Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #109 and the first briefing of 2021!

To get the ball rolling we're starting small and focused this week as we look to revealing and diving into the larger parts of Update 9 in the briefs to come.

But having said that, this week's brief will be pleasing on the eye and your weapon firing satisfaction so without further waiting I'll pass you over to Max!

Happy New Year everyone!



Hi everyone,

It’s our first week back into the studio and as a result of us getting busy again we’ve got a relatively low-key dev briefing for you this week before we can start to dive into the larger aspects of Update 9 and beyond.


A key visual element of first person shooters are the weapons, hands and arms that take up large portions of screen real-estate the entire time you play the game. While we managed to overhaul our hands and sleeves in Update 7, we didn’t manage to tackle a visual upgrade of our weapons - arguably the most significant objects in the game and certainly objects that deserve to be the best quality we can make them.



For Update 9, the art team has been keen to audit these areas and have rebuilt an entirely new procedural texture system in line with AAA workflows. Previously, older texturing workflows relied on several unique textures for each model in the game. You would have three textures that would make up the Kar 98k, and as a result of texture budgets, you’d need to either handle these in an extremely clever way, or simply downgrade the resolution of them in order to make them cost effective - resulting in a total loss of detail.

New Modelled Barrel


In the last three years, with the advent of much more widely used photoreal lighting and material creation processes, the philosophy behind texturing has changed significantly. Instead of creating three separate unique textures for each of the 40+ weapons and pieces of equipment in Hell Let Loose (roughly 120 different textures), the use of “smart materials” means that we are now able to create a “metal material”, “wood material” and “bakelite material” using three textures in each. We then take each weapon or piece of equipment in Hell Let Loose and set up one single very low res texture that acts as a mask. It basically let’s us tell the barrel of a gun to use the metal material, while the stock is told to use the wood material and so on.

The result of this is incredible. Instead of using 120 different textures, we’re able to look at guns like the Thompson, BAR, Garand, K98k and so on and simply use the same three wood textures and the same three metal textures - each contained within a custom material that lets us change the way these behave per gun. The first weapon to benefit from the early version of this system (that we’ve now taken much further) was the MP40.

So what does this mean? Ultimately, it offers a really significant optimisation for GPU and texture memory that will be best felt on low end machines, while also enabling us to maintain incredibly high quality detail very close to the camera. In essence, through some clever overhaul, we’re able to optimise and drastically improve the visual quality of every weapon in the game. In addition, it also means we’re able to create weapons far faster - as once the model is made and the single mask texture has been created, we can procedurally texture in minutes.

Kar98K Scoped - Current Version


Kar98K Scoped - New Version


This technology is also important because we’ll be implementing this into the way we work on other things in the game - like vehicles, props and other objects. The end result should fundamentally be a significant improvement to frames and visual quality. In addition, this system also gives us the ability to dynamically texture the weapon - adding fingerprints, blood flecks and eventually mud, snow and raindrops.

Luger - Current Version


Luger - New Version


As a side note, we’re also fixing any incorrect text on weapons while cleaning up each model. A small example is that the M1919 is now a far better looking gun with proper modelled holes on the barrel.



We’re also excited to announce that we’ve fixed the often talked about issue of the weapon zeroing that was introduced with the ballistics systems. Each weapon is now zeroed correctly and far better models the real life trajectory. For laymen, the outcome of this is that it no longer feels like the bullet is “falling out of the barrel” - instead travelling straighter for far longer. While this has applied to all weapons, it is especially satisfying on the lower caliber weapons and vehicle mounted coaxial and hull machineguns.

In addition, we discovered a nasty bug with regard to the tank mounted machine guns that cause the bullets to occasionally not register with infantry at certain angles. We’re currently looking at fixes for this.



That wraps up Max's post on the upcoming weapon visual upgrades and weapon zeroing fixes!

What we shared today is just the tip of the iceberg for Update 9 and we look forward to sharing lots more with you as we move through early 2021.

Now before we sign off for the weekend, can anyone figure out what upcoming weapon this belongs to?



We'll see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

We hope you've all had a good week so far!

We just wanted to quickly update you that you’ll start to see aspects of the upcoming Steam achievements rolling through in different ways (some being listed on Steam but obscured). We’ve plugged them in as just a very minor aspect of the next update.

We appreciate that for many players achievements are not their desired priority, and we want to assure you that not only was this a very minor piece of work, it was a value-add to our work on adding additional telemetry to the game that will help us get a much greater sense of role usage, map popularity, average game length and weapon usage.

