The upcoming action-adventure game Hell is Us has sparked controversy in the PC gaming community following the release of its system requirements and a playable demo. Built on Unreal Engine 5, the game's performance demands have raised serious questions about optimization practices and the gaming industry's growing reliance on upscaling technologies as a performance crutch.
Extreme Hardware Requirements Despite Upscaling
Hell is Us presents some of the most demanding system requirements seen in recent gaming releases. The ultra specification tier requires an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 or AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX to achieve just 30fps at 4K resolution. What makes this particularly concerning is that these performance targets assume upscaling technology is already enabled, meaning the game isn't even rendering at native resolution.
The system requirements span from minimum specifications requiring a GTX 1070 or RX 5600 XT for 1080p at 30fps, up to the flagship RTX 4090 for 4K gaming. Notably, even the recommended tier, which targets 60fps at 1080p with high settings, demands an RTX 2080 Ti or RX 6750 XT alongside upscaling assistance.
Demo Testing Reveals Performance Struggles
Real-world testing of the available Steam demo has confirmed initial concerns about the game's optimization. Using an RTX 4070 test system with an Intel Core i7 11700F and 32GB of RAM, the game struggled to maintain stable 60fps performance at 1440p resolution without upscaling assistance.
Testing across different graphical presets revealed frame rates of 59fps on medium, 53fps on high, and just 38fps on very high settings at 1440p. Even with Nvidia DLSS enabled on the Quality setting, the performance improvement was modest, increasing from 53fps to only 61fps on the high preset. This suggests that achieving the system requirements' performance targets may require more aggressive upscaling settings than initially indicated.
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| This serene landscape in Hell is Us underscores the challenging performance hurdles players may face while gaming, even with high-end hardware |
Upscaling Dependency Raises Industry Concerns
The game's heavy reliance on upscaling technology has highlighted a growing trend in the gaming industry that many find troubling. Hell is Us supports multiple upscaling solutions including DLSS, XeSS, and FSR, but defaults to Unreal Engine's Temporal Super Resolution (TSR). The upscaling intensity varies by preset, starting at 50% for low settings and decreasing to 10% for ultra settings.
This approach contrasts sharply with other demanding titles like Assassin's Creed Shadows, which despite also requiring upscaling, manages to deliver 60fps at 4K with full ray tracing effects using similar hardware specifications. The comparison underscores concerns that Hell is Us may be poorly optimized rather than simply graphically ambitious.
Technical Specifications and Storage Requirements
Beyond the GPU and CPU requirements, Hell is Us demands 16GB of RAM across all specification tiers, which may challenge older or budget gaming systems. The game requires 30GB of storage space and mandates an SSD across all performance tiers, reflecting modern gaming's increasing storage demands.
The CPU requirements remain consistent across higher specification tiers, with an Intel Core i7 11700K or AMD Ryzen 5 7600 being sufficient even for the ultra preset. This suggests the game's performance bottleneck lies primarily with GPU rendering rather than CPU processing power.
Future Implications for PC Gaming
The Hell is Us situation represents a concerning precedent for the PC gaming industry. While upscaling technologies like DLSS and FSR have proven valuable for enhancing performance, their integration into baseline system requirements suggests developers may be using them to mask optimization shortcomings rather than as performance enhancement tools.
With Hell is Us scheduled for release on September 4, 2025, there remains time for the developers to address these optimization concerns. However, the current state raises important questions about performance standards and whether the industry is moving toward a future where native resolution gaming becomes increasingly rare, even on high-end hardware.