Darkest Hour: Europe '44-'45 News

Darkest Hour: Europe ‘44-’45 v9.0 has been released!

This release is a ceremonial one, and a milestone in the game’s development, punctuating all of the work that has been done over the last year and a half. In that time, we have added and refined a number of new features and content including squad rally points, constructions, the new Advance game mode, and well over a dozen new maps!


We are usually pretty humble about our releases, but this time we’ve gone all out and put together a cinematic trailer. We hope you will enjoy it (and send it to those who might also enjoy it!)




Today is also the 13th anniversary of Red Orchestra: Ostfront! To mark the occasion, we have enlisted the help of Tripwire Interactive to help get the word out to publications about all the hard work we have been doing, which should help bring in some new recruits! What’s more, Tripwire Interactive has permanently reduced the price of Red Orchestra: Ostfront!

We would also like to thank our community and players, old and new, for giving us the inspiration and drive to continue to improve and expand one of the longest running WW2 games of all time. We have lots more in the works, and we look forward to delivering new features and content in the coming weeks and months!

If you love what we do and want to support the game’s continued development, consider supporting us via Patreon. We also encourage everyone (new players especially!) to join our [url=Discord community and join with your fellow soldiers in the mess hall!



See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

This update we are releasing a number of new features, including Danger Zones, Hot Rally Points and the Rally Point Indicator!

This update is a big step towards our version 9.0 milestone coming in just a little over a month. A big focus for 9.0 will be to solidify the features added in 8.0 and to better convey the game’s mechanics to new players. Without further adieu, here are the highlights!


The “danger zone” is essentially a dynamically calculated marker of enemy territory based on objective ownership. The primary use of the danger zone, currently, is to mark rally points inside the danger zone as “hot”. The location of hot rally points will be automatically marked on the map for the opposing team to call attention to deep flanking squads.



This mechanic was developed as a response to the metagame shifting towards extreme behind-the-lines play which could make battles feel unfocused as well as putting defending teams at an extreme disadvantage. As always, the mechanics are always subject to change based on how the mechanic affects the gameplay and player feedback.

This feature was developed primarily by community member and ace squad leader Dirty Birdy, and we are really excited that he has lent us his talents.


We have added a new rally point indicator to the HUD for squad leaders! This handy little guy gives you at-a-glance information about your ability to place rally points. Here is a rundown of the kinds of information it conveys:

• If your squad has no rally points, the indicator will flash red.
  
• Displays the reason why placement may not be possible (eg. missing squadmate, cooldown etc.)
  
• When all placement conditions have been satisfied, the icon glows and displays a one-button prompt to place a rally point (will be useful for new squad leaders!)
  
• The indicator displays a yellow warning symbol when you are in the danger zone.
  

• In an effort to stop grand theft logi, only Squad Leaders and Assistants can spawn and drive Logistics vehicles
  
• Low Reinforcement messages appear less often, but are now accompanied by a unique sound
  
• Tweaked the rules for activating objective spawns; objective spawns will generally be much further away from the frontlines, hopefully resulting in less instances of spawn killing.
  
• Changed the banned and session kicked messages to be less confusing
  
• Added the server name to the scoreboard
  

• Added ability to start kicking idle players once enough players are connected
  
• Added a command which unlocks the 10,000 Bps network speed cap
  
• Added a location string, so players can know where the server is located on the server browser
  

• Players who are forgiven for a team kill will now have their weapons unlocked if they have a past team kill which was punished
  
• Shooting a friendly soft vehicle will play an upsetting sound (to warn players against doing it)
  
• Removed the ability for players to damage the engine of friendly vehicles
  
• Added weapon locking for destroying friendly vehicles
  
• Added a message for when a player destroys a friendly vehicle
  
• A player who kills a friendly vehicle can no longer switch teams for 25 minutes
  
• Added a death message (Andy Kaufman) when a player destroys a friendly vehicle
  

• Doubled the health of all sandbag constructions
  
• Dragon’s Teeth health increased from 750 to 1000
  
• Dragon's Teeth now take less damage from HE splash
  

• All work in progress maps now have a kill zone under the terrain
  
• Klin updated
  
  • Decreased number of reinforcements
    
  • Added windy snow emitters
    
  • Brightened the dark sky
    
  • Removed bloom and reduced the brightness of players
    
  • Fixed many other issues
    

• Salaca updated
  
  • Improved the Objective Spawns
    
  • Adjusted the end objectives locations and renamed
    

See you in the DANGER ZONE,
Darklight Games

A small update released early this morning. Here are the...

• Radar updated, several improvements, added objective spawns
  
• Slight damage and radius increase to satchel charges
  
• Moved smoke grenades to slot “4”
  
• Moved shovel/wirecutters/satchels to slot “7”
  
• Changes to Klin, Salaca, and Myshkova
  

• Fixed a bug on Hurtgenwald where players would be slain up on the hill
  
• Fixed a bug where players couldn’t pick up satchels
  
• Fixed a bug with objective spawns which could crash the server
  

Got a hotfix for client crashes during level load and more!

Changes:

• Updated the main menu to fix a client crash
  
• Added mortar observers to Stoumont Advance
  
• Removed Ami Go Home from Axis song list
  
• Moved Satchel Charges from slot "7" to slot "4"
  
• Moved Smoke Grenades from slot "2" to slot "7"
  
• Added slots as bindable keys on the control settings page
  
• Objective Spawns now have their own map icon (a square)
  
• Added objective spawns to Putot (objective spawns will work on Advance now)
  
• Netspeed changes:
  
  • New default is 10000
    
  • Users with less than 10000 netspeed will be updated to 10000
    
  • Adjusted netspeed values in the settings
    
• Several fixes to Putot
  

See you on the battlefield!

We are back at it! Here are the changes:

• New Main Menu
  
  • New background image
    
  • Handles different aspect ratios (4:3 & 16:9) better (no longer stretches image)
    
  • Now has a frame limiter (to help prevent coil whine on your hardware)
    
• Added a control for toggle run (no default bind, can be bound under Controls > Movement)
  
• Fixed a bug where constructions would be virtually immune to direct HE impact damage.
  
• Added an experimental feature to Hattert_Advance we are calling Objective Spawns
  
  • The nearest linked secured objectives act as a spawn point for the team
    
  • If no issues occur we will implement this feature on more Clash maps
    
• Increased the options for internet rate (now has experimental 30000 rate option)
  

• Squad Leaders now receive 25 instead of 50 points when a squadmate spawns on their rally point. This change was made because squad leaders would almost always massively out-score the rest of their squad due to the high point value of players spawning on rally points.
  

• Removed DH_ATWeapons.u package
  
  • This package has been deprecated since v6.0 and was kept around for backwards compatibility with custom levels. However due to a bug in the UT2004 engine, it was discovered to be creating invalid references and data in map files which could lead to larger file sizes, instability, and made maintenance on these levels more difficult.
    
  
  
  
• Note To Server Administrators!
  
  • Custom levels that reference DH_ATWeapons.u will now require DH_ATWeapons.u as a custom file on the server. Either that, or the custom levels will need to be updated to remove these references (Contact [DH]Theel on our Discord for more information and instructions). You can download the DH_ATWeapons.u package here. Place the file in your server’s DarkestHour/System folder.