Just to let you know - In addition to this, we’re also investigating an increase in Vivox VOIP connection issues. We really appreciate your patience and reports on this while we investigate these problems as a matter of priority.

We'll be back again tomorrow for our weekly Dev Brief!

See you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #108!

To see out 2020, Max has put together an end of year review as we look at some of the biggest content drops that Hell Let Loose received over the last twelve months, as well turning our gaze to 2021...

Over to you, Max!



Hi everyone,

2020 has been an enormous and historic year - with the loss of loved ones, jobs and even just the normal rhythms of life. Amidst that, we’ve been very fortunate to be able to continue work on Hell Let Loose, and have been thankful for the support we’ve seen for the game from the existing community and new players.

Because of this, we’ve been able to expand the team and increase production on all fronts. As a result, 2021 will be a huge year for Hell Let Loose. We’ll be seeking to leave Early Access, introduce a whole new front and the Soviet forces - an entirely new army. On top of that we’ll be continuing to polish, optimise and expand the existing game.

2020 was a very challenging year for us as a dev team. It marked significant milestones in our overhauling of previous systems and has set us up well for the future - with hastily formulated solutions (line trace ballistics, the way we handle mapping, our entire animation system etc.) finally given new life with our desired solutions.

In a quick look back, here are some of the major pieces of content or overhauls added to the game:

Update 5 in February saw the introduction of Purple Heart Lane, the US heavy tank variants and the overhauled non-verbal communication system.

Update 6 in late April introduced Hill 400, as well as our ballistics overhaul, the addition of the Scout cars, the Recon Plane Commander ability among many others.

Update 7 in mid July introduced the total FPP and TPP animation overhaul, the total firearms sound effects overhaul, Carentan and the Foy overhaul among many other changes.

Finally, Update 8 was introduced in early December and saw the introduction of transport and supply trucks, satchel charges, hammers, blowtorches, the Grease Gun, the overhaul of Hurtgen Forest, the overhaul of the supply and fortification systems, the introduction of a hit box system and the total overhaul of all explosion and heavy weapon sound effects and visual effects.

Because of the support and interest of the community, we’re in the fortunate position of being able to confidently plan many more years of content to come. In what is now an established tradition, we’ll continue to share what we’re working on with you in the weekly dev briefings.

Finally, thank you for your patience in the journey of our development. While we always strive to fix, polish, optimise and expand the game in the right order and as fast as possible, we know that we often make mistakes or introduce issues - or may have prioritised something high on the list only to discover a more pressing issue emerges. While it’s happened before, we know it’ll happen again and we thank you for your patience in allowing us the time to work to fix these issues. Our commitment is to work as quickly and efficiently as possible to address all community feedback, as well as continue to expand different aspects of the game.

While we’ve often said the Hell Let Loose journey has just begun, it’s appropriate to now say that 2021 will be the end of the beginning. We’re very excited for the year ahead and are looking forward to working with you to continue to refine the game. With the Western and Eastern fronts coming into play, we still have huge development milestones to tackle - melee combat, Campaign mode and flamethrowers to name only a few. We have many more different maps to create - each with entirely new gameplay challenges. We have new vehicles, new weapons, improvements to the meta, new effects, new sound effects, new cosmetic options, new Commander abilities and more.

We hope you have a wonderful new year and look forward to seeing you on the frontline in 2021!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #107!

This week we're talking about the meta! Specifically what we feel is working, what we think isn't and what we're doing to change it.

We were originally planning to talk about this over the last few weeks, but due to Update 8 and Patch shenanigans we had to push this topic back slightly... But now the time has come!

Project Lead Max has put together the team's thoughts on what we're seeing and what we've learned from all of your feedback on how the meta plays and feels at the moment.

Now, lets get stuck in shall we!



Hi everyone,

Now that the dust has settled on both Update 8 and Patch 14, we thought we’d take the chance to address several large metagame issues that we’ll be looking to solve in the near future. In order to best address them, we’re keen to not only discuss them here, but use this dev brief as a jumping off point for wider community discussion.


Initial Issue

Previously, defensive players would often be incredibly overwhelmed and hamstrung by attacking players who would sneak into the strongpoint (or just behind it) and drop down a Garrison (referred to as a “ninja garrison”). This would then negate all measures the defenders had in place, by enabling the attacking team to dump their entire force onto the point extremely quickly.

The key issues here were that this completely dissolved the “frontline” aspect of the game and enabled near instantaneous leverage of entire teams into action behind or on top of the enemy line. In effect - 1 (and at most - 2) players could leverage the entire attacking team into a single location, with the defending team unable to parry this attack by virtue of it being so easy to initiate.

