Hell Let Loose News

Hey everyone,

Just a quick message to let you know the good news that the release date of Update 9: Blood and Steel has been moved forward!

It's now releasing tomorrow, March 23rd, at approximately 11am GMT - Which is also when you can expect the full patch notes to drop too.

We'll see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #119!

This week we've been busy prepping for Update 9's imminent arrival so today's Brief is a bit shorter than usual.

Hopefully today's news on Update 9 will more than make up for it...




We’re excited to announce that Update 9: Blood and Steel, will be dropping on the 25th of March. The team has been very hard at work on final bug fixes for the update - including actioning community feedback from the PTEs.

Update 9: Blood and Steel will include the following:

• Melee combat
  
• Server Admin Camera
  
• Implement correct weapon zeroing for all firearms
  
• Part one of the armour system rework
  
• Meta / Garrison Placement Changes
  
• Community Voice Overs
  
• Steam Achievements
  
• Barbed Wire functionality
  
• Added and refined localization
  
• MG34
  
• Additional loadouts
  
• Continued Bug & Crash fixes
  
• Warmup Staging Period for Warfare Mode
  
• XP level increase
  
• Sound Improvements across the board (BAR to footsteps to death)
  
• UI Changes
  
• Max level Increase
  
• Improved optimisation
  
• Grass and Foliage spawning improvements
  
• Utah Beach Offensive mode for both German and US forces including beach landings
  
• Weapon visual quality overhaul
  
• Improved Damage Occlusion System
  

On the day we'll be aiming to put Update 9 live at roughly 11am GMT / 12pm CEST, but this may shift slightly. Once the patch is live we'll also be sharing the full patch notes for your reading pleasure!




Today we’re keen to give you the first look at the Soviet Crewman. While we don’t want to confirm the total number or type of vehicles just yet, you can expect to see a robust line-up of iconic and numerous tanks populating the Soviet lines, which we’ll reveal over the coming months.






We recently announced some big news around the future of Hell Let Loose as a title. You can find out more and it and discuss it with the team over on our official subreddit r/HellLetLoose.




That wraps up today's brief!

We've got an exciting week ahead of us and can't wait to welcome you to Update 9: Blood and Steel, so grab your shovels and sharpen your blades, it's almost time to get up close and personal.

Have a great weekend, we'll see you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #118!

This week we're going to touch base on what we're up to on the map making front. We're also sharing the details on Utah Beach's upcoming addition of Offensive Mode for both American and German forces in Update 9!

So, I'm going to hand straight over to Max now as he's got all the juicy info, including plenty of pictures as we take you through what you'll find when you land at Utah Beach in the near future...




Hi everyone,

We have a large number of maps cooking in the oven currently - from the SMDM rework, to several Eastern Front maps - to an unannounced Western Front map. As such, we’re taking this time to go back to our current map rotation and flesh out Offensive mode varieties alongside optimising and reworking trouble-spots on specific maps. Ultimately, we’ll introduce Offensive mode for every map in the game, and have standardised the practice of implementing Offensive mode alongside all new maps.

In addition, Update 9 will see some under-the-hood changes to the Offensive mode that we’re making in a move to make the gamemode equal in time length to Warfare, as we realise that the sheer time it takes to finish an Offensive battle can be off putting to many players and cause the game to drag on in an unintended way.

Ultimately, Offensive and Warfare modes will be determined by the selection made by teams during Campaign mode, so we’re keen to make sure that they’re equally succinct and as satisfying as we can possibly make them.

Utah Beach Offensive Modes

While many of you will have played Utah Beach many times before, we’re excited to add Offensive modes for both the US and German forces. Each brings its own weather and lighting to add to the totally new way you’ll experience this map. Like Omaha, the US will also land in Offensive mode via boat - providing an intense new beach landing experience.



















You’ll also notice that we’ve worked on the hedgerow assets, as well as extended the cover range of grass as much as we can before negatively affecting the performance in the map.

Upgrading and improving the visuals and performance cost of each asset - especially foliage - will be a continuing process over the course of development.














Optimisations

We’re continuing our work in optimising the entire game, and Utah Beach has benefited from this, with increased FPS on all machines profiled.

Due to the way we’re reusing and batching assets, we’re confident in our ability to continually improve performance across the game, as we’re aware that this is one of the key technical barriers to people being able to enjoy the game.


