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Patch 14.8 Hotfix | Now Live!

Hello everyone,

We've just deployed a hotfix to address some issues that surfaced with Patch 14.8. Please see the changelog below.

We're continuing to work on Update 15, and are currently looking at scheduling in Mortain PTE 2.

We'll share more news on that next week! Thank you for your continued feedback and support.

[h2]Patch 14.8 Hotfix Changelog[/h2]

[h3]General[/h3]

  • [Fixed] Restarting the game will reset the progression of achievements on XBS
  • [Fixed] [Offensive] The Commander can't select the first row to spawn vehicles
  • [Fixed] [RCon] All Skirmish variants are shown in the Admin Log as "Warfare"
  • [Fixed] [Achievements] The "Rule Breaker" achievement unlocks also with Infantry/Recon full squad
  • [Fixed] [PS5] [Skirmish] Won Skirmish matches are incremented 4 times than the default amount for all relevant Skirmish Achievements on PS5
  • [Fixed] The AT-Gun of the British Forces cannot be destroyed by tank or anti tank rounds.


See you on the frontlines. o7

British Forces Rework Part 2 - Now Live! | Dev Brief #199

Hello everyone,

Patch 14.8 – British Forces Rework Part 2 and the launch of Skirmish, is now live on all platforms.

This update completes the British rework phase of development. We decided to expand on the initial release of the British forces last year following a swath of valuable feedback. After two content updates comprising overhauls, we feel confident in the enhancements and improvements to transform this portion of the game. Thank you for your assistance in helping us accomplish this!



We’ve also implemented a new game mode, Control Skirmish. Based on feedback from previous PTEs, we’ve focused on refining our ‘seeding’ (rebranded to Control) game mode which originally featured on Foy and Kharkov.

Skirmish is a gateway experience for new players of Hell Let Loose. This game mode allows players to get straight into the action and experience some of the core mechanics of Hell Let Loose with fewer moving parts.

This is a quicker 50vs50 experience for some of our core audience who want to hop in for a few games and immerse themselves in the battle immediately.

Featuring a new type of garrison - the forward position, each side will be limited to one Armour squad and one Recon squad; the Commander can only spawn in medium tanks and no artillery pieces will be placed on the map.

Both teams start with control over their half of the map while the middle sector is neutral with a single capture point. Both teams must fight, attack and then defend this single capture point. Only the middle section of the map and the single capture point can change hands. At the end of the game, the team that controls the capture point is declared the winner.

To support this, there will be dedicated servers on PC, running these Skirmish maps, 24/7, so they’re always available for you to join.

  • HLL Official - Europe #16 > HLL Official Skirmish - Europe #01
  • HLL Official - US East #12 > HLL Official Skirmish - US East #01
  • HLL Official - Asia #16 > HLL Official Skirmish - Asia #01


[h2]El-Alamein - Map Refresh & Oasis - Control Skirmish[/h2]



When analysing the previous iteration of El Alamein, the map’s desolate landscape stood out as an area for improvement. Building placement has increased substantially to over 300%, whereas rocks have increased ~33%. We also recognised that many vehicle routes failed to connect throughout the map, featuring frequent dead ends – frustrating armour units. El Alamein was famous for its tank battles, and we’ve made changes to improve and add complete routes.

We’ve also worked on the HQs and capture points to improve balance and gameplay.

We’ve redesigned El Alamein to deliver an improved gameplay experience that also accommodates Skirmish. Map visuals and layout have been enhanced and improved – bringing graphical consistency to the level with an overall colour and tone pass. We’ve transformed the roads to increase visual quality; populated many open, empty areas; and new military posts have been set up across the map.



El Alamein has undergone a remarkable transformation, thanks to the hard work of the Environment Art team aiming to update the map making it feel refreshing and engaging. We recognised the frustrations and disappointments expressed by the player base regarding the previous state of El Alamein. Therefore, we dove into the level, eliminated dull open dead spaces, and elevated its overall appeal. The revamped version features many enhancements, including large and small canyons, new trench areas, revitalized town sections, abundant cover to thwart pesky snipers, an expanded oasis, and a newly incorporated town.

Additionally, lush foliage now adorns the entire map, enriching it with vibrant hues alongside the exciting new additions of ruins. But, for us, the most exciting new addition is the mines! You can move across the map through cool tunnels giving new routes and opportunities for gameplay across the map. We've listened to your feedback, and we hope you enjoy these improvements - welcome to the new and improved El Alamein.

