Hell Let Loose News

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #62!

This week we’re sharing with you a first look at the soldier face updates that’s coming after Update 5.

Fear not, your favourite faces that you know and love won’t be going anywhere, they’re just getting updated to better reflect the face of a soldier that’s been fighting tooth and nail on the frontline.




Note: All the images on the left are the existing models, the ones on the right are what the models will be updated to.

Surprised to serious.


Battle weary to battle scarred.


Recruit to veteran.


Cocky to combat ready


And finally, the one you've all been waiting for...

Mendez vs the Mendez she tells you not to worry about



The team will be adding even more faces to the line-up as we move through Early Access to further bolster the options available to players.

To give you a clearer look at how these will look on your soldier, here’s a render for your viewing pleasure.






Join community stalwart and Team Dixx streamer ‘SakuraRagdoll’ on February 14th both here on the Hell Let Loose Steam Store Page and on her Twitch Channel as she takes to the frontline with a themed Hell Let Loose stream!



Watch Sakura’s stream, join her in battle and share your love for Hell Let Loose.

Stream start time: 6:45pm MT / 5:45pm PT / 8:45pm ET / 3:45am CEST
Stream end time: 1:00am MT / 12:00am PT / 3:00am ET / 10:00am CEST

Sakura's Twitch Channel: Watch here Hell Let Loose Steam Channel: Watch here

Sakura will be streaming and shooting all through the evening so jump in, show your support and have some frontline fun.




The team has been working incredibly hard on Update 5 and are excited for you to experience it next Tuesday.

We’ll be sharing the changelist with you on patch-day, including new content additions, optimisations and bug fixes.

See you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #61!

Today we’re pleased to confirm that Update 5 will arrive on February 18th!

As your deployment to Purple Heart Lane rapidly approaches the time has come to show you exactly where you’ll be fighting, as well as the history surrounding this infamous location.

Before we delve into the tactical map let’s set the scene…




Dawn, Saturday morning, June 10th 1944.

Lt. Col. Robert G. Cole ordered troops of the 502nd across the Douve in pitch darkness with I Company leading the attack. I Company was followed by G, H, and HQ company of the 3rd Battalion. The fierce defense set up by Colonel Von Der Heydte was marked by a “Belgian gate” on Bridge No. 4 with 3rd Battalion deployed in the flooded fields siding the N13 road where dry patches of land provided no cover for the Germans.

The Germans had dug their heels into the wet soil with the intention to defend Carentan to the last man as Hitler had ordered the 6th FallschirmJäger Regiment to not let the city fall into enemy hands.

The N13 was a hard, barren road embankment and provided no cover or opportunity to dig
trenches or holes alike and consisted of four bridges:

• Bridge No. 1 spanned the Jordan River
  
• Bridge No. 2 spanned the Douve River.
  
• Bridge No. 3 crossed a small stream known as Le Groult.
  
• Bridge No. 4 leading into Carentan which crossed the Madeleine River.
  

By daylight the men of the 502nd were strewn along the N13 road with the Germans picking them off from both flanks. The Americans grew more frustrated and angrier with each passing hour. This led to the stretch of road above Carentan being given the name Purple Heart Lane.

The battle dragged on, then on the night of June 10/11 two German Stuka Dive Bombers came down the road with strafing fire and dropping bombs on the men of the 502nd.

This contributed to the heavy losses inflicted on the 502nd during the approach to Carentan and changed the tone of the confrontation. What this led to was savage, with little quarter given to any Germans attempting to surrender.

Eventually, after squeezing men one at a time through the Belgian Gate at Bridge No.4 in the darkness of Sunday morning, June 11, 1944, the 3/502nd regrouped and prepared for a renewed offense in daylight...




Before Lt. Col. Cole's now renowned bayonet charge, he stood in plain view of the hidden enemy, bellowing orders in his usual loud voice, deploying his troops.

The USS Texas started its smoke barrage on the field which was followed by a whistle.

Cole's charge and the men behind it secured the morning's objective, earning Cole a Medal of Honor. One German prisoner who had been on the receiving end of the charge told war correspondent Robert Reuben, "They charged like wild animals. They screamed and shouted when they charged into our fire. It was unbelievable!"

A hard's day of fighting ensued in the Cabbage Patch which was captured by the 1st/502nd. Desperate fighting around the apple orchard beyond the Ingouf Farmhouse raged until midday, the Germans would not relent that easily.

A brief truce to request a German capitulation and to collect wounded took place, followed by a furious resumption of the fighting.