Watch the Hell Let Loose Winter Seasonal Finals this Saturday!

Today we're excited to share with you that the finals of the epic community organised and led tournament, the Winter Seasonal, are being broadcast live on Twitch tomorrow.

From 16 teams of 50 players down to two, this final is going to be a battle like no other!

To share the details we spoke to tournament organiser and all round community bastion, Heidegger:

This Saturday will conclude the Winter Seasonal and crown the champion for this season.

After a fierce competition between 16 fully fledged teams of 50 players (and their reserves, registering upwards of 1600 players), only 2 teams remain in this 2 months tournament : WTH and EXD will battle on the fields of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, Saturday 13 March at 7PM UTC.

Luckily, the match of the titans will be broadcast by multiple point of views, from both teams, accompanied by a live commentary.

Watch live here: twitch.tv/dasaltberg



Onwards to the weekend!

That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

Let us know what you think of the changes and addition to Utah Beach, it'd be great to hear your thoughts on it!

Also if you're looking for something to do, check out the Winter Seasonal finals and get immersed in the competitive side of Hell Let Loose - it'll definitely be one hell of a show!

Have a great weekend everyone.

We'll see you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #117!

This week we're sharing with you the details on our upcoming melee combat mechanic!

To take you through all the details, as well as when you'll be getting to grips with your new melee weapons, I'll be passing you over to Lead Developer Max -




Hi everyone!

In Update 9 we’ll be introducing melee for the first time to Hell Let Loose.

Melee in World War Two was a far more common occurrence than most people think and often took place in brutal room to room fighting - perhaps most poignantly depicted in a tragic scene in Saving Private Ryan.

How to Melee

We wanted to emulate the ability to immediately draw your melee weapon and plunge it into the enemy. To do this, we’ve enabled the B key as a quick melee attack. It’ll go for the immediate stab on the target by checking your inventory, seeing which melee weapon you possess and then actioning the attack.

For those who enjoy a more deliberate rampage, you can simply equip your melee weapon in your inventory before going for the kill.



In terms of parameters, we’re going to be testing relative reach and speed of a stab in order to give each melee weapon its own benefits. As a result of this, we’re then able to add different melee weapons to different loadouts later - with different speeds and ranges (including bayonets).



We thought a lot about how we’d introduce melee into such a fast and hardcore game like Hell Let Loose. If we made melee require multiple hits on the target, then it’s very likely that melee would almost never be used - as any attempt to do so would get you killed before being able to administer the killing blow. Similarly, we thought about potentially adding the ability for a blocking or parry system, but realised that this would also be entirely unused as it’s highly unlikely your target will resort to melee in the circumstance.

We felt that melee would most frequently be used when successfully flanking the enemy - moving your way through a trench or building brutally dispatching the enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible. As a result of this design, meleeing in Hell Let Loose kills the enemy instantly, covering your weapon and hands in blood.


Development Update

The team is incredibly busy right now working through issues that arose during the previous PTEs. Thank you everyone for the very useful feedback. We’re excited to action all of it in order to ensure a smooth release of Update 9.


Onwards to the weekend!

That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

It's slightly shorter than usual, but we wanted to get... Straight to the point and share the core mechanics of how this new combat feature will work.

Let us know what you think too! What melee weapons would you like to see in the future?

Have a great weekend everyone.

We'll see you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #116!

This week's one is slightly earlier than usual as we've just put our new PTE app live!

Please note whilst the app is a permanent addition to Hell Let Loose, it will only be 'active' during certain times windows which we'll advertise here on Steam, Discord and our social media channels.

I'll pass you over now to Spono who'll explain all:




Today we're launching our Hell Let Loose Public testing app. This is a separate application in your Steam library that you’ll need to download in order to participate in the PTE. Servers will be made available during testing periods only. We’ll announce these times in the HLL official Discord.

The PTE on the EU servers will commence at approximately 11AM GMT Thursday 25th of February, and will run until approximately 8PM GMT (we’ll do an announcement when servers go online). We’ll then switch over and continue the PTE on US servers, where testing will continue from approximately 3PM till 11PM, Eastern Time USA.