Jack McFarland, Environment Artist - Expression Games




The Technical Art team have been working on steadily addressing the performance issues throughout Hell Let Loose. Some of these issues that stand out have been cataloguing and optimising excessive texture sizes, addressing missing VFX LODs, reducing excessive mesh densities and ensuring LODs are drawing at more performant distances.

The recent art refresh brought along a welcome facelift to El Alamein and with it some challenges for the Technical Art team. Working closely with the artists to ensure their vision was not compromised while keeping performance within acceptable limits. A lot of this was down to addressing the many new assets that had been added (adding to a strain on the CPU). This meant merging most assets as Hierarchical Instanced Static Meshes (HISM is an instancing method that allows for better memory performance and supports LODs with good asset culling which results in better rendering performance). When doing this pass we asked the artists to approach it with small to medium-sized HISM merges as we were mindful when reducing the draw calls on the CPU not to overburden the strain on the GPU.

In addition to this, we also addressed issues where there were excessive triangles on some assets (e.g. aircraft hangers) and proposed a much more efficient way to build them.

We addressed some VFX issues whereby some particles would continue to render beyond the point that they were visible to the player. An optimisation pass was implemented on the character driven VFX of dust/mud kick-up, we created LODs and set them to cull at a distance that was more performant and not noticeable by the player.

When looking at specific issues around frame drops, it was discovered that burning or damaged vehicles had a particle light with an excessive radius attached to the effect. This was drawing several times adding to light complexity and this has since been removed.

As well as optimising, we have been looking at improving the look of the fire VFX and adding some more atmospheric dust based effects to El Alamein.

There is also ongoing R&D into some new weather VFX coming to HLL which we can talk about in more detail in the coming briefings.

Technical Art Team - Expression Games




With Oasis being the central Capture Point on the map, it sits right in the heart of our talented Environment Art’s piece of map refresh work, so we decided to make that the centre of attention for Skirmish - Control Mode. The mixture of high, open elevation juxtaposed with the ruined compounds provide an interesting battle ahead which should cater to most playstyles.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games


[h2]Driel - Map Updates & Underpass - Control Skirmish[/h2]



With Control Skirmish’s focus on a single Capture Point, we wanted to utilise an area of the map that catered to multiple playstyles, with a myriad of approaches to gain control of the area.

To accomplish this, we created a custom Capture Point just north of the traditional “South Railway” objective in Warfare and Offensive, allowing players to fight over the “Underpass”. To enhance this area we placed additional train cars to block overly long sightlines straight down the railway tracks, as well as increasing the foliage and defensive structures along the embankments and surrounding the underpass itself.

Kienan Southern - Junior Level Designer, Expression Games






[h2]Red Devils [Paid][/h2]

The British Airborne played a pivotal role in Operation Market Garden, with Driel being one of the locations involved.



The plan employed all three Allied airborne divisions. The British incurred the hardest task of all – their directive was to capture the integral bridge over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem; the most distant objective from the Allied front line. Around 35,000 Allied parachute and glider troops were deployed to the operation.

The Red Devils DLC is playable in all recon and infantry squad roles.

[h2]Polish Parachute Brigade [Paid][/h2]

Polish Paratroopers played a key role for the Allied forces in Market Garden. Held responsible for the failure of Operation Market Garden, Major-General Stanislaw Sosabowski was used as a scapegoat to blame for the Battle of Arnhem fiasco.

Only the inhabitants of Driel recognised the devastating struggle the Polish army troops endured; suffering heavy losses through unfavourable circumstances and poor planning by the British High Command. They see the Polish soldiers as their liberators, with General Stanislaw Sosabowski at their head.

The Polish Parachute Brigade DLC is playable in all recon and infantry squad roles.



With Black Matter’s inclusion of the Driel map into the game we did extensive historical research into this part of Market Garden (the Allied operation in Holland in 1944). One of our key findings was the role of the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade, part of the Allied airborne deployment, alongside the British 1st Airborne Division. In particular their actions at Driel and the bitter fighting and sacrifices made to aid in the British withdrawal from Arnhem. To honour the Polish involvement at Driel, we have included a new Polish paratrooper uniform and beret for players who wish to represent the Polish forces in this battle.

