Hell Let Loose News

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing 31! This week we’re taking a first look at some of the new map features that players will be contesting with when Utah arrives later this month.

From the beach itself and the bunkers that litter the battlefield to the unique terrain that you’ll be contesting, this briefing will give you a first real glimpse at what’s coming in our next map.

We’re not revealing everything today though; we’ll leave a few surprises for you…




June 6th, 1944 signalled the start of the Allies liberation of German-occupied France as a land, sea and air invasion began across multiple fronts.

In that assault five beachfronts were chosen as landing locations for allied forces coming from Britain, with one beach on the Cotentin Peninsula being the target of the US 4th Infantry Division, 70th Tank Battalion as well as the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. That beach was Utah.

Draw your battle lines, the Utah tactical map is here!



Surprising absolutely nobody, one of Utah’s prominent features is the beach itself, which serves as the US Forces HQ in the existing ‘Warfare’ mode. When ‘Invasion’ mode launches further down the line, this initial location for the US forces will be far from safe at the start of a match…



Fighting in this area will be unlike anything seen in our existing maps, with bunkers and elevated terrain becoming key tactical locations for all forces engaged in that area.



Machine Gunners will be incredibly strong when utilising bunkers, giving them the ability to cover and suppress huge swathes of the map in relative safety. Knowing how to both support and counter them will reward tactically mindful units.





Whilst a significant landmark, the beach itself is just one part of the overall map. After progressing past the beach players will find themselves moving inland and into heavily fortified countryside…

From the sands of the coastline…

To the flooded fields

You’ll be fighting over trench systems and military checkpoints to secure a variety of different strongpoints to lock down suitable Garrison areas for your team.

Where are your papers?

A prime location for your team’s Commander?




Utah will be coming to Hell Let Loose, alongside other new content mid-July. We’re just in the process of adding some polish and locking in the final build before we give you all a fixed date, so watch this space!





Resource Nodes! We’ll be showcasing and explaining this upcoming content feature that will add further tactical depth and strategic options, both offensively and defensively for the existing ‘Warfare’ mode.

We’ll see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

We've just deployed a small patch to address the following issues that have been reported to us:

• Changed default VoIP, microphone, and audio settings to better normalise VoIP volume levels for new users.
  
• VoIP icons now display for users when the map is open.
  
• Fixed an issue where sometimes users would not be properly connected to the leadership VoIP channel.
  
• Fixed an issue where warning or error dialogues would automatically dismiss rather than wait for user input.
  

The team are aware of other areas that need addressing thanks to your feedback and we're currently working on fixing those too, including but not limited to Proximity VoIP and missing servers on the server browser.

Thank you all for your patience and support whilst we address known bugs.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #30! In this weeks briefing we’re taking a deeper look at armour in Hell Let Loose and how it behaves under heavy weapon fire.

How does armour work in Hell Let Loose? Do angles matter? Are there ricochets? Are the Bazooka and Panzerschreck in the same weapon class?

All this and a little bit more will be explained below…




Initially we set out to design a system that would be as close to real life as we could manage within a game. We looked at calibers, velocities, thickness, type of metal and many other aspects. We built a system that at best could be described as “complicated” and at worst could be described as “insane”. We would set up each component and ultimately due to the number of factors present the outcome for each armoured engagement started to feel more and more random the more testing we did. Often in developing the game, we start at something as close to reality as possible, and then quickly find that the actual player experience actually feels far more random than designed.

With this in mind, we stepped back and asked ourselves what the most important factors for gameplay would be. Fundamentally, we felt that we needed the following:

• Predictable: when you fired a particular type of weapon at a particular angle at a particular vehicle we wanted the outcome to be the same. We felt that by making sure this action always had the same outcome then it would create a base from which players could learn various weapon strengths, armor strengths and the resulting weaknesses and strengths of a vehicle. If the outcome always felt random, players wouldn’t be able to successfully decide where to aim as the strategy would always just be “keep firing!”.
  
  
• Binary: by this we mean that the veterans accounts of armoured warfare that we’d read would make note of the fact that a single penetrating hit would make the tank inoperable (due to internal damage and crew fatalities). A round wouldn’t penetrate and take off health - it would penetrate and blow up the tank or kill all crew. We felt that we needed to model this experience in the game - making sure that as a tanker you are focused on swiftly destroying your enemy instead of chipping away at a health pool.
  
  
• Layer of complexity: it was a very hard task to balance the binary nature of armoured combat with a system that encouraged field repairs and component damage. We didn’t want to absolutely overwhelm players with a seemingly endless array of outcomes whenever they took damage - we wanted to focus them on immediate issues that affected the current performance of the vehicle. In veteran accounts these broke down very easily into weapon damage and movement damage (whether engine but - more commonly - tracks).
  