Feedback Form

Please use THIS FORM for feedback during and specific to the PTE -

What we are testing:

• The stability and utility of this new public testing app
  
• Weapon zeroing
  
• Melee (animations are WIP and are yet to be updated and finalised)
  
• Changes to the Garrison placement meta (red zone Garrisons)
  
• Partial reload (ability to discontinue a reload beyond a critical points and still be functionally reloaded)
  
• UI changes
  
• VOIP stability fixes, including a reconnect button in the Options menu
  
• Weapon material overhaul
  
• Weapon sight picture overhaul (cleaned up and standardised a lot of the sizing and sight cleanliness, geometry and colours).
  
• Grass optimization, longer cull distances and quicker loading times
  
• MG34 (animations are WIP and are yet to be updated and finalised)
  
• New sniper rifle non-blurry optics
  
• Utah Beach US and German Offensive modes
  
• Barbed wire functionality
  
• Gamepad and controller support
  
• General increased game optimization
  
• New loadouts for the MG, Commander, Tank Commander and Sniper roles
  
• Vehicle gameplay experience, including weapon effectiveness, traction and vehicle handling
  

Please note: this is not the full changelist for U9, it is what we are keen to focus community attention on.

Maps in the PTE roster

• Utah Beach Offensive US
  
• Utah Beach Offensive Germany
  
• Foy Warfare
  
• Hurtgen Warfare
  
• Carentan Warfare
  

VOIP

We are continuing to improve the in game VIVOX/VOIP experience. If you do have VOIP issues during the PTE, try the reconnect function in the game menu under Audio and let us know in the PTE feedback form. With your feedback we ask that you please provide as much information as possible, including which server, which map, time and date. Also include if you noticed other people also being affected by the same issue as you, and if you used the reconnect option, if it worked or not.

Sound

Lots of general sound improvements to test, but particular things to listen out for are:

• Community Voice over acting - Wilhelm scream
  
• Footsteps and movement
  
• New BAR sound
  

Servers

We will be testing and observing server stability and performance during the test. If you notice any server issues such as rubber banding and or loss of connection, please let us know in the PTE Feedback form.


Game UI

We have made some significant changes to our UI and HUD as we look to future proof the layout and fix scaling issues for more unorthodox resolutions. Upcoming features and QOL improvements are all part of this. This means there may be bugs related to the UI. We have tried to address as many as we can so it’s playable for the PTE, but please report any UI issues you see.


Player XP

For this PTE all XP levels will be reset as if you are a new player. This does not mean you lose your XP for the Public build of the game, this is just a chance for us to see if any issues are present for new players. In future PTEs we will likely max out the XP level so all loadouts and cosmetics are unlocked and testable. This also means that initially there will be no Commanders, as it requires level 10.


Public Testing vs LIVE Game user settings

There is an issue where launching the PTE will override your .ini files for the base game. This means any selections you’ve made in the Barracks will be reverted to the defaults.
This does not reset any of your progression - only what you have selected.

To prevent your .ini files from being overridden whenever you launch the PTE, we recommend setting a new .ini directory for the PTE build.

STEPS

• Right click Hell Let Loose (Public Testing) in your Steam Library
  
• Click Properties
  
• Under Launch Options add “-UserDir=”
  

Note: Exclude the quotation marks and replace with a suitable directory. The image below provides an example directory of using the user’s AppData folder. Please do not use this example without first replacing the username.



Please note

• Extra drive space will be required (approximately 23 gb)
  
• Access to the servers will be on a first come first served basis and will be limited to 3 servers / 300 players at a time.
  
• XP will not be saved during the PTE.
  
• Achievements will not be able to be obtained.
  

A Reminder

This PTE build is taken from our live development environment for Update 9, so may include significant bugs or issues that are being currently worked on. We ask you to please report any and all bugs and other issues you may encounter.


Is there an NDA?

While we’re not forcing a strict NDA, we’d greatly appreciate it if you would help us build up to the release by not streaming or broadly sharing content from the test app.

This app has been designed and distributed to assist us in testing and to get your direct and specific feedback about the coming Update. It has not been designed as a marketing tool, and as you can imagine we’d much prefer not to broadly distribute media of content that is a work in progress.


That wraps this week's Dev Brief!

For those of you who take part in today's PTE test - We look forward to reading through your thoughts and feedback.

See you on the frontline