In a desperate test of will, the German and American parachutist fought to a standstill all afternoon. This continued until Forward Observer St. Julien Rosemond of the 377 PFA Bn called for a barrage which almost landed on top of the American lines, breaking up the last German counter-attack of June 11 and bringing about the close of the assault.

Casualties on both sides were heavy, the road to Carentan now open for the Allies…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vic24tsNOTc

A large amount of credit to the Tripwire user Lt. Stephenson who laid out the context and history of the location so wonderfully.




Much like all our maps in Hell Let Loose, Purple Heart Lane is created to be as accurate as possible through the use of archive footage and aerial imagery from the time.

This is your tactical map, study it and prepare for deployment:



This isn’t just a map that carries the location’s name, we’ve worked hard to recreate the battlefield in-game for you to experience.

Now here’s the tac map side by side with actual aerial footage, showing how we’ve built the map to replicate the location.



That wraps up this week’s developer briefing! Purple Heart Lane, two Jumbo tank variants and more will be arriving in Update 5 on February 18th.



See you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #60! This week we're sharing with you our new and improved marking and non-verbal comms system, coming to Hell Let Loose as part of Update 5 in February.

To take you through this new addition we've got Lead Developer Max:




We’re very excited to introduce you to the new marking and non-verbal communications system.

It would be no understatement to say that this system (along with other HUD elements like the player names) have been some of the greatest design challenges facing us.

Previously, the system has been hugely clunky and difficult to use. Select players had to pull out their binoculars in order to clunkily fire a very limited selection of marks to locations on the map - often needing to place it multiple times to make sure it lined up with the correct location. On top of this issue, the marks were poorly formatted and often highly obstructive - with lengthways text that obscured a lot of the sightline. Even worse, placing marks via the map was highly unintuitive and limited - with many icons doubling for other information (“the artillery mark is where their Garrison is!”).

We stepped back and looked at the strict purpose of the system and broke down the flow of information into a wireframe. Essentially, in a game like Hell Let Loose the Commander (the top of the information network) relies on the lowest and most numerous roots of the network (the soldiers) to collect and collate information and feed it up the line to their Unit Officer. The Unit Officer then decides on the right information to feed up to the Commander.

This system allows each Unit Officer to synthesise the information from their Unit, and allows the Commander to quickly see what each Unit is reporting back or requesting. Most importantly, it simplifies the flow of information so that the Commander isn’t needing to sift through all 49 players worth of information. Finally, the Commander can place their own marks that the entire team can see - giving a sense of direction to every level of the combat.

With this hierarchy in mind, we set about deciding how much information each level of player could communicate.




Unit members will have the ability to quickly ping a target using MMB. Pressing it once will place an icon - allowing them to quickly draw attention to a specific location. Should the Officer wish to quickly know who placed the ping, they can look at his unit member list and see the icon beside their name.

Pings only last a short amount of time, and are designed to quickly enable simple and fast communication in the unit. They’re not designed to totally remove the need to communicate, but to facilitate a quick way to notify your unit of impending threats or other issues.




The Unit Officers have a broader array of communication functionality.



They can ping like their unit members by pressing MMB - which will place an Officer-specific mark for their unit members to see (to differentiate it from the rest of the unit).



However, unlike their unit members, the Officer can also hold MMB to open up a radial menu. The radial menu is designed to enable them to issue fast orders, mark suspected enemy Garrison or Outposts, enemy vehicles, enemy infantry or request support. We spent a lot of time balancing the functionality of the marks available with the need to not overburden the system with hundreds of hyper-specific marks.



In the same way that the Officer can place marks via the radial menu, the same marks can be placed quickly and easily straight onto the map via clicking RMB and selecting the desired mark from the dropdown. From there you can also quickly remove your marks by clicking them again.






The Commander can place a ping in the same way that all other players can, enabling him to draw quick attention to specific locations for all Officers.



Like the Officer, the Commander can also hold MMB to open up a radial menu. The Commander has access to a different set of marks - specifically designed to allow them to quickly communicate specific locations to the Officers.

The same marks can be placed quickly and easily straight onto the map via clicking RMB and selecting the desired mark from the dropdown. From there you can also quickly remove your marks by clicking them again.

Please note that we will be keeping a close eye on the system, and expect that we’ll need to adjust times or priorities within the marker system pending community feedback.

Please note that the pinging and marking system now work for the Tank Commander role in the Spotter position of all vehicles - giving this position a far more powerful influence.




