Hellpoint beginner’s guide

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We made mistakes so you don’t have to

Hellpoint asks “what if H.R. Giger and Dark Souls had a baby” (or Facehuggered a new game into Dark Souls, in this case). It blends a creepy, space station in hell atmosphere with the brutal difficulty and general confusion found in a FromSoftware game.

In our opening hours with Hellpoint, we made some avoidable mistakes. In this guide, we’ll teach you how to avoid some of these pitfalls, so you can focus on surviving the game’s first few areas.

Hellpoint is deeply committed to FromSoftware’s obfuscation of systems and desire to kill you. From the moment you leave your first Breach (Hellpoint’s equivalent of a Dark Souls bonfire), you’re in danger from all sides.

When you’re adventuring into areas you haven’t seen before, go slow. Ease forward and peer around corners. Make a mental note of where enemies are in a room. Determine your attack plan: Is it easiest to take out the difficult enemies first, or do you need to clear the fodder so you don’t get overwhelmed? Before you enter a new room or walk by an alley, swing your camera around to see any enemies waiting to ambush you.

This hyper focus can also be your undoing. At least one enemy — the Angelic Knight near the start of the game — can attack you from below and at a distance. If you’re looking around a new room for foes, make sure to keep your eyes on your back and your feet. Something may just try and take advantage of your own blind spots.

If you’re familiar with Souls games, you may go in knowing that you like big, heavy weapons and be tempted to dump all of your attribute points into Strength. Don’t force yourself into a corner too soon. Early in Hellpoint, spread the love between multiple stat points, as many weapons require both Strength and Reflex.

There is no class selection in Hellpoint, so you’ll start at a baseline every time. Give yourself at least four points in Strength, Reflex, Health, and Stamina before you get too specific.

Once you have some weapons and armor you like, then feel free to specialize a bit more. But for your first few levels, you should even yourself out a bit.

Finding a weapon you love is important in any difficult game like Hellpoint. Many weapons require serious stat investment before you can use them properly and deal serious damage. But you can start playing with weapons even before you have the required stats.

Wielding a weapon you don’t have the stats for only hinders its lethality, not the flow of its combos. If a weapon seems appealing, equip it and try a few swings before you invest a bunch of Attribute points in its direction.

After you find a good weapon in Hellpoint, use it. Some weapons have special abilities that you can spend Energy (mana you recharge by striking enemies) to activate. But to unlock these abilities, you’ll need to use your weapon in combat.

You can also use currency to upgrade weapons so they deal more damage. You’ll need to sink precious resources into these weapons to power them up, so it’s best to spend on something you know you already like. Stick what you know, and only swap when you find something that fits your play style better. Remember: Test before you invest.

One of Hellpoint’s only major departures from the Souls games is the inclusion of a jump button. Thanks to this mechanic, we’ve seen at least one extensive and optional climbing section. If you complete this obstacle course (located on the roof of the Observatory), you can pick up some loot and a ton of Axions (currency like Souls).

Hellpoint rewards jumping around and exploring different areas, and you can give yourself a huge boost in Axions, offensive, and defensive gear just by clearing out an area and exploring a little. That last bit probably sounds familiar for Souls players, so just keep in mind that Hellpoint also wants you to look up, too.

The Observatory is your home base in Hellpoint — the equivalent of Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls. It houses a crafting station, a healing station, and a weapon augmentation station. Return here and power yourself up on occasion, especially if you’re struggling, but make sure you have Axions before you travel.

Key services like upgrading your weapon costs Axions, as well as special materials you find while playing. If you spend all of your currency upgrading your Attributes, you might arrive home too poor to upgrade your weapons. If you know a return to the Observatory could come soon, make sure to save a few thousand Axions.

Getting back to the Observatory isn’t always easy. To fast travel, you need to infuse a Breach with a Breach Synchronizer. In our time with the game, we’ve only found a handful of these. Once you infuse a Breach, you can’t get your Synchronizer back, so choose wisely. We created one per area and just hoofed it the rest of the time.

It’s worth noting that you can use large Breaches, which seem to spawn after you kill a boss, to fast travel back to the Observatory, or even other Breaches without needing a Synchronizer.

Resting at a Breach does not respawn all of the enemies you killed, nor does it refill your health items.

Since you don’t respawn enemies when you visit a Breach, you can level up your character without having to clear an entire area again. This makes depositing your Axions the safe thing to do before adventuring forward. You’ll drop all of the Axions you’re holding if you die, and you’ll need to return to your body to retrieve them.

If you’re heading into an unfamiliar area with a boatload of Axions, make a quick trip back to empower your character.

As you deal damage, you’ll regain charges for your Healing Injection — visiting a Breach won’t restore any charges. If you’re low on health and Healing Injections you have three options: go heal at the healing station in the Observatory, fight enemies until you get more Healing Injector charges, or die. When you die, you’ll respawn with two Healing Injector charges.

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