of my house, so you're going to have to use your compass,
04:47but your real compass, right, with the coordinates on it, north, south, east, west, blah, blah, blah,
04:51and follow that, and he tells you that in the Lost Woods, in order to find your way out,
04:56just follow the wind chimes. He says, I've attached them there for my kids when they were young
05:00because they kept getting lost in those bloody woods, and then he tells you,
05:03follow the sound of the wind chimes, and you'll find your way on the other side of the woods.
05:08That's how we do it. It's very organic. It's very realistic.
05:12You know, someone in real life could have told you the exact same thing.
05:15So the environments, the visuals of the game are not just there to illustrate.
05:19They're there to communicate, so you need to play the game. You need to open your eyes.
05:22You need to open your ears to what NPCs tell you, and you'll find your way,
05:26and you'll discover things, and you will truly own your discoveries and the great joy that comes with that.
05:48So here's another scene or another section that could be considered part of our player-plattering philosophy.
05:53So here's a puzzle, and there's obviously a solution to the puzzle, but nothing eventually is going to tell you,
05:58you know, if the player ends up kind of like taking a bit of time to find a solution.
06:02There's not going to be any artificial kind of ways that are going to help him or tell him what to do.
06:07Remy's not going to start talking to himself or, i.e., talking to the player with, you know, little clues and whatever.
06:12It's really up to you to figure them out, and in the way that the player-plattering is inserted in this,
06:16we have a good example here with your trusty drone named Cappy.
06:20By the way, you can tell now that Remy has his poncho, and he has his sword, and he has his drone.
06:24So it's after he's acquired them, right? Because at the beginning of the game, you saw he was not dressed like that.
06:29Now there's a reason why he ends up dressed like this, there's a reason why he needs these things, this equipment,
06:34but we don't need to get into these details today.
06:36So anyway, there's an ancient language in the country, and you kind of find it throughout the game,
06:42and the drone has a software, one of his many softwares, and this specific one can translate the ancient language.
06:49So this puzzle, the way that it works, you need to kind of like explore and observe your environment around this specific puzzle
06:55in order to find the clues on how to solve it.
06:58You need the drone, your trusty Cappy, his name is Cappy, also there's something behind that, of course,
07:03and you translate those old texts.
07:06It gives you little passages of a poem or a psalm or something like that,
07:10and through what they tell you and the order in which they seem to have to be pieced back together,
07:17you find your clues on what this puzzle does and how to solve it.
07:21So again, the players are kind of like just led to their own devices,
07:25but things are there, the answers are there, and you have to explore, and again I repeat it,
07:29you have to open your eyes and open your ears and you'll figure it out.
07:47So by now you've seen a lot of what I guess is like exploration and looking around and talking to people and doing puzzles
07:53and all that kind of sweet stuff.
07:55But if you've seen the trailer, you of course notice that there's another big aspect to the game,
08:00which is third-person melee combat.
08:02So we like to say that the game is 50% exploration and 50% combat.
08:07The game is not at all only about combat, and it's definitely not at all just walking around and figuring stuff out.
08:13It's a combination of both, and we also think that the way that we've combined them is quite refreshing and quite unique in Hell is Us.
08:20So, like I said, combat is an integral part of the game.
08:22I do want to emphasize now that we're not a Souls-like game.
08:25The game is a lot more mid-core, it's have fun, get in it, and hack and slash.
08:29It doesn't mean it's easy, it's not overly hard.
08:31There's a learning curve, there's subtleties, there's little things that we've invented just for the flair and the flavor of Hell is Us.
08:37It's very crunchy, I think it's a lot of fun.
08:40So, there's a wide variety of enemies in the game.
08:43So, we have kind of like the more common enemy type, which we call the Hollow Walker.
08:47So, it's these kind of humanoid, bipedal, white enemies that you can see here with the holes in their faces and their chests and whatnot.
08:53So, obviously, there's a reason why they're called Hollow Walkers.
08:55And there's different types of them and different kind of tiers of strength and powers.
08:59But when you're facing pretty much the biggest enemy in the game,
09:04it's what we call like a dual entity.
09:06So, it's like a Hollow Walker has a haze inside of it.
09:09So, it's when the haze is present.
09:11I'm not going to get into the details right away of what the haze represents.
09:14It's all part of the lore and what you will figure out in the game.
09:17But when you're facing a combo like these dual entities,
09:19and it can go to like three of them, four of them.
09:21There's the herders, there's the fervents and different types like that.
09:24But that's when you really need to master the combat system.
09:27That's when you start to get the hang of it.
09:30He's not a sidekick in a sense where he talks and he has an AI.
09:33He's very much a drone that has its own protocol
09:35to do this crowd management during the combat.
09:38So, you have your different weapons.
09:39You have your limbic skills, attack to weapons,
09:41which is basically what you consider as your magic.
09:43Even though in the game, it's not considered magic.
09:45So, you have your different weapons.
09:46You have your limbic skills, attack to weapons,
09:48which is basically what you consider as your magic.
09:50Even though in the game, it's not considered magic.
09:52So, you have your different weapons.
09:53You have your limbic skills, attack to weapons,
09:55which is basically what you consider as your magic.
09:57Even though in the game, it's not considered magic.
09:59It's kind of like a scientific base to them.
10:01But that's when you really need to master all the little subtleties of the combat system.