If you’ve been playing or following Hell Let Loose for a while, you’ll know that the role icons and spawn icons are the resulting hangover from our Alpha - way back in early 2018. While they’ve done the job this far, the community has often pointed out serious legibility issues.



We’re huge fans of the history of iconography of World War Two and we’ve got several books worth of reference imagery. It had always been our intention to implement this into the game.



With that said, we’ve rolled out an update to all our role icons. Each one takes inspiration from the historical equivalent and then designed to achieve good legibility and fulfill it’s in-game role.




As part of the gradual UI overhaul, the team selection screen has had some TLC. Our goal with all things related to Hell Let Loose is to bring it to a visual and functional quality that not only looks nice - but also helps to induct a new player into the game world.



This redesign will also allow us to add more functionality to this screen in the future.




This is not the end of the story for the non-verbal communications system, or for the HUD and UI upgrades. There have been many other changes not listed here that we expect you to discover once Update 5 releases - and we’re excited for your feedback.

Over the coming months we’ll continue to refine all of these systems and UI and HUD elements. As developers, our goal is to work with you - the community - to make Hell Let Loose as good as we possibly can. We’re always on the forums, Reddit and Discord, and while we may not always reply - we’re always making note of all feedback before discussing and prioritising it internally.




The sharp-eyed amongst you will notice that we listed some additional Commander orders to be releasing with Update 4, and that we were aiming to release Recon vehicles with the coming Update 5. We want to apologise to the community and let you know that both of these are currently underway, but we weren’t confident in releasing them at the time stated on the roadmap.

To mark the start of this year, we sat down and went over our development plan for 2020 in order to line up the content to the best of our ability. We always aim to never renege on anything we put on our roadmap and so want to apologise for this slip in communication.

To that end, just after Update 5 drops we’ll be updating and refreshing our roadmap to let you know the next large features to be coming to Hell Let Loose (did someone say new ballistics and animation systems?).

2020 is going to be a huge year for us here at Black Matter and we’re really excited to have such a passionate community along for the ride. Tune in next week for a more detailed look at Purple Heart Lane and what you can expect to see in Update 5.




That wraps up this week's Developer Briefing!

We'd love to hear what you think about this feature, both before it launches and when it arrives in game.

As always your feedback, thoughts and comments are incredibly important and valued by the team.

Will this tick the box for you? How will you make use of these on the frontline? Let us know!

Have a great weekend everyone, see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing 59!

This week we're going to be sharing more of our next map, Purple Heart Lane, with you all.

Purple Heart Lane will be arriving in Update 5 and launch with both Warfare and Offensive (USA) Modes!




Prepare to deploy to Highway N13, near to Carentan, France. This location earned its name from a brutal clash between US and German forces in June 1944.

One confrontation in particular, now known as "Cole's Charge" earned Highway N13 its nickname, Purple Heart Lane...

Under a barrage of intense German artillery, Lt. Col. Robert G. Cole and his unit of 400 men charged the German position head-on. The Americans overran the Germans, but it came at a high price - the lives of 118 of Cole's men.

In Purple Heart Lane you will fight for control of the causeway and each of its four bridges. Get ready for a water-logged map with uneven terrain, new combat environments and an intense mix of short and longer range combat.




The bridges will be key strategic locations, particularly for map control.

Armoured crews will need to work closely with infantry to ensure safe passage through choke points.

Uneven terrain and abandoned fortifications will provide useful cover locations.

Smart use of cover can lead to sneaky manoeuvres, even in enemy held territory.

Flooded plains and bridge choke points - a new challenge awaits you.

Seems like a strong location for a Garrison, wouldn't you agree?

Be aware, there's more to this map than bridges and a causeway...

A defensible location, or shooting fish in a barrel? You decide.

Will the rivers and streams be a welcome ally, or a foe to your plans?

Those Pillboxes could be very useful in the right hands!


That wraps up our look at Purple Heart Lane, coming in Update 5!

All going well, next week we'll be looking to reveal our updated 'Markers' system and how it'll bring a new strategic option to Units in Hell Let Loose.

What do you think of our next map? Let us know in the comments!

See you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Join us today for a two hour Hell Let Loose Play With The Devs night!

All the details you need can be found here:

• Today
  
• 7pm GMT / 8pm CET / 11am PT / 2pm ET to 9pm GMT / 10pm CET / 1pm PT / 4pm ET
  
• Server name - 'Play With The Devs Night'
  
• Server region - Europe
  

See you on the frontline, literally!