  
• What just happened?: a common question we asked in other games was “what just happened?” We’d shoot an enemy vehicle and an explosion and sound would play, but we’d not know what the outcome of that was. As a result, we spent a lot of time trying to design visual outcomes (fx, sfx, decals) that would communicate the result of your shot on an enemy vehicle.
  
  
• Flexible: we needed to design a system that would account for all weapons and all vehicle types. We feel that we’ve got pretty close to creating a system that lets us carve out the functionality of each vehicle and help us place it in the “animal kingdom” of the vehicle hierarchy in-game.
  

With those points in mind, we’ll break down some of our thinking below:

In Hell Let Loose vehicles don’t have ‘traditional HP’. We don’t want our Anti-Tank players and vehicles to engage in a hitpoint based slugging match – we want something more tactical and rewarding for all involved.

That brings us to the armour system we use in-game, penetration. To successful destroy a vehicle you need to penetrate through its armour and land killing hit. In order to achieve this the following factors are all taken into account:

• The shape and angle of the armour you hit
  
• The type of weapon you fire at armour
  
• The type and location of the armour hit
  
• Area specific/component damage status
  

The inherent shape of our historic vehicles isn’t just for show! Through clever use of angling your vehicles armour, or your shot, tactical players can capitalise on this mechanic and either maximise their survivability or increase their lethality… Depending on which side of the engagement they’re on!

One example of this is the front of a Panther. It’s incredibly well angled so that striking it with a Sherman or a Bazooka will lead to the round either deflecting or not penetrating and detonating on the armour plate – causing no damage.

*Laughs in front armour*

Hitting a tank perpendicular (flat-on) will lead to the best results for damage! Tankers, keep this in mind to avoid damage by angling your vehicle toward fire, and by using a hull-down position to present the smallest target possible.

That'll leave a mark!



In order to accurately represent the real-life relationship between World War 2 weapons, armour and their capabilities we’ve implemented a range of different weapon and armour classed in game that reflect this.

One example of this is the Panzerschreck. With a heavier warhead than the Bazooka we class it as a heavier weapon class than its American counterpart.

This means that whilst the Panzerschreck has an easier time penetrating most vehicles when compared to the Bazooka, it carries only two rockets whilst the Bazooka has four.

This train of thought carries over to tank and anti-tank guns too, so keep those calibres in mind!




When an armoured vehicle is hit, the game immediately checks the calibre of the weapon that hit it as well as the angle that it was struck at.

If a weapon’s calibre heavily outclasses the armour of the vehicle, then the weapon will immediately penetrate - cutting through like a hot knife through butter. On the flipside, if a weapon is similar or less powerful than the armour it’s attempting to penetrate then something called a ‘bounce check’ will occur.

This is calculated according to the angle of the attack compared to the angle of the armour. For example if a shot around a 45-degree angle his a tank it’ll bounce, but it doesn’t stop there…

A deflected round stays active until it hits something – including trees, the ground, soldiers or… You!

Top tip: Tanks are most vulnerable on their rear and in their tracks. Striking them in these locations can damage that locale and lead to a successful ‘kill shot’.

Step 1 - Make your mark!

Step 2 - Finish the job!

Alternative step - Be a tank!



The last part of armour in Hell Let Loose we’re going to talk about today is the ability to damage specific vehicle components. We’re looking into the potential of expanding upon this in the future, but currently tanks can have areas including their turret and tracks damaged to create negative effects.

For example a damaged turret loses the ability to use its coaxial machine gun, whilst a tank with damaged tracks is stuck in first gear.

Keep in mind that once a certain component is damaged to the point of being destroyed, a follow-up shot to that component/location that penetrates will lead to the destruction of the tank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp0mpxsadsw&feature=youtu.be



Ultimately, we want our vehicles in Hell Let Loose to reflect on the veteran accounts that the team have read and studied. Armoured units working closely with infantry and vice versa. Tank duels should favour surprise attacks, patience and realistic tactics that favour the specific vehicles facing off on the frontline.

As we continue to build upon the range and variety of vehicles and armour in Hell Let Loose we’re going to be adjusting and tweaking both the armour systems and weapon classes to carve out a unique identity for each vehicle and anti-vehicle weapon to highlight their role in a given battle.

The first example of this in action will be when Light Tanks roll onto the frontline as our next armoured vehicles. More news on that in the future though…

We’ll see you on the frontline!




Join us this Friday (June 27th) for a publisher livestream!

Community Manager Jonno will be taking to the frontline for three hours from 13:30 BST / 14:30 CEST / 08:30 ET live from the Hell Let Loose Steam Store page!

If you'd like to see Hell Let Loose in-action live, ask us your questions or fight in alongside us be sure to stop by.

Hey everyone,

Patch #2 is now live!

The most significant addition in this patch is the leaning mechanic! Players will now be able to lean around cover to observe or engage in combat whilst leaving less of them on show.



We just want to say thank you for sharing your thoughts with us on leaning, on this occasion it allowed us to bring the mechanic’s implementation forward and get it live!

