Hell Let Loose News

Developing Hell Let Loose has been a wild journey. What started as a project back in 2015 as a team of three has slowly become this huge beast of a title that we pour nearly every waking hour into - with our ultimate goal of creating one of the largest and most immersive World War Two experiences we can.

A critical part of this is our approach to level design and mapping. Over the course of development you’ll hopefully have noticed that the visual quality and gameplay integration into our mapping has significantly improved from the early days of Alpha, Beta and our initial launch into Early Access.

With our continued journey through Early Access, we’re keen to make sure that our eventual full release contains all of our current maps at the same visual, optimisation and gameplay standard as our very newest.

We’ve done significant work on Foy already (however, there will be more to come), but the next cab off the rank has been Utah.

Revisiting Utah has been hugely fun. The heart and soul of Utah Beach has always for us been the beach area itself, as well as the transition to the flooded lowlands beyond the hamlet of La Madeleine and to the inland causeways that the US forces used to quickly progress into France. We’ll break down the way we thought about the Utah overhaul below.




Lighting

To start with, we overhauled the lighting to match photoreal qualities and values. This has done many things to increase the image quality and the way the player transitions from the dark of shade to the light of day. The key challenge in Utah is capturing the grim atmosphere of the wet morning while also balancing enough light to make sure the map didn’t feel flat or drab.

Trees now cast better shadows at range, while clouds project dynamic shadows across the landscape. Interiors are now dark (but not too dark!) and have photoreal contrast. Volumetric fog now hangs low on the landscape, while catching the initial rays of sunlight on the horizon. You’ll notice that distant views are now far more photoreal and sit together far better. Ironically, the new lighting is also more optimised due to a better understanding of correct values within the engine.




Visuals

Many of the older maps feature a mishmash of different textures and assets with varying collision, function and quality. Textures were overstretched, or tiling to a tiny scale. We were using 9 stone textures when one would function fine on it’s own.

Now that we understand what works visually - and have a fantastic photogrammetry pipeline in place to achieve it - we are beginning to overhaul all our foliage. You’ll start to notice that both trees and bushes LOD far less aggressively (this means that they change quality far less noticeably the further away you get), as well as have a realistic leaf and branch structure according to the specific species.

Better yet, up close is where they really shine. As an FPS game, you spend a huge amount of time pressed up against tree trunks. Previously, they’ve been less than pretty - often the wrong species for the environment, as well as very low texture quality and unoptimised to boot! This has all been overhauled now - and we’ll continue to overhaul each tree and bush until they’re all unified at production level visuals and performance. Finally, all new foliage also now reacts to wind - allowing us to alter the wind to match the weather. Get ready for some storms!





On top of this, all buildings in the map have been swapped out with gameplay in mind. Including the introduction of building types that you’ve never seen before. Our art team has spent huge amounts of time researching, refining and creating new structures that not only look great, but are also optimised and offer all new gameplay.




Gameplay

Many of the early Normandy maps suffer from the same “hedge-road-hedge-field” gameplay, creating in our opinion repetitive gameplay that could lead to frustration when you’re on the receiving end of fire with no cover in sight.

With the Utah overhaul, we’ve introduced more than 2000 additional pieces of integrated micro-terrain in order to create more interesting combat and more opportunities to dig in and drop OPs and Garrisons.

The whole team was tasked with playing the map and making copious notes and markups on specific approaches to specific flags. As a result of this, some of the weaker strongpoints have been totally overhauled, while many others have had additional cover introduced. Utah specifically was plagued with many wire fences and endless hedges - we’ve worked hard to make new passages through these, as well as create much harder cover than the flimsy wire fences.










Optimisation

Right now, we’re in the process of overhauling many aspects of the visuals in order to get everything to a “1.0” quality. This is a long process, but as we work we’re taking great care to make sure that we audit each asset in order to maintain a consistent FPS count. This overhaul has many positive effects:

• We can make sure the visual quality is AAA grade
  
• We can make sure that it is fit for purpose for gameplay
  
• Props are the right height for cover or MG deployment
  
• Objects properly conceal players
  
• There is more opportunity and safer locations to place spawn points
  
• There are more intentional choke points or cover points when defending or approaching an Objective
  
• The collision for the prop or structure isn’t confusing and janky (ie. getting caught on oddly sized fences or walking on top of hedges)
  
• We can instantly fix and optimise each asset in a targeted way that will have positive effects across all maps where it is in use
  

Conclusion

We’re very excited to see what you think of overhauled Utah Beach. While it seems like a footnote in Update 6 (which will contain new vehicles, ballistics systems and Hill 400), we feel like it’s a great indication and summation of the direction we’ve taken and are moving in as a Dev team. We hope you enjoy playing it as much as we did making it.