In order to preserve the sense of a front line, and better telegraph the loss of ground and enemy thrusts, the ability to place Garrisons in “red zones” was removed. This was largely to see if teams could successfully leverage an assault with 3-4 Officers using OPs in the red zone instead of the single Garrison.

Positive Result

The positive result has been in far more stable front line combat. The movement back and forth of teams directly correlates to their positioning, and attacks can be telegraphed and thwarted by defenders.

Negative Result

The downside has been the often-stagnation of teams into pure attack or defense - largely due to the asymmetry of leveraging assaults. Instead of being able to move 4-5 Officers into an attacking position using a Garrison, multiple individual Officers must now attack together in order to present a significant enough front to successfully push a defended strong point.

For example, in the following image we can see more than 6 individual Officers have manoeuvred to the same location in order to place down OPs. While this is encouraging to see, the inability to quickly deploy attacking Officers (and therefore OPs and units) into flanking or attacking positions (that have won ground against the defenders).





Ultimately, we do not want to return to the days of ninja garrisons that enabled one or two players to leverage the entire attacking team into the point in the blink of an eye. At the same time, we want to enable attacking teams to be able to properly establish an assault with a Garrison from an offset or close location in territory that has already been cleared and won by them (instead of only ever being able to move individual OPs forward).

The intended design for Garrisons is such that a team can place one in order to support an attack or defence - but that they are not the key instrument in the attack. We have designed the shorter spawn times on the OPs, as well as the less restrictive placement rules to facilitate OPs as a way of moving your individual unit forward from the Garrison up to the point (or, sustaining your unit on a defensive point while the Garrison is designed to sustain the individual units from a lower risk position).

With this in mind, the best outcome we feel would be to enable the placement of a Garrison in the first row of red zone (critically - not deep behind enemy lines) in order to enable a forward assault starting point, but ideally not within 250m of the strongpoint itself (therefore preserving the ability for the defenders to engage in meaningful combat without immediately being overrun).

How to achieve this:

We feel that there are several options here, each with different levels of work attached.

• Change the rules to exclude enemy garrisons from 250m of the defenders strong point. We feel that this would solve the issues experienced by defenders, but also enable attackers to open up flanking fronts to assault the strongpoint (critically, enabling a spawn location for Officers to begin their assaults using OPs). While this idea would most likely solve the issues, we feel that stopping players from building near the very place they want to attack will feel unintuitive and too gamey.
  
  
• Alter the fragility of Garrisons in red zones. This could be done by making them inactive with a larger enemy radius (ie. if an enemy is within 100m of the Garrison, it becomes locked), able to be destroyed by large proximity (ie. removed if an enemy is within 100m) etc. This would encourage players to place attacking Garrisons in safer locations that promoted more telegraphed attacks.
  
  
• Enable players to build Garrisons in adjacent sectors in the row, but not in the active sector (similar to Offensive mode). The key issue we see here is that central sectors will always struggle more as they will need to fight a two front war - although this is something that will always be present within the game to a degree.

Airhead

Typically with Hell Let Loose, we like to try and make sure most game problems are solvable by the Commander, the Infantry or the Armor. This issue when it comes to the Commander leans heavily on the use of the Airhead.

In playing consistently with this feature, we feel it’s wise to greatly increase the time the Airhead is active from one minute to five. Design around the airhead is to create a fragile but potent spawn location that can be used by attackers to begin an assault from within the redzone. While this is working - the short duration it’s active means that the opportunity is often missed. To counter this, we will be extending the duration, while also messaging to the team that an Airhead is active.

Halftracks

We’re yet to add halftracks, but our design for them positions them very much as a mobile garrison that is able to be used within the red zone. While “one man with a box” is extremely difficult to counter by defenders, we feel that a large and fragile vehicle represents an acceptable visual and sound signature to enable Garrison functionality within the defenders territory.

Our feeling here is that the halftrack - used cautiously - could work as either a fallback spawn point for defenders, a wide flank launch point for attackers - or a creeping garrison pushing directly towards the strongpoint.


We want to preserve the frontline push and pull of the teams, but better enable attackers to “solidify” their gains into enemy territory by being able to place a Garrison, instead of being arbitrarily locked to sector edge garrisons.



Issue:

Something that can be seen both in the competitive scene as well as the public scene is that the nature of scoring wins and losses in Warfare mode promotes stagnant “hold the middle” gameplay. Teams will often push to the center, take the neutral sector and then hold the point for the duration of the game. This leads to boring gameplay - including forced total time limit game - and overly simplistic victory conditions.

