Today sees the release of a brand new map, Rabenheck, by community member Dolas!



Rabenheck, or "Raven's Hedge", depicts the bitter fighting of the Hurtgenwald in late 1944, during the ill-fated Operation Queen.

This map will be playable for the first time on Sunday during the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest event! Be sure to Join the Discord to stay up to speed on monthly events and all things DH!



In addition, last week saw the release of another incredible map, Ten Aard, by long time contributor Kashash!



Ten Aard depicts the fighting in the eponymous town during the Battle of Geel in northern Belgium, an oft-overlooked engagement taking place during Operation Market Garden.

Click here to see a "before an after" video showing the map compared to its real-life counterparts, to get a sense of the incredible amount of work and attention to detail that has been poured into the map.

In addition, we've managed to slip in a couple of quality of life changes and tweaks:

• Squad assistants now have access to the Command channel
  
• Resupply points are now displayed on the situation map
  
• Resupply points cost more to deploy, but now last longer
  
• Fixed a bug where vehicles could end up permanently reserved

See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

Strap your helmets on tight! This update is going to blow your mind! We have put our heads together to make Darkest Hour even more a thinking man's shooter!

Darkest Hour has always been a thinking-man's-shooter, but after this update, players will grow their cranium to unlimited proportions. Making headway in Darkest Hour will require players to be more headstrong.

However, let's not get ahead of ourselves, here is the change log!
• Players will get smarter more quickly by achieving kills
• New players will have an easier time killing veteran players on killing sprees
• Players will now be able to rename their squad to 20 characters long, instead of 16

Do not let the update get to your head. As always, see you on the battlefield!

Darkest Hour: Europe ‘44-’45 v9.0 has been released!

This release is a ceremonial one, and a milestone in the game’s development, punctuating all of the work that has been done over the last year and a half. In that time, we have added and refined a number of new features and content including squad rally points, constructions, the new Advance game mode, and well over a dozen new maps!

We are usually pretty humble about our releases, but this time we’ve gone all out and put together a cinematic trailer. We hope you will enjoy it (and send it to those who might also enjoy it!)



Today is also the 13th anniversary of Red Orchestra: Ostfront! To mark the occasion, we have enlisted the help of Tripwire Interactive to help get the word out to publications about all the hard work we have been doing, which should help bring in some new recruits! What’s more, Tripwire Interactive has permanently reduced the price of Red Orchestra: Ostfront!

We would also like to thank our community and players, old and new, for giving us the inspiration and drive to continue to improve and expand one of the longest running WW2 games of all time. We have lots more in the works, and we look forward to delivering new features and content in the coming weeks and months!

If you love what we do and want to support the game’s continued development, consider supporting us via Patreon. We also encourage everyone (new players especially!) to join our Discord community and join with your fellow soldiers in the mess hall!



See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

This update we are releasing a number of new features, including Danger Zones, Hot Rally Points and the Rally Point Indicator!

This update is a big step towards our version 9.0 milestone coming in just a little over a month. A big focus for 9.0 will be to solidify the features added in 8.0 and to better convey the game’s mechanics to new players. Without further adieu, here are the highlights!

The “danger zone” is essentially a dynamically calculated marker of enemy territory based on objective ownership. The primary use of the danger zone, currently, is to mark rally points inside the danger zone as “hot”. The location of hot rally points will be automatically marked on the map for the opposing team to call attention to deep flanking squads.



This mechanic was developed as a response to the metagame shifting towards extreme behind-the-lines play which could make battles feel unfocused as well as putting defending teams at an extreme disadvantage. As always, the mechanics are always subject to change based on how the mechanic affects the gameplay and player feedback.

This feature was developed primarily by community member and ace squad leader Dirty Birdy, and we are really excited that he has lent us his talents.

We have added a new rally point indicator to the HUD for squad leaders! This handy little guy gives you at-a-glance information about your ability to place rally points. Here is a rundown of the kinds of information it conveys:

• If your squad has no rally points, the indicator will flash red.
  
• Displays the reason why placement may not be possible (eg. missing squadmate, cooldown etc.)
  
• When all placement conditions have been satisfied, the icon glows and displays a one-button prompt to place a rally point (will be useful for new squad leaders!)
  
• The indicator displays a yellow warning symbol when you are in the danger zone.

• In an effort to stop grand theft logi, only Squad Leaders and Assistants can spawn and drive Logistics vehicles
  
• Low Reinforcement messages appear less often, but are now accompanied by a unique sound
  
• Tweaked the rules for activating objective spawns; objective spawns will generally be much further away from the frontlines, hopefully resulting in less instances of spawn killing.
  