PS. While Offensive mode won’t be dropping for Utah in U6, it won’t be far away!

We'll see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #70!

We hope you enjoyed our little (large) April Fool's joke in Developer Briefing #69. Now that we've all had a chuckle at that absolute unit, let's take a look at where you'll be clashing next...




The battle for Hill 400 was the end of the Hurtgen campaign and the prelude to The Battle of The Bulge.

The Hill is the highest point in the Hurtgen area and was considered a strategic objective to both sides. The Hill featured thick forest, steep slopes, and protruding rock. The Roer and Kall rivers lay to the North and East. In medieval times, the mountain-like hill featured a castle, which was destroyed in the 1200s. To the West of Hill 400 is the town of Bergstein, whose church is built from some of the material of that castle.



The Axis initially occupied Hill 400 and defended it from several attempts from the US 8th, 9th, and 28th Infantry Divisions. Even the 5th and 47th Armored Division failed to take the Hill - the Germans had dug in deep and used the Hill to full effect for artillery spotting and recon in all directions.



To give you an idea of the battle conditions the soldiers on both sides faced, Charles MacDonald described the fighting at Hürtgen Forest in his book "The Mighty Endeavor".

“the battle of the hedgerows all over again only this time with freezing rain, sleet, snow, flood, mud, pillboxes, and dense woods straight out of frightening German folk tales. It was the Argonne of World War II.”

The 2nd Rangers, the men who scaled the bluffs of Pointe-du-Hoc and even some who fought on Omaha Beach on D-Day were finally tasked with assaulting Hill 400 and uprooting the German forces. Despite taking significant losses to artillery barrage and machine gun fire, the 2nd Rangers successfully took the Hill on December 7th, 1944.



Forty long hours after the beginning of the initial assault to take Hill 400 the 2nd Rangers were finally relieved by a Battalion of the 13th Infantry. During those forty hours, the 2nd Rangers were aided by the 18th Field Artillery in defending 5 counter-attacks from Fallschirmjager units whilst simultaneously withstanding constant artillery fire.

German forces eventually retook Hill 400 on the 17th December and the Allies would not finally reclaim Hill 400 again until February 1945.

"The people in command did not know what the Rangers were. A Combat Command of 5th Armored Division, 3,000 men with tanks, failed to take the Burgeberg. Three companies of Rangers, just 200 soldiers, captured and held it.”

That is a brief history around the battles of Hill 400. The same area you'll soon be clashing on in Hell Let Loose.

We'd like to give credit to the following sources for the above information:

Warefare History Network Wikipedia




As you all know, when we create a new map on Hell Let Loose we strive to replicate the frontlines and battlefields to be as geographically accurate as possible to their real counterparts at the time.

We feel that our players deserve to have an experience unlike any other. To give you a look behind the scenes on the development of Hill 400 we spoke to Andrew, one of our dedicated Level Designers:

"The work on Hill 400 has been an exercise of my care and understanding of nature. Growing up in the Ozark Mountains, I have a keen eye for what hills and forests look like. I am glad I got to put so much of my craft into Hill 400, as I believe handcrafted levels have a certain essence that players can respect at least on a subconscious level. Overall, I think we accomplished another out-of-the-park hit that players expect from Hell Let Loose and me being part of that... I can only have gratitude."



That wraps up Andrews message, we hope it conveys not only the hard work, but the passion the team has for Hell Let Loose and you, our community.

It's just one of the reasons why we feel listening to feedback and being open with our players is the best way to be with all of you!

Now, did somebody say more Hill 400 screenshots?




Hill 400 will be available as part of Update 6, along with the Recon Vehicles and other goodies.

One thing to note about this map though, is that there are two versions depending on the mode you play...

Misty Morning Version

Overcast Day Version

These two versions will have differing visibility and moods to them, giving two distinct flavours to the map - we hope you have a great time with them both!





























That wraps up our second Developer Briefing of the week!

We hope you enjoyed our official reveal and first look at Hill 400, we can't wait to join you there when it drops in Update 6!

Let us know what you think too, what are you most looking forward to about this map? Let us know in the comments and we'll give them a read.

See you on the frontline.

Hey Everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #69!

Soon you will be able to enjoy driving around in the German Puma Sd.Kfz. 234 and the Allied M8 Greyhound, but to really be able to put up a fight against the army of heavy Shermans, we have something special ready for you!

