Houses bereft of owners, twisting paved streets upon which ghostly figures dare to tread lay empty and coated in a dark miasma. It truly is not the nicest neighborhood you've woken up in within Hell Is Others, but for now it's home. Quite a crumbling and dilapidated one at that.
This haunting place, known as Century City, is a pretty hostile environment and if the contaminated air doesn't get you, the monsters will. It can be pretty tough trying to survive in this nightmare world. But it is possible and with practice, not as hard as you might think. To help you master this world, here's a handy guide to the PvE in Hell Is Others.
The Basics Of PvE
Your bread-and-butter gameplay of Hell Is Others essentially boils down to the following. Waking up, grabbing your gear, heading outside, scavenging for parts, and then getting home alive. Simple, sufficient, and easy to get into a rhythm with. But to add some tension to those expeditions is the ever-present threat of going home empty-handed.
Patrolling the streets below are otherworldly critters that will try to take a bite out of you and bloodthirsty players looking for an easy loot opportunity. But if you can sneak past them, you'll find plenty of treasure tucked away. Though just make sure that the house you're breaking into isn't already occupied. After filling your pockets with what you need, you then need to book it as fast as you can to the nearest elevator exit door, especially if the timer is close to expiring. But just remember that if you die on an expedition, you'll lose your entire inventory.
Scavenging
The Scavenging aspect of Hell Is Others is pretty straightforward. You have a fairly large map of an abandoned city with a range of houses and homes of varying types, uses, and finery. Within these now dour-looking dwellings are trinkets, baubles, food, and other scrapable supplies that you can pillage to your heart's content.
These valuable items are stored within the various desk drawers, cupboards and chests left behind by the past denizens of this seemingly forgotten realm. Breaking into these boxes is easy and takes a few seconds, but it also locks your view and makes you extremely vulnerable to ambushes from behind. The contents are also random and permanent to the current session. So you could join a match where everything is picked clean and the place is a battlefield, or it could be a ghost town with encounters with other players few and far between. Your success on scavenging runs is mostly down to luck and skill, but if you can pull off successful runs routinely then you'll be bristling with weaponry and have cash to burn in no time.
Vendors
Though it may seem like you're isolated and alone in this infested burg, there are others that have managed to eke out a living amongst the ruins. There are plenty of NPC's and Vendors to find. Some are harder than others but as you blow past quest after quest you'll start to encounter more of these colorful characters.
They all sell unique items that you definitely want to have. From extra pots for plants to stronger weaponry and badly needed supplies. Plus, they're who you offload all your scrap to after a trip outside for a quick payday. If you're struggling to unlock or find a particular merchant then there's a handful of Community posts showing their location or the general areas that they like to hang around in during all the chaos.
Look ahead to what future stock will increase in price at the Vendor and try to build a backlog of it for an easy payday.
The Others
Stalking the streets of the city are floating ghouls that zip around, chunking your health with their projectiles, and tall, gangly, one-eyed demons with guns known as 'Others'. However, these nightmarish abominations haven't raided a gun store, they're other players.
Everyone resembles a monster to each other and whilst you can cooperate if you wish, most matches usually melt down into a Wild West shootout of who got the drop on who first. Everyone shoots on sight sadly, so sneaking past other Others is often what you need to do. Crouching reduces the noise you make, and to further lower your sound profile you're encouraged to use your guns sparingly and look for the quietest way to burglarize someone's empty abode.
PvE Tips And Tricks
Staying alive on an expedition is not too difficult, but it can take a while and plenty of deaths to figure out what approach works and which ones result in a quick death.
There's a lot to learn about your new home in this nightmare world, but once you get the basics down it's not too hard to thrive. To make the process of hitting the ground running on self-sufficiency in this hostile environment, here are a couple of handy tips for PvE in Hell Is Others to help you out.
Watch Your Step
The map in Hell Is Others isn't too massive and you can sprint across its entire length pretty quickly. But you really shouldn't do this. Despite the time limit constantly nudging you to move quickly, it's better to take your time. Running around recklessly is by far the easiest way to die and the simplest of mistakes.
