"Hell's Highway" looks, sounds and feels like an interactive film, featuring long scenes of characters trading harsh dialogue, while the camera's point of view seesaws from deep-focus to short-focus cinematography.
I would argue Hell's Highway and other marquee titles of late are so dark, and so lengthy, they are even akin to novellas. The game manipulates time and narrative with themes, twists, flashbacks and flash-forwards.
In this World War II sequel, the third in the Brothers series, you step into the shoes of Sgt. Matt Baker. He watches friends die, then kills at your command. He suffers intense emotional breakdowns, gabs incoherently and falls to hallucinations.
Designers of Hell's Highway spent an immense amount of time tracing historically accurate terrain, storylines and weaponry in an adventure that stretches to 12 to 20 hours.
The game play is realistic, too, sometimes maddeningly so, as it is almost a war simulator. You must sneak around corners of house edges, church pews, trucks and building walls to shoot Nazis who are also hiding behind corners far off in the distance.