Proposed Fix:

Instead of awarding victory based on whoever has the most territory at the end of the game, we will change the sector reward value to represent a score. Capturing the third sector will still award victory, but the scoring will be cumulative instead of fixed.

• For capturing the middle territory, your team will be rewarded with 1 point.
  
• For capturing the first enemy row, your team will be rewarded with 2 points.
  
• For capturing the second enemy row, your team will be rewarded with 3 points and Victory.
  
• For retaking your own previously captured rows, you will only be rewarded with 1 point for each row retaken.

For example:

• Team 1 takes the neutral territory and is rewarded with 1 point.
  
• Team 2 attacks and takes the neutral territory off them. Both teams are 1-1.
  
• Team 2 attacks and takes the first row of Team 1. Team 2 is rewarded 2 points and now has a total of 3 points. 3-1
  
• Team 1 attacks and retakes their first row. 3-2
  
• Team 1 attacks and takes the center row. 3-3
  
• Team 1 attacks and takes the first row of Team 2. 3-5
  
• Team 1 attacks and takes the second row of Team 2, winning the game: 3-8.

Public Games:

In this way, we feel that public games will become far more dynamic, and that aggressive teams will be rewarded for successfully pushing forward. In order to encourage this, we may look at rewarding greater total victory experience to teams that capture row 3, as opposed to trigger a score victory.

Competitive Games:

In terms of the competitive scene, we feel that this is a great way of scoring games across a season - encouraging each team to try to win the highest number of points within a game to enable them to compete on a broader scale.

Instead of a binary “win/loss”, this would represent a much deeper idea of how the game progressed, as well as create greater competition as each team is trying to earn as many potential points as possible to keep them in best standing for a season.

Eg.

• Team 1 wins 9-4 in game 1 against Team 2.
  
• Team 3 wins 5-3 in game 2 against Team 4.

The result would be:

• Team 1
  
• Team 3
  
• Team 2
  
• Team 4

As opposed to the current system in which Team 1 and Team 3 are considered equal - despite Team 1 playing a better game.



Our ongoing commitment to you - our community - is to attempt to find the best solutions for each issue that arises over the course of development - from TTK issues to fences to armour hitboxes to metagame. While we often don’t get things right the first time, we are committed to continuing to find the best possible fixes and solutions that capture the spirit of the game, while also dealing with endemic issues.

Next week the team will continue talking through through the meta issues, as we’re aware that there are quite a few. Increasingly in development we’ll start to use dev briefings as a platform by which we can share our thinking about key issues. Obviously, we’re also aware that with a community this size - answers are very rarely monolithically correct, and that many people may love an idea or feature, while others may despise it. As developers, this is a very difficult line to tread, but we’re keen to keep as much transparency as possible during our update cycles.

In any case, we’re very excited to work with you to improve Hell Let Loose as much as we can. We’re already hard at work on continued polish, optimisation, future content and solutions to the issues discussed above. We’re particularly excited to follow the conversations around this dev brief and will be keen to see the conversation evolve.

We'll see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Before we delve into the patch notes we just want to say thank you to everyone for your support and feedback following Update 8's arrival!

Today's patch is a possible thanks to the community's feedback, patience and comments both here on Steam as well as our other social hubs.

If there's something you've fed back that hasn't been addressed or mentioned today, fear not - just because it isn't in here doesn't mean it isn't on our radar.

Now, let's get stuck in shall we:

• Bypass server queue not allowed - bug fixed where it was causing mass disconnects on map change.
  
• Vote kick threshold raised - will require a much higher % of the team for a vote to succeed. This is one of the most painful features we’ve ever worked on in HLL. Too low and people continually troll by kicking people - too high and it’s useless. Ultimately we’re looking at the ability for server owners to enable/disable vote kick and also player reporting and admin logging for U9.
  
• Vivox/Voip issues, we are watching this closely and have made one or two bug fixes.
  
• Fix for super grainy/sharp broken AA. While these changes benefitted TAA, they multiplied the effect on other forms of AA. We will be hand implementing these settings to TAA for Update 9.
  
• Fix fallen burned tree collisions on Hurtgen forest so players can step over them.
  
• Make all wire fences ignore collision from bullets, tank shells and heavy weapons.
  
• Changes across the BAR, Thompson, MP40, K98k, Garand, G43, M3 Grease Gun weapons to reduce damage drop off at range, as players landing difficult, accurate shots were punished for their efforts.
• We also increased the shots to kill on extremities for some of these weapons, while returning the STG and BAR to their OHK status. The result is that all of these weapons now play closer to their U7 variants, while still punishing shots that hit the lower legs and feet.
  