At first we were planning to make the Panzer VIII "Maus" or the Panzer XI "Bullen", but these could not hold the maximum troop capacity we had planned for the super heavy transport vehicles.

This is why we looked further into history and found another, truly special vehicle…



Manufactured by the Grytzenäu und Schtheel company in 1943, many large shipping docks were “purchased” and repurposed to start the secret project named Projekt C. 45 “Tiglioni”, but because this name was already in use. The name of the project, and later on the vehicle was then named: Landkreuzer P. 1000 "Ratte". With her total length of a whopping 39 meters (128 ft) and skyscraping 11 meters (36 ft) height, this is what you can call “a big lady”...



As mentioned before, we wanted the maximum troop capacity for transport vehicles to go up, this is why the Ratte was added by the team. With enough room for 40 members in the tank itself, 6 members mounting the 20 mm Flak38 mounted on the vehicle’s engine its deck, and 4 members being able to mount the 15 mm MG 151/15, you can say you and the other squads will become a dream team in no time!



The Ratte's primary weapons are a dual 28 cm SK C/34 naval gun turret, modified by harvesting parts from a German battleship. With all that weight, and also having the hull of the vehicle being able to carry armour up to 25 centimetres (9.8 in) thick, this is a vehicle that needs to be deployed with the highest strategic care. Once deployed, you can not cross certain bridges or smaller roads, but all hedges will now quake in fear. To compensate for the smaller area of movement, the Ratte can fire armour-piercing rounds with 8.1 kg (18 lb) of explosive filler, and high-explosive rounds with 17.1 kg (38 lb) of explosive filler up to a distance of 40.930 m (44,760 yd).

The benefit of this amazing range, is that you can deploy the Ratte in for example Sainte-Mère-Église and obliterate the opposite team that is hiding in maps like Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, Utah Beach, Purple Heart Lane and even Omaha Beach This new gameplay system is called “Cross Map Artillery Support” and works the same way as the Artillery per map, but then across all other maps and servers.

That wraps up this week's tanktastic Developer Briefing!


See you on the frontline!

Hey Everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #68!

Today we’re going to talk through some of the design changes coming to the vehicle roster and the meta behind it.

If you’ve followed us from our Kickstarter days, you’ll know that we’ve always intended to build out the real-time strategy elements behind the game - in order to put greater weight on strategic choices, resource management and how each battle is played.

This is why we’re now excited to start unveiling some of the new mechanics we’ve had on the backburner for the last six months!




Until now, our limited roster of vehicles has meant that any additions were made to the “base roster” available to both teams (ie. the vehicles that spawn in-map and continue to respawn throughout the game). What has resulted is a bit of a varied mix across all maps and forces - with some less desirable results.

From now on, we’ll be finalising the base roster of vehicles across all maps. They’ll look something like (this is not final):

3 x troop transport (a half-track, truck and jeep)
2 x supply vehicles (two supply trucks)
3 x medium tanks (three 75mm M4A1 Shermans)
1 x light tank (one Stuart)

3 x troop transport (two half-tracks and one kubelwagen)
2 x supply vehicles (two supply trucks)
2 x medium tanks (two Panzer 4s)
1 x heavy tank (one Panther)

The important thing to note here is that the numbers will vary per force, as we’re keen to reflect asymmetrical balance present in the war (typically - better, but less numerous German tanks vs numerous but less well-armored Allied tanks) and give each force a distinct and historically appropriate flavour.




Simply - Fuel abilities.

From the next Update onward, the Commander will have the ability to select specific vehicles to spawn from each of their respective categories. Each vehicle costs an amount of Fuel, and each has a cooldown to stop a Commander cheesing the mechanics by draining their entire Fuel resource.

PLEASE NOTE - The following icons and UI are a work in progress!

Step 1 - Decide you want a vehicle



Step 2 - Select your vehicle and spawn location, fuel allowing



Step 3 - Profit!




Teams that are able to keep spawned vehicles alive will benefit from an overwhelming armor presence on the battlefield, and a clever Commander will be able to run specific strategies as more vehicles are added to the game. We fully expect that some will be map type specific - with Heavy Armor taking a backseat in forest maps while more cheaper, more nimble vehicles join the line. Similarly, a cheaper transport vehicle like a Halftrack may give far greater utility to the battlefield than yet another heavy tank.

The base roster of vehicles will respawn as they always have (costing Fuel each time they respawn), but the additions to the battlefield are where we think you’ll start to see a difference.

