Hell is murderous geometry in free roguelite action game Hells Divide

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In which FPS stands for First-Person Stabber.

(Image credit: Tom Sykes)

Hell is other people, some other person once said. Only they were totally wrong, as it's actually full of angry spheres and cubes. I know this from experience: my experience playing Hells Divide, a great-feeling, if flawed first-person stabber.

It's a tiny bit like Downwell, or [insert other fast-paced roguelite here]. Except, rather than simply falling down a big well, you're trying to kill enough enemies, in each randomly generated stage, to gain an upgrade, and open the door to the next level. Enemies—because of time probably, and because of hey, this is a free game—take the form of cubes and spheres that fire default-looking particles at you. But that can be dispatched with enough thwacking from your nifty sword.

Health is restored as you pass through one of the glowing doors—but be careful of exploring too far inside, as there are several dead-end rooms that don't allow you to escape. This miffed me to begin with, and led to a few annoying restarts, before I realised that my goal was simply to acquire enough souls from enemies, and that it didn't really matter where exactly I did that. Still, it feels like an oversight, creating a sudden difficulty spike as you become trapped in a tiny room with an endless stream of enemies, with no way to explore another path, or to heal.

Regardless, Hells Divide has got the speed, the big smeared textures, and much of the frenetic action of the very best era of shooters. So give it a try if hell sounds like your idea of heaven. (Thanks, Alpha Beta Gamer.)

For more great free experiences, check out our roundup of the best free PC games.

Tom Sykes
Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.