LIVING HELL open beta brings co-op survival horror to Steam
LIVING HELL's Steam open beta sends up to four players into a ruined city where the only escape is an abandoned subway train.
LIVING HELL is inviting players into a new co-operative survival-horror playtest on Steam. The game supports one to four players and drops them into a ruined city where solar radiation has twisted people and animals into dangerous mutations. Alpha Beta Gamer says the open beta is available through the game's Steam page, where players can request access. 1
A subway train is the only way out
The central idea is brutally simple: keep an abandoned subway train running while searching the ruins of Pelican City for a route to safety. Players leave the train to hunt mutated creatures for biofuel, gather materials and craft the equipment needed for the next stretch of the journey. Every trip is shaped by the pressure to go further without leaving the escape route underpowered.
That pressure is not just about ammunition or health. LIVING HELL also tracks Thermal Load, a resource that can turn survival into another threat. The hotter the situation becomes, the closer a character gets to becoming dangerous to their own team. That creates a co-op problem beyond the usual revive-and-reload loop: a player who pushes too hard may become the emergency the rest of the group has to manage.
The game features six playable characters, proximity voice chat and procedurally varied subway routes, according to the open-beta description. Those systems are aimed at making each escape feel different, with communication and timing carrying as much weight as raw firepower. The playable cast and route variation should also give groups reasons to experiment rather than repeat one safe solution. 1
What the open beta offers
The Steam listing positions the playtest as an early look at the game's co-operative survival systems rather than a finished release. Players are asked to request access through the official store page, and the game is not being presented as fully launched. The current pitch is therefore about testing whether the train, resource management and team tension can hold together under pressure. 2
The ruined-city setting gives the loop a clear objective. You are not simply clearing rooms until the next level loads; you are trying to keep an escape vehicle alive while deciding how much danger is worth taking for more fuel and equipment. That makes every excursion a calculation: return safely with a modest haul, or risk a deeper run that could give the team a better chance later.
Our opinion
LIVING HELL has a strong co-op hook because its biggest danger is not just something that lives in the ruins. Thermal Load, the fuel hunt and the moving escape route all threaten to turn ordinary team disagreements into genuine survival decisions. The open beta will need to prove that those systems create meaningful tension rather than busywork, but a four-player horror game built around keeping a train alive is a sharper premise than another collection of disconnected corridors. For now, the Steam playtest is worth watching for groups who like their co-op horror to punish poor planning as much as poor aim.