As you can imagine, this will place even greater emphasis on team communication, as specially spawned vehicles will provide a greater threat to your team, or may indicate a specific strategy being deployed by the enemy. Calling them out will be crucial.

The first new vehicles to be added to the Commander’s array will be the Recon vehicles for both teams. We know that many of you believe they’re simply a wheeled light tank, so we’re very, very keen to show you exactly what they bring to the battlefield.



In addition to this, the Heavy Tanks for both teams (the Tiger 1 and Jumbos) have been moved to the spawn array too. Over the course of the coming months we’ll slowly be replacing the base roster with much more vanilla everyday variants, and moving the more powerful, interesting vehicles to the Commander’s array.



We’re also keen to assure you that this is still just the tip of the iceberg of what we have planned for Hell Let Loose. There are many more real-time strategy changes and additions to come as we rework the supply, ammo and resource metagames.

That wraps up this week's Developer Briefing - we'd love to hear what you think of these exciting changes coming soon to Hell Let Loose, so drop a comment below for us to read!

See you on the frontline!

Hey Everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #67!

This week we’ve got an important message from Lead Developer Max on the current situation with Covid-19 and how the Black Matter team is facing it!

After that, we’re going to be looking at the German Puma Sd.Kfz. 234, along with a brand new screenshot.





Hi everyone,

We hope you’re all keeping well despite the current pandemic that is gripping much of the world.

As part of this Dev Briefing, we also wanted to openly communicate about how Coronavirus is affecting us here at Black Matter, and at our publisher - Team17.

As many of you may be aware, Black Matter is fortunate in that our remote working policies mean that the effect of Coronavirus on us from a business and development perspective is incredibly minimal. We have put in place contingencies should any of the team become sick, but we consider ourselves incredibly fortunate that nobody at Black Matter falls within an ‘at-risk’ category. The team is all hard at work - smashing through as many bugs as humanly possible while balancing out the coming overhauls and content.

We feel that over the next couple of months, the quality of Hell Let Loose as a title will be drastically improved for the better - and we’re very excited to finally reveal what we’ve been cooking up. Despite the turbulence in world affairs, we’re very optimistic and excited for 2020. There are so many new features, maps, weapons, customisation options to come, as well as optimisation and bug fixes. Currently, the team is working across a huge degree of content including but not limited to:

• 3 new maps (only one of which is set in Normandy and is nearly entirely urban)
  
• Finalising TPP and FPP overhaul. This is really where the largest look and feel change to the game will be. We’ll be running you through this soon.
  
• Entirely new ballistics system (travel time and more for all firearms), including bullet penetration.
  
• Map overhaul on one existing map (bug fixing, drastically increasing cover, visual upgrade and a far more interesting experience).
  
• Assets being created for two entirely new biomes.
  
• Implementation of new Commander abilities.
  
• New loadouts.
  
• New weapons being made.
  
• Implementation of Recon vehicles.
  

And much, much more (we’re also always working on bug fixes and optimisation).

With all of that said, today we’re excited to talk through the second Recon vehicle to be coming to Hell Let Loose - the Puma Sd.Kfz. 234!






The Puma is the key reconnaissance vehicle for the German forces in Hell Let Loose. Much like its Greyhound counterpart, this vehicle will provide valuable frontline reconnaissance and useful firepower against soft targets.

Despite not seeing use in Germany’s desert campaigns, the Puma proved successful in its usefulness on both the Western and Eastern fronts of the war.

Thanks to its lightweight armour, powerful V12 diesel engine and independent suspension for each of its eight wheels the Puma was a highly mobile, hard hitting recon vehicle. This made it ideal support for multiple German Panzer Divisions, not only as fire support but as a key relay of information to the rest of the column via their radio communications kit.



The relative mobility of the Puma comes at a price though - light armour. In regards to how this translates to in-game, the Puma, much like the greyhound is highly vulnerable to all forms of anti-tank weaponry. From mines, to Bazookas, AT Guns and 'bigger' armoured vehicles, any Driver worth their salt will want to avoid meeting any of these at all costs unless absolutely necessary on the frontline.

But it should be mentioned that whilst in the Puma the crew will enjoy immunity from enemy small arms fire, giving them a great opportunity to push across enemy firing lines that include a high concentration of men and/or Machine Gunners.

As mentioned in last week’s Developer Briefing, we’ll be explaining exactly how our Recon vehicles will function in the very near future. We’ll also be taking the opportunity to formally introduce our new vehicle spawning mechanic as well as the new crewing options in both Recon and other upcoming vehicle variants - so watch this space!

We’ll see you on the frontline.