Full patch notes that include weapon tweaks, quality of live improvements and more can be found below:

• Leaning implemented (using Q and E). We will look at continued polish to this pending community feedback.
  
• Maximum round length decreased from 120 minutes to 90 minutes. We are testing this as we currently find the final 30 minutes on an attrition battle highly fatiguing.
  
• Aim can be steadied for all guns using left shift to better reward patience.
  
• Projectile spread pattern changed for sniper rifles when un-scoped.
  
• Tank coaxial and hull MGs have been limited to lower belt sizes (1000 to 250) in order to cut down on endless barrel-melting fire and to incentivise discretionary fire.
  
• Assault class has additional grenades to make them more suited to a breaching/CQB role.
  
• Suppression camera shake has increased violence to better match release-style.
  
• Kar 98k bolt speed adjusted to remove frustrating delay.
  
• Springfield bolt speed adjusted to remove frustrating delay.
  
• LMG (M1919/MG42) one hit kill range increased and damage fall-off reduced.
  
• Medic loadout updated to mirror layout across both teams.
  
• Commander loadout updated to include smoke grenades.
  
• Bleeding icon for players within 100m added for medic.
  
• Profanity filter added to text chat (English only at present).
  

• Additional optimisations to save on VRAM usage on some graphical settings.
  
• Particle FX Optimisation in Foy.
  

• Map retains zoom level from when last closed.
  
• Toggle sprint option added.
  

• Ambient cornering and momentum lean on player movement (this makes all sprinting look far more natural when a player is changing direction at range).
  
• New STG44 animations to make firing less “floppy” and more satisfying when firing while ADS.
  
• Changed crouch sprint speed for M1 Carbine to stop the “super fast running” in TPP.
  
• Fixed an instance of ‘snaking’ (where a player appears to be prone and moving at run speed).
  

• Fixed issue where artillery sometimes could not be rotated.
  
• Fixed issue where supply drop was sometimes out of sync with plane.
  
• Bloom change for tank crew so the viewports don’t become super bright in Foy.
  
• Fixed issue where artillery could be invisible for some players.
  

• Weapon hip DoF implemented to soften shapes near camera and to better blend lean (where geometry is very close to camera).
  

• Map rotation added to RCon tool.
  

• Audio changes to tank coaxial machine-gun.
  

• Changes to collision for tanks in Foy to help alleviate snagging on fences and small props.
  

• There may be some remaining snaking that we will pinpoint and isolate.
  
• Some props and fences in Hurtgen and Sainte-Marie-Du-Mont are still impassable to tanks. We will be addressing this in Update 1.
  

Currently working on (non-exhaustive list, we just want to give you some idea)

• Making vaulting more responsive, fluid and polished.
  
• Making MG deployment more responsive, fluid and polished.
  
• Additional RCON commands.
  
• Unit management functions (kick/invite and lock).
  
• Optimisations.
  
• Diving (performed by proning while sprinting).
  
• Bullet penetration.
  
• Map balancing (addition of cover and other features in locations that are either boring or creating a tedious gameplay experience).
  
• Vehicles.
  
• Flamethrowers.
  
• More maps.
  
• Continuing HUD and UI updates.
  
• Broader animation systems.
  
• Tweaking gunplay.
  
• Updating all audio and SFX.
  

Following today's patch the team are now preparing for 'Update 1' coming in mid-July! Over the coming weeks we'll be starting to reveal more about the new content you'll be getting to grips with, so watch this space...

If you’re keen to follow along, you can see our roadmap below:



If you’re enjoying Hell Let Loose, you can help us by leaving us a review on Steam.

See you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #29! This week we’re giving you the first look at leaning in Hell Let Loose ahead of its addition to the game in Patch #2 later this week!

We’d always planned to bring leaning to Hell Let Loose once we’d finished implementing vaulting, but after seeing your requests to get the mechanic in the game sooner the team have brought this forward to bring leaning to the frontline.

Please be aware that this is the first iteration of leaning. We will continue to add polish to the mechanic in the future.






Once Patch #2 goes live later this week all players will have the ability to lean when either standing up or crouched.





To lean left you just need to press Q and to lean right E. This is a useful ability when scouting, fighting in urban environments or behind cover to reduce your risk of being shot, whilst still enabling you to look around your choice of cover and engage hostile forces.



Top Tip: Whilst less of you is on show when leaning, there’s still enough of you showing to get shot so don’t push your luck!





That wraps up our introduction to leaning in Hell Let Loose!

Once again we’d like to say thank you to everyone who shared their feedback with us, as well as the requests for leaning. By letting us know that you wanted this we’ve been able to bring it forward on this occasion.

Patch #2 will be deploying later this week with further tweaks and fixes alongside leaning. We’ll be sharing the patch notes with you all on the day!

We’ll see you on the frontline.