Hell Let Loose News

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #123!

This week we are showing off one of the two new Eastern Front maps added with Update 10, Kursk!




The Battle of Kursk was one of the largest battles of World War 2. Some of the most intense armoured combat occurred at Kursk, with Germany fielding its newly introduced Panther tanks in an attempt to encircle and destroy the Soviet salient. Fighting was fierce, with heavy casualties on both sides.
Fighting on the Steppe





The terrain encountered by the advancing German forces were the familiar rolling hills and grasslands of the East European steppe. They were resisted by layers of soviet defences heavily fortified with all types of anti-tank emplacements and manned by prepared and well-equipped Soviet units. The relatively flat terrain aided in the fielding of armour and air power, and both played a major role in the engagement.




The Battle of Kursk saw the first combat action for the new German Panther tanks, and in fact the offensive itself was delayed to ensure that the Panther would be available for the battle. Nevertheless, the rushed implementation resulted in a worrying number of mechanical breakdowns. Discounting reliability issues, the type performed well in its intended role against enemy armour.

Soviet forces would primarily field sizable numbers of T-34 medium tanks, an effective and well-rounded design which was capable of engaging all but the heaviest of German armour at its introduction. The gun would show its age in the intense combat, however, having difficulties defeating many of the up-armoured German tanks at the longer engagement distances seen at Kursk. The T-34 would eventually be upgraded with a larger 85mm gun in subsequent variants, though the initial 76 millimetre version would serve through to the end of the war.

A summer offensive intended to retake the initiative for the Germans on the Eastern Front, stiff resistance and a rapid Soviet counterattack slowed German momentum to a halt. Ultimately, developments elsewhere would force the withdrawal of German units from the area. After Kursk, the Soviets would dictate the pace of the fighting.




In Hell Let Loose, Kursk is an open map of dominating ridge lines and trench networks that house the “defence in depth” positions that the Soviet forces made famous in their attempts to halt the German armoured advance. You’ll fight from the concealment of the forest out into the small Russian hamlets that scatter the treeline before pushing into the majority of the map - the famous yellow fields of the steppe.













While the open map places heavy emphasis on armoured tactics and success, infantry will be able to manoeuvre via the trench networks that link ridges, hamlets and old windmills that dominate the centre of the map.




We have a pending U9 patch, and will likely be having a play test tomorrow. This will essentially be a smoke test for fixes we have implemented. We will be grateful for those who have the playtest downloaded if they can jump in and help us test for a couple of hours to check the stability of the patch. If you wish to join in and have not downloaded the PTE, search and install the Hell Let Loose (public testing) app in your steam library. We will let you know when the PTE servers are live via Discord.

We will follow up with the patch notes, which include a bunch of bug and crash fixes.


That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

We'll see you on the front line!

Hey everyone,

Just a quick post today to let you know that we're hosting an AMA especially for you, the community, with Lead Developer Max this Thursday on the HLL Subreddit!

We know many of you have important questions around different areas of the game, from the meta to how tanks will change with the armour overhaul and much more!

As such we're keen to use this opportunity to answer those questions for you AND have an active discussion on multiple community hot topics with you - door's open, come in style.

If you can't make it yourself please feel free to give your question to someone else to field.

Please note: we will try to answer as many questions as possible from as many of you as possible, as such we will likely begin by answering only one question per person.

Time & Date

Starts 2pm BST / 3pm CET / 9am ET on Thursday 15th April and will run for 12 consecutive hours.

You'll be able to join in the Developer AMA HERE.

See you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #122!

This week we're going to preview the PPSh-41 and show off some of the faces that will represent the Soviet Union in-game!




The PPSh-41 was one of the Soviet Union's primary submachine guns of the Second World War. A simplified design made to be built rapidly with limited machining operations, the PPSh-41 used a heavy gauge steel stamping for most of its construction. It was originally issued with 71 round drum magazines copied from a Finnish design, but these were phased out in favor of more traditional stick type magazines.



Reliability was generally high even with the drum magazines, though these were complex and difficult to load. In addition, issues with manufacturing tolerances meant drum magazines were not readily interchangeable between guns. Drums needed to be properly "fitted" to their assigned submachine guns to feed reliably, though this was resolved somewhat by the introduction of the smaller 35 round stick types.

In combat, the PPSh-41 performed admirably. Soldiers appreciated the high fire rate and reliability in close-quarters combat, though the Soviet Union would eventually supplement the PPSh-41 in production with the even simpler PPS-43. The submachine gun as a class would form a major component of Soviet unit composition. Entire platoons would be equipped with PPSh-41s to spearhead an offensive action.