• Fixed: The SFX for exiting ocean water can be heard within 500m.
  
• Slightly lowered semi-automatic recoil. It now sits just above half way between the original and the new. We played with this every day since the Update and found that the new recoil was slightly too strong.
  
• Applied bullet penetration to many irritating materials that we’d missed (wire fences, small wooden posts).
  
• Fixes for collision occurring on things it shouldn’t (grass on the top of embankments, some reeds, some other foliage, window and door openings on some buildings).
  
• Fixed a few dozen map bugs reported by QA and the Community.
  
• Partial fix for grass loading slowly. Much more should now have loaded when you spawn, but there’s still more work we can do here.
  
• Removed medals from the player nameplate HUD icons, as their scaling often totally broke the visual and was more distracting than useful. We’ll look at implementing this after we revise the idea. The medals are still present in the scoreboard and Barracks.
  
• Various server crash fixes, and improvements made to address reports of ‘rubber-banding’.
  
• Fixed Sapper being available before level 3 for the US Engineer.

That wraps up today's patch notes!

As always we'll be watching for and collating your feedback on these changes and fixes as we continue to craft Hell Let Loose throughout Early Access.

If you haven't already downloaded the free 'Winter Warfare Helmet Pack' you can do so for a limited time below:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1205050/Hell_Let_Loose__Winter_Warfare_Helmet_Pack/

We'll see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #106!

This week we're using the Dev Brief to give you a preview at an impending patch that, all going well, will be arriving on the frontline next week.

Your feedback and willingness to be open and honest with us about all aspects of the game has been greatly appreciated. The team have worked tireless since U8 launched to not only collate everyone's feedback across all our channels - but take action on it!

I'm going to pass you over to Lead Developer Max now to let you know where we're at, as well as what we're addressing in Patch 14.



Hi everyone,

It’s been a huge week for us with the release of Update 8 and we’re really excited to watch how many of the changes have been enjoyed by the community - especially the changes to FX, the soundscape, quality of life, new Hurtgen and many more.

Simultaneously, we’ve spent a lot of time in game with you, as well as reading all of the feedback across all our channels.

While we do test as much as possible during QA and then in the PTE’s, we often miss things due to the sheer size of the game.This is equally frustrating for us as a team, because we’d much prefer to ship an update with very few obvious issues as possible.

All going well, late next week we’ll be releasing a patch that will cover as many of the quickest fixes we’ve been able to accomplish this week (a huge thanks to the production and QA team to get this out the door!). Obviously, more complex issues will take longer to resolve, but we wanted to make sure you knew that many of the issues you were experiencing were unacceptable and we’ve prioritised a fix.

Without further ado:

• Bypass server queue not allowed - bug fixed where it was causing mass disconnects on map change.
  
• Vote kick threshold raised - will require a much higher % of the team for a vote to succeed. This is one of the most painful features we’ve ever worked on in HLL. Too low and people continually troll by
• kicking people - too high and it’s useless. Ultimately we’re looking at the ability for server owners to enable/disable vote kick and also player reporting and admin logging for U9.
  
• Vivox/Voip issues, we are watching this closely and have made one or two bug fixes.
  
• Fix for super grainy/sharp broken AA. While these changes benefitted TAA, they multiplied the effect on other forms of AA. We will be hand implementing these settings to TAA for Update 9.
  
• Fix fallen burned tree collisions on Hurtgen forest so players can step over them.
  
• Make all wire fences ignore collision from bullets, tank shells and heavy weapons.
  
• Changes across the BAR, Thompson, MP40, K98k, Garand, G43, M3 Grease Gun weapons to reduce damage drop off at range, as players landing difficult, accurate shots were punished for their efforts.
• We also increased the shots to kill on extremities for some of these weapons, while returning the STG and BAR to their OHK status. The result is that all of these weapons now play closer to their U7 variants, while still punishing shots that hit the lower legs and feet.
  
• Fixed: The SFX for exiting ocean water can be heard within 500m.
  Slightly lowered semi-automatic recoil. It now sits just above half way between the original and the new. We played with this every day since the Update and found that the new recoil was slightly too strong.
  
• Applied bullet penetration to many irritating materials that we’d missed (wire fences, small wooden posts).
  
• Fixes for collision occurring on things it shouldn’t (grass on the top of embankments, some reeds, some other foliage, window and door openings on some buildings).
  
• Fixed a few dozen map bugs reported by QA and the Community.
  
• Partial fix for grass loading slowly. Much more should now have loaded when you spawn, but there’s still more work we can do here.
  