Matt White, Creative Director - Expression Games


[h2]Near Miss - British 8th Army [Free][/h2]



Created as a thank you for your support, especially over the past 12 months, the British Near Miss helmet references that trailer and the ensuing rework for the British forces.

[h2]New British Weapons and Armour[/h2]

As part of this rework of the British content, we have looked at what weapons the British forces would have been equipped with. With that in mind, we have introduced:
  • Sten Gun Mk V
  • No.4 Mk I Sniper
  • Thompson 1928A1
  • No.82 Gammon Bomb

These are more thematic reflective, representative of the weapons used in the theatres, and more authentic to some of the forces in the battle—for example, the Sten Mk V used by the British Airborne in Operation Market Garden.




We also looked at what vehicles and armour should be included in El Alamein and Driel. Part of this work was to include armour that is more reflective of the history and so for El Alamein we have included:

  • Crusader Mk III (Medium Tank)
  • M3 Stuart ‘Honey’ (Light Tank)




And for Driel we have included:

  • Churchill Mk VII (Heavy Tank)


Extra effort was made to include a second type of Churchill with the Mk VII to better reflect the variant of Churchill that would have been present in Western Europe in this point of the war.

Matt White, Creative Director - Expression Games


Having the opportunity to create iconic weapons and vehicles for Hell Let Loose is a
tremendous honour for myself and the team, and represents a very fun challenge in
the form of doing justice to the real-world look and history of said assets.

Maintaining historical accuracy is of paramount importance on a project like this,
everything from the exact model (and sometimes even sub-model) that would have
been used in that theatre at the time, the tools and equipment, and of course the
camo and markings all play into ensuring the asset is as accurate as possible whilst
also playing and feeling well in-game.

As these are the first new weapons and vehicles that Expression Games have added to the
game, we were particularly keen to ensure that these assets looked as awesome as
possible. Plenty of time was spent gathering reference images and combing through
videos to cover every angle, and even more time was dedicated to modelling and
texturing these assets to both look great and tell a story about the kind of conflict
they would have gone through.

I truly hope you have fun taking the M3 Stuart for a spin around the dunes of El Alamein, and land some nasty headshots using the new No.32 Scope for the No.4 Mk 1!

Daniel Midghall, Hard Surface Artist - Expression Games




[h2]No.82 Grenade (aka the ‘Gammon Bomb’)[/h2]



The No.82 Grenade (aka the ‘Gammon Bomb’) is a new and unique piece of equipment dropping into Allied loadouts on Driel for Patch 14.8.

This detonate-on-impact device can be a devastating ambushing weapon against enemy infantry and a useful tool for disabling and destroying enemy vehicles.

Due to its size, shape and weight, the throwing distance of the Gammon Bomb differs from other grenades in-game by having a shorter range. Players have the ability to underarm throw this grenade for the purpose of dropping it onto enemy positions from above, however, trying this at ground level may lead to… an unfortunate outcome.

The table below gives an idea of how the No.82 can damage or destroy different vehicle types.

Jack Jenkins, Game Designer - Expression Games




[h2]Patch 14.8 Changelog[/h2]

[h3]New Gamemode[/h3]

  • Skirmish


[h3]Updated maps:[/h3]

  • El Alamein Refresh
  • Driel Updates


[h3]New weapons:[/h3]

  • No.4 Mk I Sniper (6 mags)
  • Sten Gun Mk V (8 mags)
  • No.82 Grenade ‘Gammon Bomb’
  • Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Drum Mag (5 mags)
  • Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Stick Mag (8 mags)


[h3]New tanks:[/h3]

  • Churchill Mk VII (Heavy Tank)
  • Crusader Mk III (Medium Tank)
  • M3 Stuart ‘Honey’ (Light Tank)


[h3]DLC:[/h3]

  • British Airborne (Paid)
  • Polish Parachute Brigade (Paid)
  • Near Miss Helmets - British 8th Army (Free)


[h3]Gore filter:[/h3]

  • The gore filter has been introduced as requested by content creators from the player base


[h3]Bug Fixes:[/h3]

General:

  • [Fixed] Smoke grenades in the shadow of other objects appear to flicker with light and shadow
  • [Fixed] Performance issues on all maps are observed when firing the flamethrower
  • [Fixed] [TPP] Molotov's can be seen through smoke clouds
  • [Fixed] Breathing while sprinting audio can overlap itself
  • [Fixed] Sten Gun asset is positioned slightly too high when ADS-ing
  • [Fixed] After changing video settings and leaving the game the settings did not apply to the game
  • [Fixed] Loading in some specific maps will trigger a softlock - Rarely seen however a fix was found
  • [Fixed] Character model arms will flail wildly & unrealistically when quickly switching between loadout items
  • [Fixed] The top of the Churchill Mk III heavy tank has an area where there is no player or bullet collision
  • [Fixed] The Churchill Mk III has high armour instead of medium on its rear panel
  • [Fixed] The Lewis Gun has a capacity of 47 rounds rather than 97 and a different number of magazines for each British faction
  • [Fixed] Players can hide the satchel charge inside the Churchill Mk III tank
  • [Fixed] The Medic's armband is missing from the Khaki Drill uniform


Purple Heart Lane:

  • [Fixed] [PHL] Sky rain PFX are generally invisible & do not match the intensity of the rain effect on the ground
  • [Fixed] H1 Trees outside the playable area are brighter than others also low-quality bushes are present


Kharkov:

  • [Fixed] Some destroyed vehicles across the map present stone SFX and PFX
  • [Fixed] [F6] Burned house wrecks and snow assets are missing collision in sector F6


El Alamein:

  • [Fixed] [B6] Tank stops after colliding with the sand near the main road
  • [Fixed] [F7] [C3] Significant FPS drop in the sector when turning toward the landscape
  • [Fixed] El Alamein's colour scheme feels flat
  • [Fixed] Bullet collision is not present on canvas covered barrels and tires in multiple sectors
  • [Fixed] Vehicle outlines can be seen on the tactical map
  • [Fixed] Incorrect penetration value on wooden railings
  • [Fixed] [C6] The smoke in sector C6 presents LOD issues
  • [Fixed] Airfield Hangers - sandbag asset not rendering
  • [Fixed] Invisible bullet collision is present on the hangar's door
  • [Fixed] Uneven terrain can cause built items to glitch into the ground or sky
  • [Fixed] [I4] Floating Cart Asset located in sector I4
  • [Fixed] Infantry mines will partially clip through the rear floor of the aircraft hangers
  • [Fixed] H8 The cliff found in sector H8 presents misalignment issues
  • [Fixed] [A5] The cliff found in sector A5 is misaligned with the ground
  • [Fixed] H4 Wooden Pallets present draw distance issues
  • [Fixed] In multiple hangars the terrain is misaligned
  • [Fixed] [E3] Misaligned rock formation in sector E3
  • [Fixed] [B5] A pile of crate assets is floating on sector B5
  • [Fixed] A ripple effect is visible in a small radius around the player when driving on flat surfaces
  • [Fixed] [J6] Assets in this sector are missing textures, polygon faces or are very noticeably misplaced
  • [Fixed] [J5] Assets in this sector are missing textures, polygon faces or are very noticeably misplaced
  • [Fixed] [C9] Assets in this sector are missing textures, polygon faces or are very noticeably misplaced


Driel:

  • [Fixed] [A1] Windmil presents LOD issue
  • [Fixed] [G1] Black textures can be seen on some steps
  • [Fixed] [H9] A road is misaligned on sector H9


[h2]Free DLC for HLL Owners[/h2]

Hell Let Loose console & PC owners will receive the ‘Hell’ Pattern Trench Gun for free in Classified: France '44!



You are tasked with commanding an elite team of allied special operators in Nazi-occupied France wreaking havoc in the run-up to D-Day in an ambitious turn-based tactics game. Take on the might of Germany's war machine and launch daring raids in occupied territory.

Classified: France ‘44 releases March 5th on Steam and current-gen consoles.

No activation is needed, it will show in your inventory if you own HLL.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2085370/Classified_France_44/

Hell Let Loose 2024 Roadmap

Hello everyone,

We loved your positive reception to the Mortain changes shared in the latest dev brief! Thank you for participating in PTEs and sharing your insights – we’re pleased with the valuable feedback the testing periods have provided.

We’re delighted to reveal the Hell Let Loose 2024 roadmap! All content stipulated below is not an exhaustive representation of this year’s content – all updates will continue to comprise quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes.

The content ahead represents a stable development plan and allows us to confidently meet targets, having learned from overly ambitious roadmaps in the past. Everything below will be released across all platforms.



We’ll share more on each aspect of the roadmap as we progress.