In Hell Let Loose, the PPSh-41 comes in two variants - one with a 35 round stick magazine and the other with the iconic 71 round drum magazine. While the stick magazine benefits from a faster reload and faster transition to ADS, it suffers from slightly increased recoil over time due to its lighter stick magazine. The drum magazine variant benefits from the increased magazine size and slightly lower sustained recoil due to its weight, but has a slower ADS transition and reload time.




In designing the faces of our Soviet faction, we endeavoured to take into account the historically broad array of different people groups that were brought together to fight a common enemy. Because of the need to muster every able man for the war effort, soldiers were conscripted from all over the USSR, from the Baltic sea to the Baikal.







Regardless of their origins, each and every Soviet soldier was equal in the face of combat.


That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

What other weapons would you like to see in-game? Who's your favourite Soviet soldier so far? Let us know in the comments!

We'll see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #121!

This one is for real and not an April Fools joke, so stand easy!

This week we're looking back at out most recent free weekend and looking forward to U10 with some initial information on our plans for the 'Armour Overhaul'.

To take you through this I'll be handing over to Lead Developer Max!




Before we begin we'd like to give a big thank you to everyone who tried Hell Let Loose over the weekend. Thanks to you, we've managed to set our new record, hitting a peak player-count of over 13,000! Seeing so many of you trying out our game for the first time was very gratifying for us as a team.

Of course, we also have to thank our veteran officers, commanders, and grunts for showing the new recruits the ropes. Hell Let Loose wouldn't be what it is without you, and we appreciate your ongoing support.

Last week we saw the release of Update 9, which focused on delivering a number of long-requested features, adding new options for players and additional functionality for admins.

Update 9 Changelog

Update rollouts are not always as smooth as we'd like them to be, but with your feedback and input we were able to identify a number of issues and push out two hotfixes to deal with the most pressing concerns.

Hotfix 1

Hotfix 2

As we continue into the weeks following U9, we’re closely monitoring your responses as we work towards a patch later this month that will look to address any outstanding nuisances. Below is a brief preview on some of the things we plan to include to give you an idea of what to expect. As usual, this isn't an exhaustive list of what we are currently working on and will look to provide a full changelog on the day of release.

• Removing Outposts not belonging to your Unit from the Spawn List
  
• Restoring the green icon for Outposts that belong to your unit on the deploy screen and tactical map
  
• Bullet penetration pass on various assets across maps
  
• Performance optimizations
  
• Fixing a Client and Server crash
  
• Duplicate servers showing on the Enlist screen
  
• Many more various bug fixes
  

As we look towards our next major update, we'd like to take the time to outline some of what we're working on in regards to armor. We acknowledge that Armor gameplay has been an unsatisfactory position, and we'd like to dedicate a significant portion of U10 to taking the Armor experience to the next level.

Here are just a few of the improvements and fixes we have planned:

• Fixing point of impact shifts depending on tank angle
  
• Vehicle and environment collision improvements
  
• Vehicle Physx improvements
  
• Hitbox adjustments
  
• Adjusting Anti-tank effectiveness
  
• Vehicle availability adjustments
  
• FX - including muzzle and hit
  

This isn't to say that tanks are the only thing we're working on! Take a look at the roadmap for what else is on the docket for 2021.

Roadmap

That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

We'll see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

We thought we'd take the opportunity today to share with you a new feature coming to Hell Let Loose that aims to further deepen the meta and highlight the importance of leadership on the frontline...




Heroes will be coming to the frontline in Hell Let Loose!



We’ve often thought about how we can deepen the meta around the leadership roles in the game. We know that many are keen for a push for authenticity, and to not dilute the core premise of the experience. As a result of this, we felt that Heroes would be a perfect fit - enabling you to take to the field as one of the iconic and powerful leaders who shaped the course of the war.

Obviously, we feel that it’s a very careful balance to make sure we respect the historical authenticity of the battles themselves, but also integrate this powerful new feature. We’ll talk through their functionality below.


How do they work?

At the 45 minute mark, the Commander is given the choice of a selection of powerful heroes who they can deploy to the battlefield - effectively taking control of them. While many of these leaders never actually deployed to the front line, we felt that dropping them into the action would provide an immersive experience. A humble GI taking up arms beside Tommy-wielding Winston Churchill, or an Engineer laying mines with Friedrich Paulus. Hell Let Loose has always been about mixing different leadership styles and tiers in the chaos of frontline combat.

Heroes perform much like Commanders - each with their own benefits and drawbacks. Will your tank column be led into Foy by Teddy Roosevelt and his iconic dual-wielded Colts, or will Stalin use his “Iron Will” to remove suppression from the Soviet Forces for the next 30 minutes?

We’re looking forward to showing off the unique skill set and weaponry for each hero, and the way in which you’ll be able to use them to shape the battlefield and the course of World War Two itself!