10:05Use all the tools in your arsenal and at your disposition
10:08and get in the melee with these kind of dual or triple or quadruple entities
10:13and being able to manage them and be victorious.
10:17So, like I mentioned, here specifically,
10:19you can see a combat against a limbic entity
10:22that has multiple hazes attached to the hollow wand.
10:25That's when it gets really complex.
10:26It gets very overwhelming because you're alone.
10:28But you got your trusty little Cappy.
10:30So, you need to use its skills.
10:32So, for example, Cappy has a skill where you can distract an entity,
10:36either a haze or a hollow walker.
10:38You can use the forward charge, which is one of my favorites.
10:40You also have the typhoon.
10:42You have the super dash skill, which is another one of my favorites.
10:45So, you can start dashing sideways or backwards really, really fast.
10:48It gives you like this Japanese action game style.
10:51And then you also have your limbic skills.
10:53So, you need to find the glyphs in the game.
10:55And you need to attach them to your weapons.
10:56And this is when you start getting powers that come from these weapons
11:00that allow you to take care of these enemies in much more powerful
11:03and kind of like impressive ways.
11:05That's when the VFX and the sound effects all come together
11:08and give you this combat bang that we all like and love.
11:12Okay, so now let's take a little pause from the combat.
11:15And let's go back to the investigation and the exploration.
11:19So, like I said, there's no silver plattering.
11:22There's none of these kind of like fly-by-wire.
11:24It's up to you to figure out what your kicker is.
11:27What I mean by kicker is what you're supposed to achieve
11:29at this specific moment, what you're actually looking for,
11:32where to look for it, and how to look for it, right?
11:34Remy and the players are at a ratio of information, which is 1-1.
11:45So, one of the tools that we're providing you to still kind of
11:48help you a bit and manage this 1-1 kind of like knowledge ratio
11:51is your data pad.
11:53Think of it as a bit your investigation wall, if you want,
11:56but in a digital 90s format.
11:59So your clues, your leads, the important people that are related
12:03to your investigation, trying to find your parents,
12:05and a lot more eventually are all stored here.
12:08They're linked together by the relationships.
12:10And now it's up to you to go and investigate about them.
12:14So, as you can see here, some of the areas can be quite wide-opened.
12:18This one here, called the Castle Marshes, is one of the bigger ones.
12:22And as I spoke quite a bit already, the game doesn't hold your hand
12:25or doesn't really tell you where to go.
12:27So, out of your main leads or clues or ideas that you have in your head
12:31of what you're supposed to do or where you're supposed to go
12:33at any given moment, you will also be attracted by a lot of
12:37information that you're looking for.
12:40And as you walk towards them or explore, that's when you'll start
12:43also making a ton of peripheral or side discoveries on your own,
12:47things that you cannot solve right away, or things that you might think
12:50that there is a thing to be done with it when there's none.
12:53And it's all part of the fun stuff and the kind of experience
12:56that we're providing in the game.
12:57So, as you can see here, there's a tree with people that have been hung.
13:01Like I said, this is a tree that has been hung.
13:03And this is a tree that has been hung.
13:05As you can see here, there's a tree with people that have been hung.
13:08Like I said, this takes place during a very vicious civil war
13:11between two different ethnicities in the countries that are still
13:14basically the exact same people.
13:15And you found this tree.
13:16It's actually not part of the golden path or not part of something
13:20tremendously important in the game.
13:22But there's still something around it.
13:24There's still something to be found.
13:25And it's probably linked to more stuff that you can do in relation to it.
13:30But that, you have to do your own exploration to find it.
13:33You have to do more of your own exploration and investigation
13:35to figure out what it's linked to and what you can do from it, if you want.
13:48So, here we are in a dungeon in the game.
13:50So, yes, the game has dungeons.
13:52This was really important to us.
13:53Like I said at the beginning, there's a bit of a love letter
13:56to games from the 90s.
13:57But one of the challenges was the game takes place in a contemporary setting.
14:01The game takes place in 1993.
14:02And yet we still wanted dungeons in the game.
14:04And I didn't want the dungeons to take place in an abandoned metro station
14:08or in an abandoned factory because it's the modern era.
14:11I still wanted the dungeons to be very ancient things.
14:13And this brings us to another really important aspect of the game
14:16or one of the very important themes of the game, which is history,
14:19historicity, deep history.
14:21So, history that goes even before history.
14:23So, there's a lot of mysteries and a lot of lore and the origin of what's
14:26going on in the country and the link to the Civil War is all tied to that
14:29deep history and also what has happened since.
14:32I won't get into too much details because that will be part of another video
14:35for you guys.
14:36But you can see a bit of it here and it shows you the varied palettes
14:40and moods and atmospheres that we have in the game,
14:42which also I think is something quite interesting and unique
14:45that we're doing in Hell Is Us.
14:56Thanks a lot.
14:57Thanks for being with us.
14:58I hope you enjoyed it.
14:59I'm extremely grateful to have you guys following us, the team as well.
15:02So, just to repeat, the game Hell Is Us will be released in 2025,
15:06Xbox Series, PlayStation 5 and PC.
15:09And there's a lot more coming soon about the game.
15:12This is just the beginning.
15:13We'll explain other aspects of it and get into sometimes a bit of the minutia.
15:18So, stay tuned and speak to you soon.
15:20Thank you.
15:28Copyright WDR 2021