• Changed the banned and session kicked messages to be less confusing
  
• Added the server name to the scoreboard

• Added ability to start kicking idle players once enough players are connected
  
• Added a command which unlocks the 10,000 Bps network speed cap
  
• Added a location string, so players can know where the server is located on the server browser

• Players who are forgiven for a team kill will now have their weapons unlocked if they have a past team kill which was punished
  
• Shooting a friendly soft vehicle will play an upsetting sound (to warn players against doing it)
  
• Removed the ability for players to damage the engine of friendly vehicles
  
• Added weapon locking for destroying friendly vehicles
  
• Added a message for when a player destroys a friendly vehicle
  
• A player who kills a friendly vehicle can no longer switch teams for 25 minutes
  
• Added a death message (Andy Kaufman) when a player destroys a friendly vehicle

• Doubled the health of all sandbag constructions
  
• Dragon’s Teeth health increased from 750 to 1000
  
• Dragon's Teeth now take less damage from HE splash

• All work in progress maps now have a kill zone under the terrain
  
• Klin updated
  
  • Decreased number of reinforcements
    
  • Added windy snow emitters
    
  • Brightened the dark sky
    
  • Removed bloom and reduced the brightness of players
    
  • Fixed many other issues

• Salaca updated
  
  • Improved the Objective Spawns
    
  • Adjusted the end objectives locations and renamed

See you in the DANGER ZONE,
Darklight Games

A small update released early this morning. Here are the...

• Radar updated, several improvements, added objective spawns
  
• Slight damage and radius increase to satchel charges
  
• Moved smoke grenades to slot “4”
  
• Moved shovel/wirecutters/satchels to slot “7”
  
• Changes to Klin, Salaca, and Myshkova

• Fixed a bug on Hurtgenwald where players would be slain up on the hill
  
• Fixed a bug where players couldn’t pick up satchels
  
• Fixed a bug with objective spawns which could crash the server

Got a hotfix for client crashes during level load and more!

Changes:

• Updated the main menu to fix a client crash
  
• Added mortar observers to Stoumont Advance
  
• Removed Ami Go Home from Axis song list
  
• Moved Satchel Charges from slot "7" to slot "4"
  
• Moved Smoke Grenades from slot "2" to slot "7"
  
• Added slots as bindable keys on the control settings page
  
• Objective Spawns now have their own map icon (a square)
  
• Added objective spawns to Putot (objective spawns will work on Advance now)
  
• Netspeed changes:
  
  • New default is 10000
    
  • Users with less than 10000 netspeed will be updated to 10000
    
  • Adjusted netspeed values in the settings
• Several fixes to Putot

See you on the battlefield!

We are back at it! Here are the changes:

• New Main Menu
  
  • New background image
    
  • Handles different aspect ratios (4:3 & 16:9) better (no longer stretches image)
    
  • Now has a frame limiter (to help prevent coil whine on your hardware)
• Added a control for toggle run (no default bind, can be bound under Controls > Movement)
  
• Fixed a bug where constructions would be virtually immune to direct HE impact damage.
  
• Added an experimental feature to Hattert_Advance we are calling Objective Spawns
  
  • The nearest linked secured objectives act as a spawn point for the team
    
  • If no issues occur we will implement this feature on more Clash maps
• Increased the options for internet rate (now has experimental 30000 rate option)

• Squad Leaders now receive 25 instead of 50 points when a squadmate spawns on their rally point. This change was made because squad leaders would almost always massively out-score the rest of their squad due to the high point value of players spawning on rally points.

• Removed DH_ATWeapons.u package
  
  • This package has been deprecated since v6.0 and was kept around for backwards compatibility with custom levels. However due to a bug in the UT2004 engine, it was discovered to be creating invalid references and data in map files which could lead to larger file sizes, instability, and made maintenance on these levels more difficult.
  
  
• Note To Server Administrators!
  
  • Custom levels that reference DH_ATWeapons.u will now require DH_ATWeapons.u as a custom file on the server. Either that, or the custom levels will need to be updated to remove these references (Contact [DH]Theel on our Discord for more information and instructions). You can download the DH_ATWeapons.u package here. Place the file in your server’s DarkestHour/System folder.

We hope everyone had a good holiday break. 2019 is going to be a big year for Darkest Hour. We plan on polishing features we are happy with and making changes to features we are not. A big focus this year will be on brand new maps!

Here is a recap of changes to DH in 2018:
2018 started with v8.0 (squads + construction + Advance) being just released in late 2017.

• By February, we added Assistant Squad Leaders and more constructions.
  
• In March, we had the frag grenade update, which reduced starting grenades to 1, max carriable to 3, and added grenade boxes.
  