• Removed medals from the player nameplate HUD icons, as their scaling often totally broke the visual and was more distracting than useful. We’ll look at implementing this after we revise the idea. The medals are still present in the scoreboard and Barracks.
  
• Various server crash fixes, and improvements made to address reports of ‘rubber-banding’

Run Speed:

We tweaked the player run speed for U8 in order to watch the resulting flow of combat and the effect it would have on intentional movement across and around the front line - rewarding intentional movement and decreasing the amount of “zig zag” “mosquito” movement.

We’ve often gone back and forth with regard to a stamina system for Hell Let Loose. We’ve frequently decided against it, as the core essence of Hell Let Loose is the emphasis on the courage to push forward bravely and efficiently - knowing that to take any ground requires forward movement. If we start rewarding players for slow or static play (whether by making out-of-stamina players find it harder to aim, or by increasing the aiming stability of stationary, crouched or prone players) we felt that it would fundamentally discourage the core of our attacking gameplay.

Counter to this, we’ve also been aware that our previous run speed was high enough (and our player acceleration matching this), that enemy targets could go from a walk to full sprint incredibly quickly, and that quickly strafing side to side in a gunfight was often advisable.

As such, we wanted to find the best of both worlds - making sure our system didn’t punish forward movement (or reward static play) - while also creating a more realistic time to accelerate and total movement speed.

We are still playing this change and watching the way this affects the metagame.

We also wanted to note that our crouched player run speed is slightly slower than our standing one. However, due to the camera being closer to the ground, there is a perception that it’s faster or as fast as the standing speed.

Finally, we fully acknowledge that this change to player speeds should have been acknowledged in the patch notes. Its absence was not intentional and was a result of the change taking place very early in the dev cycle. We’ll make sure in the future that we work harder so this does not happen again.



There is still a huge amount more to address from both this Update, let alone what we’ll be doing for Update 9. If we haven’t mentioned a specific issue in this dev brief (metagame, armored issues and gameplay etc.) or addressed it with this patch - it does not mean that we feel it’s acceptable or are totally happy with everything that is unmentioned. Hell Let Loose is in Early Access, and as such will continually be worked on in coordination with community feedback.

We’re very excited to get this patch out and are looking forward to revealing more of what is to come in both Update 9 and 2021. Hell Let Loose is still relatively young in its development and there’s so much more to come. Fortunately, the incredible feedback you give us - as well as the passion you have for Hell Let Loose - gives us enormous amounts of energy to keep polishing, improving and optimising - let alone creating new content.

While continued development and updating a live game is a rollercoaster, we’re looking forward to an even bigger year for Hell Let Loose in 2021.



That wraps up this week's Dev Brief and today's update from Max!

As a little reminder, if you haven't grabbed the free 'Winter Warfare Helmet Pack' DLC you grab it for a limited time below:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1205050/Hell_Let_Loose__Winter_Warfare_Helmet_Pack/

Have a great weekend everyone.

We'll see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #105!

This week's brief is going to be pretty short and sweet as we focus on gathering and working on everyone's feedback over the last 24 hours and beyond.

We've been blown away by the support and feedback we've seen and we really appreciate everyone who's taking a moment to share their experiences with us, what they like, what they don't like and any bugs they've encountered.

The team have already deployed a Hotfix to address an issue with the Vote Kick system which wouldn't of been possible without your feedback on it - so thanks for that!

Now, what else are we looking at? The following bullet points highlight some of the main feedback / bug reports we've seen, but it is not exhaustive. If you do not see something you've fed back don't panic, because we're almost certainly aware of it due to combing through Steam, Social Media, Reddit and our Discord server.

Selection of common U8 feedback areas

• Grass can render slowly / pop-in
  
• Bullet Penetration inconsistent
  
• TTK of Rifle / other small-arms to infantry can spike upwards in certain circumstances (we have a couple of theories on why this can occur and are looking into it)
  
• AA is very sharp
  
• Small selection of players reporting an FPS drop, whilst many others reporting an increase
  
• Changes to weapon balance / availability

As you can see, some of the above are bug reports and others are player feedback and opinion such as weapon balance.

The team are aware of all of the above and more and highly encourage anyone with something they'd like to let us know, be it the good, the bad or the 'bug'ly to make a post on any of our platforms, including here on Steam.



Now onto some cool server news!

Firstly we want to thank all of our veteran, and newer server hosters! We have a very dedicated and loyal community that we are extremely grateful for.