Thank you, we’ll see you on the frontlines in an exciting year for Hell Let Loose!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/686810/Hell_Let_Loose/

Dev Brief #198 | Mortain Updates

Hello everyone,

Welcome to our Mortain-focused dev brief, highlighting various changes and implementations thanks to your feedback.

Mortain is a new map for Warfare, Offensive and Skirmish gamemodes. This map is based on the US defence of the French town of Mortain, which sits in a shallow valley – where the US rallied against German troops amid Operation Lüttich. The battle took place in August 1944, in Normandy, France.

In this dev brief, one of our Senior Environment Artists will cover enterable buildings, provide additional context on Collégiale Saint Evroult and La Petite Chapelle Saint-Michel, discuss the environment; foliage and more. We want to be as transparent as possible when it comes to our development process on new maps – and we hope this provides useful insight into what it entails.

Mortain is due for release after part 2 of the British Rework.

[h2]Your feedback[/h2]

I would first like to say a huge thank you to all of the players who participated in the Mortain PTE. The team across all disciplines are incredibly grateful for the tremendous amount of feedback, both positive and constructive about your experiences. Now we've had time to thoroughly process your comments, let’s talk about some of the pain points and changes we have already started to implement thanks to your suggestions.

Another thing to note is that when we have released images of Mortain in the past, I've used offline rendering techniques to produce the best image quality possible. But, to give you the most up-to-date images since the map is still in development, the in-game screenshots within this dev briefing are taken straight from the engine in real-time, so what you are seeing is Mortain from a developer-only point of view and may not represent in-game accurately. All of the work in this briefing is a work in progress and subject to change.


[h2]Enterable buildings[/h2]

We acknowledge that players generally really enjoyed the urban combat that Mortain had to offer. Still, one consistent piece of feedback we received is that it was disappointing how few buildings were enterable by the player.

In truth, this is a concern we had about the map for a while, but due to the amount of new content required for Mortain and the significant amount of work required to retrofit old interiors with our refreshed buildings, we decided to create a singular variation of enterable buildings that could be reused across the map. Upon reflection, however, we understand that more enterable buildings are a priority for players. I'm happy to say that we have successfully created 3 more variations of enterable buildings and have begun their rollout in Mortain.

In real terms, due to the number of reusable assets we utilise within Hell Let Loose maps, this means up to 63 buildings already placed in Mortain could potentially be accessible across the map, with the possibility of more to come.

Given that we want the map to flow and provide enjoyable combat for players, our Level Design team now has the task of deciding which buildings they feel appropriate to be enterable - and will be implemented with support from our Technical Art team, to ensure this doesn't impact performance.

In addition to this, we are currently producing an extended amount of modular pieces used in our destroyed buildings kit, including floors, stairs and strategically placed inner walls, to offer players a similar experience to fully constructed enterable buildings, while maintaining the destroyed appearance and feel we offered in the PTE. We are excited to implement the new assets and thank the community for raising concerns which have created positive changes for Mortain's urban gameplay.




[h2]The town environment[/h2]

As with any PTE, members of the development team jumped into Mortain to experience first-hand how players were feeling as it went live and one piece of consistent feedback we heard was that the town, and in particular the buildings, felt too clean and lacked immersion.

Admittedly, with Mortain being the first map constructed by Expression Games, optimizing old assets and applying memory-saving shaders was our priority. We wanted to tackle performance issues seen across other maps, and although we researched to make sure textures and materials were dated correctly for the period and location, we missed the mark on creating a town that feels engaging and at war. Now that we are confident that our optimization work has been effective, we will look to polish the visual aesthetic of the town to be more in line with an active battlefield.

For us, that will include reworking textures to look old and grimy, smaller varieties of rubble will be implemented to compliment our existing piles and a VFX pass will be done as well as other ways we are looking to add polish and immersion.




[h2]Collégiale Saint Evroult and La Petite Chapelle Saint-Michel[/h2]

Besides enterable buildings, further feedback we received, is that players were disappointed that both the Collégiale Saint Evroult and La Petite Chapelle Saint-Michel are unenterable.

We completely understand the community's frustration with the decision to have them closed off, and so I'd like to give a brief explanation of why this was the case.

Collégiale Saint Evroult - The large church within Mortain town, is a historically accurate building that remained largely untouched during the conflict, but I should start by saying that we agree that it really should be open.