This is because not only are there massive monsters wandering around that you could bump into but there are also tons of traps and other players to contend with. There's a particularly nasty creature trap that lunges huge jaws out of a wall and chunks your health bar. They're hard to spot, can be anywhere and unless you dodge fast enough, they're a guaranteed hit. There's also the chance you could run onto a player-placed landmine, a weapon that seems to be the favorite method of choice when it comes to culling inexperienced explorers.
Don't Dawdle In One Spot
It's hard to gauge what exactly the player count is in a match at any given moment. But, there are enough people running around down there that sticking to one spot isn't something first-timers should be trying. Because of the size of the map, the amount of patrolling creatures that can also enter homes, and the chance of another person stopping by, it's often not long until someone blunders into your hiding spot and lights you up with gunfire.
Ideally, you should spend no longer than a minute inside a home. Scour your surroundings, check what's inside the storage containers and then get out. The longer you hang around, the higher the chance of encountering something or someone hostile becomes. If you have to hide, try to be in an area where the elevator will spawn as it will give you less distance to cover to get to the exit door.
Avoid Firefights Early On
Whilst you may feel like you can take on the world right out of the gate with your puny starter pistol, gunfights are something first-timers really should avoid. That basic pistol doesn't pack much of a punch. Plus there's a very high chance that the player shapes ghoul you're about to ambush is much more heavily armed and eager to kill.
For some reason, Hell Is Others pairs new players with co-op groups and pretty much anyone else that's matchmaking in the server. This results in a lot of underpowered and unprepared players getting quickly shredded by those that are more experienced, better equipped, or just lucky enough to have brought a friend with them. Late-game player's quests are also mainly PvP-focused, further incentivizing them to dogpile and stomp the newbies. So avoid a firefight until you're sufficiently equipped and powered up.
Know Your Monsters
There's a lot of creepy and creative monsters in Hell Is Others. They all behave differently, but they share a common goal, devouring anyone they come across. From the small orbs that launch projectiles, to the wall lunging mouth demons, AOE exploding cyclopean balls of death and the street-filling worms.
Each creature and character you encounter is logged in your Journal, so doing some homework in between matches is always worth it. Learning to spot the biggest threat in the room at a moment's notice can always be beneficial. Especially if you stumble into one whilst dueling with another player.
Get More Pots ASAP
When you first start the game you only have one plant pot and it's already occupied by a Bonsai. So you'll need to get another pot if you want to start expanding your new collection of leafy flatmates. Having a large collection of plants not only adds to the ambiance, they're also your main source of bullets in the game so you're essentially growing an arsenal at home.
However, plant pots are a little hard to come by, at least in the early game. They're only available after you've progressed far enough in the story to unlock the Pottery Store. Once that's done you can pick up some pots and fertilizer whenever you stop by to keep your firearm-feeding flowers healthy and harvestable. After all, the more plants you have, the more bullets you can get your hands on.
Learn Loot Locations
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The loot in Hell Is Others is completely random in its spawning locations. But there are some key items that tend to appear in specific spots that are always worth a visit when you head downstairs. Knowing how to get to these spots first and fast can mean the difference between pockets full of loot and a bullet to the brain.
For example, the Police Station has lockers that regularly drop rifles and shotguns. Whilst the church and manor are more prone to gold items appearing within their various cabinets and drawers. It's not much of an edge, but knowing where to go is more helpful than wandering around, getting lost, then being shot.
There are a few Community created loot maps that are worth checking out if you're trying to find the best trinkets to take
The Elevator Is Not As Safe As You Think
One final note for would-be survivors. The Elevator Exit is not a safe spot to hide in, especially if you're being chased. Unfortunately, if you run in and aren't quick about getting the door closed, someone can easily walk up to you and dump an entire magazine's worth of ammo into your face.
What makes it worse is that trying to leave locks you in place for a few seconds as an animation plays out. If someone is right behind you or happens to stroll by then there's nothing to stop them from just killing your character. It's commonplace to see stacks of suitcases containing dead player inventories and booby traps stacked outside and inside the lift. It's an incredibly frustrating feature to run afoul of and your only counter to it that's worth mentioning is to hide out nearby, call the elevator and wait an extra minute after it arrives to see if anyone shows up. If you're being pursued, leave the immediate area for a while and try a different exit, as they could just be camping out the door for easy kills.