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2025’s Best Soulslike You Missed Is Officially a Sleeper Hit on Xbox Game Pass
Hell Is Us, a semi-open-world action adventure game from Rogue Factor, has become a sleeper hit after joining Xbox Game Pass in July. Released in September 2025 amid the attention surrounding Hollow Knight: Silksong, it initially struggled for visibility, but is now the service’s third most-popular game and has reached one million players.
The game follows a peacekeeper returning to his war-torn homeland to find his parents, only to encounter supernatural threats. It combines Soulslike combat with an intentionally minimal interface that omits maps and quest markers, encouraging exploration; reviews were mixed overall, with a Metacritic score of 77 from 60 reviews. Hell Is Us is available for Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5 and PC, with a Nintendo Switch 2 release planned for 8 October.
In short
- Hell Is Us has become a Game Pass sleeper hit.
- It has reached one million players.
- Its exploration-focused Soulslike design divides critics.
Explained simply
Hell Is Us is an action-adventure game made by Rogue Factor. It is set in a fictional country torn apart by war, where a peacekeeper returns to look for his parents and encounters supernatural threats.
The game borrows challenging combat from Soulslike games, a term for action games built around difficult fights and learning enemy patterns. It also leaves out maps and quest markers, so players must find their way by exploring. Game Pass is Microsoft’s subscription service for Xbox games, which can help titles reach players who might otherwise miss them.