The decision to keep the Collégiale Saint Evroult closed was made very early on in the development of the map. As with any game, there are a certain amount of people working on a given piece of work, and at the time we prioritised our efforts across lots of content which is to be revealed in the roadmap. Being a historically accurate building, we would look to provide an accurate representation of the interior, as well as the exterior, which is a large task given its size and technical complexity.

Having reassessed what we need to focus on to meet our proposed schedules, we have decided to concentrate our resources on delivering the rest of this year’s roadmap content polished and on time.

That being said, we want to be as transparent and open with players as possible, so the possibility of us opening the church post-release of the map is not out of the question, we just need to balance it across our priorities as a team and the roadmap going forward. For the time being, we will look to add set dressing around the church so it’s clearer to players that this isn’t accessible.




[h2]La Petite Chapelle Saint-Michel[/h2]

Much like the Collégiale Saint Evroult, La Petite Chapelle is a historically accurate building that would require a bespoke interior mesh, and although it could be feasible to open the Chapelle in time, we feel getting the town to a good place is our greatest priority, and so this also won't be available on the release of Mortain.

We received lots of positive comments about the elevation and uniqueness of the Petite Chapelle capture point, and the current consensus is that it's well-balanced from a gameplay perspective, so any decision to open it would have to be carefully considered. But again, this is not out of the question further down the line.




[h2]Foliage draw distance[/h2]

The positive reception to Mortain's luscious new foliage has been overwhelming, although we acknowledge that there were some teething problems.

To ensure the map ran smoothly during testing, we overcompensated by culling grass, trees, and crops earlier than we needed to. Given that the performance for Mortain's wooded areas is good, we are confident that we can push the distance at which foliage culls further away, so there should be less advantage for snipers and players with a keen eye.

However, we cannot guarantee that the foliage will always keep you hidden from several hundred meters away, as we need to ensure that the map still runs smoothly and that comes at a great cost. Despite this, we hope the next time you play Mortain there is a noticeable difference when observing foliage at a distance, and as a minimum, it maintains consistency with other Hell Let Loose maps in terms of render distance.




[h2]Final words and a small teaser of the new front end![/h2]

Although this is a general overview of the key pieces of content we are currently working on, every comment and score submitted through the PTE feedback form has been analysed by the team, so there are lots of changes being worked on that aren't mentioned in this summary.

I hope that this insight into our plans for Mortain shows our commitment to listening to and actioning your feedback. Hell Let Loose is defined by its gritty feeling and tactical gameplay, but more importantly, its community. As developers, we naturally won't get everything perfect the first time. But, I know first-hand that every person on our team is dedicated to bringing you the best experience possible, so we thank you all for your contribution to making that a reality.

See you in-game,

Ryan Thomason-Jones - Senior Environment Artist, Expression Games




We hope you enjoyed reading about the changes and improvements coming to Mortain. We’re looking forward to sharing more details and developer-focused information throughout the year.

Thank you to the development team across all disciplines for their contributions to Mortain, and for sharing their hard work and passion for Hell Let Loose.

Mortain will release after part 2 of the British Rework; but before that – the roadmap. Reveal coming shortly!

PTE 14.8 | British Rework Part 2 | Now Live!



Hello everyone,

Public testing is now underway for Patch 14.8 – British Forces Rework Part 2. This is the final part of the rework, with our focus shifting to Update 15 after 14.8’s release.

This testing period will run over the weekend, closing off at 2 pm GMT on February 12th. 

PTE 14.8 will feature seven maps in rotation across Warfare and Skirmish modes. Our goal for this testing period is to gather your feedback on the latest iteration of Skirmish – thanks to your feedback – on Driel and El-Alamein. In addition, we want your thoughts on how the new tanks function in Warfare; the historical accuracy of upcoming DLC and your impressions on some new weapons.

Please continue to read for an extensive look at PTE 14.8. You can find the Feedback Forms at the bottom of the page.

Thank you, as always, for taking the time to participate in our public testing environments – helping us shape Hell Let Loose for the better.

Next week, you can expect to see a Dev Brief on Mortain – covering changes stemming from your feedback.



[h2]Server Rotation: [/h2]

  • El-Alamein - Warfare - Day
  • Driel - Warfare - Day
  • El-Alamein - Skirmish - Day & Dusk
  • Driel - Skirmish - Day, Dusk & Night



[h2]Skirmish Mode Updates[/h2]

Based on the community sentiment feedback from our previous round of Skirmish PTEs on El-Alamein & Driel for the ‘Phased’ & ‘Majority’ modes, combined with the feedback we had received from the Foy & Kharkov ‘Seeding’ mode PTE’s, we have settled on refining the core gameplay loop first for the aforementioned ‘Seeding’ mode before branching out into other modes.