We have had such a massive interest in HLL server hosting over the Early Access period, but even more so in the last 24 hours! So If you are looking into hosting a Hell Let Loose server for your new or existing clan/community, now is as good as time as any!

Here is our list of official server providers across multiple regions:

G-PORTAL


GTX Gaming


NITRADO


We want to make sure you have the best experience possible, so if you have further questions about renting a server, you can DM Spono in the official HLL Discord - https://discord.gg/QaYSzpjC

We will be looking to expand the above list in the future, to give our community more choice. Unfortunately we do not currently allow access to our dedicated server files.

Again we want to thank all of the server owners, admins and volunteers who make sure you can enjoy your HLL experience and are with you battling it out on the frontline!



The team are going to be continuing to collate your feedback and work on addressing any issues that have arisen in Update 8.

We'll keep you in the loop on where we're at with things where possible, so watch this space!

We hope you're enjoying Hurtgen and Update 8 so far, have a brilliant weekend everyone.

See you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

We've just deployed a Hotfix after seeing feedback that the Vote Kick system wasn't behaving as intended.

• Fixed an issue that allowed players to vote kick members of the enemy team
  
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to be vote kicked with only 2 votes

We hope you're all enjoying Update 8 so far!

Rest assured we're eagerly going through everyone's feedback and will continue to do so over the coming weeks.



The Winter Warfare Helmet Pack free DLC is live now!

1 x US Winter Toque
1 x German Winter Toque
1 x White Painted M1
1 x White Painted M42

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1205050/Hell_Let_Loose__Winter_Warfare_Helmet_Pack/

The pack is only available for a limited time, so grab it while you can!

See you on the frontline!

Hey everyone!

Welcome to Update 8: The Red Ball Express.

Named after the famed Allied supply chain, we felt this was an appropriate name to introduce all the large changes we’ve made to the Support and Engineer roles, the addition of supply and transport trucks, as well as unveil new Hurtgen to you all.

There are more than 1000 changes in Update 8 - both front end and back end. While the time elapsed between Update 7 and Update 8 has been significantly longer than usual, it’s given the team a chance to regain some energy and work through some persistently frustrating issues. We know we still have much more to do to bring Hell Let Loose to a state of quality that we’re happy with, but we hope you enjoy all of the quality of life, performance and functionality changes Update 8 brings with it.

Below we’ll be listing the biggest changes. As always, we’re watching feedback roll in across all our channels. We’ll be playing the game with you and collecting feedback. At the bottom of the changelog you can also see what we’re eyeing up for coming updates.



Patch Note - Once you've patched Hell Let Loose to Update 8 please verify your 'Local Game Content' on Steam.


Classic map Hurtgen Forest has been fully overhauled!



On top of that we've expanded the available modes on the map.

• Updated Hurtgen Warfare
  
• Added Hurtgen German Offensive
  
• Added Hurtgen US Offensive

Supply and Transport Trucks are now live in-game!

Get a detailed breakdown of their role on the frontline in their dedicated Dev Brief here.




Take down enemy Fortifications, set traps and ambush the opposing team with the addition of the Engineer's Satchel Charge!

Full details on this new piece of equipment can be found here.



Just remember where you planted yours...



Shape the Frontline with new faction specific defences!

Engineers and Support players can now work together to create focused defences at key points on the frontline.



Top Tip: Multiple Engineers can work together on a single item to build it quicker!



The Grease Gun has been added to the US arsenal in select loadouts!



Best deployed in CQC situations, you can find out more about this new weapon here.



Choose your cover wisely as bullet penetration is now live!

Full information on this new mechanic can be found in its dedicated Dev Brief here.





We've refined infantry hit boxes and limb damage behaviour to further improve infantry combat and reward accurate shooting.

This will also further define certain weapons and make them standout in their preferred ranges and combat scenarios. You can read more on this here.


Does exactly what it says on the tin! Hell Let Loose now runs on Unreal Engine 4.25!

• Reduce the amount of garrisons that can be placed per team down to 8 from 10.
  
• Increase the distance in which Garrisons can be placed next to each other, from 100 meters to 200. This is to create a more decisive weight of numbers on key locations and reduce the “whackamole” that occurs. We’ll be watching this very closely.

Resource Conversions

You can now trade a larger quantity of one resource for a smaller quantity of another resource. The idea here is to allow Commanders the ability to better balance their resource pools at the cost of additional expense when converting.

We feel that this is a good way to enable astute Commanders to redistribute their resources as needed.

• Implemented ballistics system to all vehicles for coaxial and hull MGs (no more Star Wars lasers).
  