• In April, we had changes to soft vehicles so they no longer instantly explode; giving soldiers a chance to bail out once the vehicle becomes disabled.
  
• We saw the 10th anniversary of Darkest Hour in June!
  
• In July, we had new construction (Dragons Teeth and Panzerfaust Crates) and a complete overhaul to the scoring system.
  
• In August, we saw improvements to blood and hit impacts on players.
  
• In September, we added a zoom-able overview map.
  
• In October, Theel launched his Patreon campaign.
  
• In November, he launched the London high performance server.
  
• Finally, in December we improved on the in-game chat and added squad merging.

We are now at v8.4.0! Over the last year we have added (I believe somewhere around 42) maps, implemented many other features not mentioned above, improved many existing features, fixed bugs, and many other things.

The official server has been going great, if you enjoy playing on it and want to help, please donate here: https://www.patreon.com/theel By becoming a patron, you'll get access to private news, discord roles, and in-game rewards.

Patison is hosting an event tomorrow (DH Campaign Night - Sunday 06/01/19 @ 10PM GMT)! For more information, please join us on Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/RKpwrbr

Thanks for playing Darkest Hour in 2018 and as always see you on the battlefield!

We're back at it again! This update's a bit of a hodge-podge, but the tl;dr is that we've added a new squad merging functionality, a couple new work-in-progress maps, and made some balance changes, including a change that should make light vehicles much more fragile.

• Added DH-WIP_MyshkovaRiver_Advance
  
• Added DH-WIP_Klin1941_Advance
  
• Added a new control for placing a Rally Point (default key is: “J”)
  
• Added a new splash screen

Need to consolidate a bunch of itty bitty squads? Well, we're here to help! You can now offer other squad leaders to merge their squads into yours!

• As a squad leader, right-click another squad leader on the squad menu and select “Request to Merge”
  
• The squad leader that sent the merge request will become the new squad leader

• Changes to soft vehicles (cars, trucks, halftracks):
  
  • Increased damage from small arms fire
    
  • Vehicles are now more easily disabled
    
  • Reduced engine health on cars and trucks
    
  • Halftracks now climb up slopes more effectively
• Updated DH-WIP_Cholm_Advance
  
  • Axis now have a new approach for the final objective
    
  • Second to last capture (Stronghold) can be captured from the ground level.
    
  • Added a couple weapon pickups
• Changes to several constructions:
  
  • Panzerfaust Crate:
    
    • Raised cost from 750 to 850
      
    • Lowered Panzerfaust count from 4 to 2
  • Increased cost of Grenade Crate from 300 to 400
    
  • Increased cost of Supply Cache from 250 to 500
    
  • Increased cost of Watchtower from 750 to 900
    
  • Platoon HQs can no longer be crushed by vehicles
    
  • Platoon HQs now take more damage from grenades and satchels
• All vehicles have had their reinforcement cost reduced
  
• Levels’ weapon pickups no longer respawn by default
  
• Reduced the high player count requirements for voting larger Advance levels

• Fixed a bug where most functionality was broken in the Admin mutator.

See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

We're back at it again! This time bringing a big quality-of-life improvement to the chat system.

While typing, you are now able to cycle through chat modes by pressing the Tab button!



Since the RO1 days, there has been three buttons for initiating chat in certain channels (team, global, vehicle). When we added the squad chat channel, we had to take up another keybind on our already crowded default key mapping. The old system is just not tenable for extensibility and is very be cumbersome to use (e.g. accidentally hitting the wrong button and needing to hit escape and try again).

Additionally, you can now simply hit your Enter key to start typing a message to your previously selected chat channel! Please note that backwards compatibility is maintained if you prefer to use the old system instead.

Here are a few more notable tweaks and additions:

• There is now a colored line drawn between the player and the squad's current order marker on the situation map (this should help highlight the orders more prominently)
  
• All anti-tank guns now must be placed at least 15 meters from each other.
  
• All anti-tank guns have had their supply cost increased (in some cases significantly) in an effort to reduce AT gun spam.
  
• Increased the "block" time penalty for spawn kills on Platoon HQs from 15 to 30 seconds in an effort to reduce repeated spawn killing.
  
• Increased the duration of the "<Team> Have Won The Battle!" message from 5 seconds to 15 seconds.
  
• Fixed a bug where players would be told to wait for 5 seconds before voting for another map before they had voted for any maps.
  
• Fixed a bug where the crescent sandbag construction could seem to disappear if it was in your peripheral view.

Thank you for continued support and feedback! We have some very big and exciting plans that will be coming to fruition in the winter months, so watch this space!

See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games