‘Seeding’ has also been rebranded as ‘Control', the decision behind this was to rebrand it into a title that is more fitting for the type of gameplay loop involved.

For 14.8 we will be releasing to you the first ‘Control’ maps under the ‘Skirmish' umbrella: El-Alamein, and Driel, with the potential to explore and refine alternative modes and mechanics in the future.

Since the last PTE, the following adjustments have been made all Control mode maps:

  • The match timer has been reduced from 45 minutes down to 33 minutes, which includes the warm-up timer.
  • The warm-up timer at the beginning of a match has been adjusted to 3 minutes to match Warfare/Offensive.
  • Overtime that exists in Offensive mode has been implemented. If a team is capturing the objective when the timer hits zero, they then have until their manpower resource depletes to zero to capture the point.


To allow players to begin the match on an equal footing, the following changes have been implemented:

  • Each faction now has a set of pre-placed nodes at each HQ, to provide enough Commander resources when the match starts.
  • Each faction now has one medium-sized tank pre-placed at a HQ from the beginning, to allow the Armour squad to jump straight into the action without relying on a Commander. Each subsequent tank will have to be spawned in via a Commander as usual.


As always, we would love to hear your thoughts on these adjustments, ahead of release.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games


[h2]El-Alamein (Skirmish) - Oasis Capture Point[/h2]

With Oasis being the central capture point on the map, it sits right in the heart of our talented Environment Art’s piece of map refresh work, so we decided to make that the centre of attention for Skirmish Mode. The mixture of high, open elevation juxtaposed with the ruined compounds provide an interesting battle ahead which should cater to most playstyles.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games


[h2]Driel (Skirmish) - Underpass Capture Point[/h2]

With Skirmish - Control’s focus on a single capture point, we wanted to utilise an area of the map that catered to multiple playstyles, with a myriad of approaches to gain control of the area.

To accomplish this, we created a custom capture point just north of the traditional “South Railway” objective in Warfare and Offensive, allowing players to fight over the “Underpass”. To enhance this area we placed additional train cars to block overly long sightlines straight down the railway tracks, as well as increasing the foliage and defensive structures along the embankments and surrounding the underpass itself.

Kienan Southern - Junior Level Designer, Expression Games






[h2]British Rework - Second Instalment[/h2]

As a design team, we wanted the HLL community to help shape this second installment of the British rework by choosing the tank to replace the Cromwell in North Africa. The public vote showed a clear winner and development began on the Crusader Mk III, which will be available in El-Alamein for players to get hands-on with during this PTE.

The previous improvements that came with part one of the British rework allowed us to take a deeper look into the historical accuracy within the faction and continue to build on what we started. Tweaks to existing loadouts have been made across both British factions, replacing some weapons (like the Pattern 1914 Sniper) with more fitting, historically accurate choices for the theatre and the time.

With these changes to the loadouts and the addition of new uniforms, weapons and tanks, 14.8 is helping to shape the faction into being the iconic WW2 force that many from the HLL community are so familiar with.

Jack Jenkins - Game Designer, Expression Games


[h2]Patch 14.8 PTE Changelog[/h2]

Patch 14.8 includes the second instalment of the British rework, complete with new loadouts, uniforms, and vehicles for the North African (8th Army) & European Theatres.

[h3]General Changes[/h3]

  • Introduction of the British Airborne Uniform (Paid DLC)
  • Introduction of the Polish Parachute Brigade Uniform (Paid DLC)
  • Introduction of the British 8th Army ‘Near Miss’ Helmets (Free DLC)


[h3]New British Forces Weapons[/h3]

  • Gammon Bomb (No.82 Grenade) - European Theatre: the Gammon Bomb (No.82 Grenade) will be available to the Anti-Tank Ambusher, and Engineer Field Engineer loadouts.
  • Sten Mk V - European Theatre: the Sten Mk V will be available to the Officer Standard Issue, Assault Standard Issue, Anti-Tank Ambusher, Engineer Field Engineer and Spotter Standard Issue loadouts.
  • No.4 Mk I Sniper - European Theatre: the No.4 Mk I Sniper will be available to both Sniper Standard Issue and Veteran loadouts - North African Theatre: the No.4 Mk I Sniper will be available to both Sniper Standard Issue and Veteran loadouts.
  • Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Drum Mag - European Theatre: the Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Drum Mag will be available to the existing Assault Raider loadout and to the new Automatic Rifleman Drum Gunner loadout.
  • Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Stick Mag - European Theatre: the Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Stick Mag will be available to the Commander Standard Issue and Assault Veteran loadouts.


[h3]New British Forces Tanks[/h3]

  • Churchill Mk VII (Heavy Tank) | European Theatre - playable on Driel Warfare
  • Crusader Mk III (Medium Tank) | North African Theatre - playable on El-Alamein Warfare/Skirmish
  • M3 Stuart ‘Honey’ (Light Tank) | North African Theatre - playable El-Alamein Warfare


[h2]Work In Progress[/h2]

These PTE sessions are a way for you as a community to feedback on Hell Let Loose work in progress, which means we can look to implement your feedback before a patch or update is released. Although we can currently only hold public testing sessions on Steam, we encourage everyone to take part to be able to share feedback.

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]

For today’s session, there are a list of unfinished items/bugs that we’re aware of, including:

  • The game may crash after the timer ends on El-Alamein Skirmish.
  • On the enlist screen, all servers state the gamemode as ‘Warfare’ (even though it may be ‘Offensive’ or ‘Skirmish’) and only updates once the user has visited said server.
  • ‘Driel - Day’ has the same icon on the enlist screen as 'Driel - Dusk'.
  • ‘El-Alamein - Skirmish - Day’ loading screen has incorrect text.
  • Some Skirmish hints may not contain the final text.
  • Within Skirmish Maps, some pre-placed nodes may not be visible, however, resources will still correctly increase every minute - the base rate is 50/min for every resource. Reloading into the server resolves this, but is not necessary.
  • The M3 Stuart ‘Honey’ is missing player collision on its turret.
  • The Churchill Mk III and Mk VII suspension parameters are still being refined.
  • The Churchill Mk III and Mk VII has some locations on which satchels can be placed, but not defused.
  • The Churchill Mk III and Mk VII can have various vehicles drive underneath it.
  • The Churchill Mk VII incorrectly has heavy armour on its rear section, instead of medium armour.
  • The Crusader Mk III suspension parameters are still being refined.
  • The British Airborne and Polish Parachute Brigade Berets have a LOD hole that can appear on the top of their heads.
  • The British Airborne and Polish Parachute Brigade helmets are not yet implemented in-game.
  • The ‘Near Miss’ British helmet is currently being displayed as 'Airborne Helmet’.
  • El-Alamein has multiple objects presenting shadow blending inconsistencies.
  • El-Alamein has rock formations presenting a poor level of detail.
  • The Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Stick Mag has the incorrect 3D preview, loadout icon and line art.
  • The Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Drum Mag has the incorrect 3D preview, loadout icon and line art.
  • The No.4 Mk I Sniper is showing as the non-sniper variant in the barracks and deployment role screen.
  • The Sten Mk V has the incorrect preview in the barracks and deployment role screen.


[h2]Streaming & Recording PTE Sessions[/h2]

You are welcome to both stream and record PTE footage, but as these sessions are showing unfinished work, it’s always good to let your individual communities know that the footage is from a PTE session, where you might encounter unfinished items, bugs and other issues.

[h2]Feedback Questions[/h2]

Once you have completed a game and are ready to provide feedback, please use the forms below!

[h2]How to Take Part[/h2]

Check your Steam Library for the Hell Let Loose (Public Testing) application, or re-download it from the Steam store, you’ll want to boot this version up to take part in the PTE!

Once you’re in and have selected a server, you’ll be able to test out the new game mode!

Submit Feedback: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=dzO7_29vdE2wkFIXThwvGavPYX8LIbRMtn3WncW9OkpUQjk5V0dGNDhXWFhaMkk2SU40VE1JMERFOS4u

Share Bug Reports: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=dzO7_29vdE2wkFIXThwvGavPYX8LIbRMtn3WncW9OkpURFVVU1hHREhFVVU4UTVZMFdDMVQ4RzJHWS4u

[h3]Please note:[/h3]

Because PTEs are run on development servers that have logging activated, you will experience a slight decrease in performance. You will also not earn any XP and your progress will not be carried over to the live game.