• Reduced belt size on coaxial and hull MGs to limit continuous spam and encourage selective use of them (especially now that they are easier to guide onto target).
  
• Implemented base roster of vehicles across all maps. Please note: we will alter this slightly as time goes on.
  
• We have increased the speed of the K98k bolt cycle.
  
• Introduced bullet penetration to all weapons.
  
• Slightly reduced grenade fatal explosion range to better emulate the real values.
  
• Changed number of buildable resource nodes to 4 per type.
  
• Slightly increased M1 Garand and BAR vertical recoil to make it harder to keep on targets at 50m +
  
• Added Blowtorch for all repairs.
  
• Added Hammer to build deployables.
  
• Wrench now functions as a way of placing and laying out deployables.
  
• Added handheld Supply Boxes.
  
• Added three types of Ammunition Box.
  
• Added Satchel Charge to German and US forces.
  
• Added M3 Grease Gun to US forces.
  
• Added first round of destruction to player deployed objects.
  
• [Fixed] 'Encouraged' can be used before the first sector has been captured
  
• Worked to better define when a player takes damage (a screen effect now plays at the exact point of damage) vs when they are suppressed.
  
• Recon marks now only show to specific roles and unit types (Commander, Officers, Recon Units, Armor Units).
  
• Improved hit rejection and detection across a wide spectrum of pings.
  
• We now reward all vehicle occupants when that vehicle gets a kill.
  
• Players will now no longer receive the ‘You killed a friendly’ notification if they dismember a friendly with a grenade while the friendly is in a critical condition.
  
• Unit list on HUD now shows critically wounded or dead players.
  
• All actions in the game now reward experience. Supplies, Ammo and Spawns will only reward significant experience on their consumption or usage (and only a nominal amount on the actual dropping).
  
• Due to the importance of the Commander, players must now reach Career level 10 to be able to access the role.
  
• Removed sprint camera shake and movement from playing when strafing left and right with no forward movement.
  
• Added an HLL specific clan suffix game option. This places a clan tag after your name in-game.
  
• Players now face the objective whenever they spawn.
  
• We now enable players to see their map while critically wounded and down.
  
• Increased Puma and Greyhound's turning circle and traction.
  
• Added stronger vehicle anti-flip mechanics.
  
• Added better tank colliders to enable them to roll over more vertical surfaces in front of them as they would be able to do in real life.
  
• Capped total number of Infantry units to 18 (meaning we now don’t overshoot the alphabet).

• Integrated a punish/forgive system with a default on Forgive unless Punish is chosen. Each punish registers the kill as a teamkill (counting towards kick threshold and delayed respawn).
  
• Overhauled Vote Kick system to show reason. The threshold now scales for a vote kick (1-25 players on a team = 10 votes required to kick / 26-50 players on a team = 15 votes required to kick) and only applies to the team of the person being voted on. Players can only vote to kick players on their team. We’ve also added a cooldown on vote kicks. We’ll be revisiting this to make it slightly more complex in function (and scale better).
  
• Roadtesting 50% friendly bullet damage in order to give players a slight chance not to totally finish off a friendly (when using traditionally OHK weapons).

• Added and tested a “Low” shadow setting. This retains shadows for balance, but makes them drastically more performant. We recommend that you use this setting if you’re experiencing low FPS.
  
• Tweaked all graphics settings to make them more uniform. Low now retains a similar look but is more performant. Epic now looks visually better and consistent across all maps.
  
• Started rolling out mass custom builds and merges for the LOD system. There are still visual issues to iron out here but the result is lowering draw calls.
  
• Cull certain FX far sooner (footstep dust etc.)
  
• Many smaller netcode, CPU and GPU optimisations.

• [Fixed] The standing walking animation whilst holding an AT mine is incorrect when moving diagonally forward from a TPP
  
• [Fixed] M1 Garand receiver bolt does not animate correctly during the FPP fire animation
  
• [Fixed] The morphine pack will float in front of the Medic after reviving a downed teammate
  
• [Fixed] The player is holding the grenade the instant they switch to the grenade in TPP
  
• [Fixed] [Barracks] Clipping issue visible on the shovel from the Winter Smock uniform
  
• [Fixed] [Barracks] Clipping issue visible on the shovel from the Winter Smock uniform
  
• [Fixed] Multiple equipment items of the US Assault Vest, M1943 Uniform and M1941 Summer Field Jacket are clipping with the player's model
  
• [Fixed] Kar98k bullet ejection animation is incorrect
  
• [Fixed] The American handgun Colt M1911 has the hammer always pulled down
  
• [Fixed] The Headphones on the German Heer Panzer Cap helmet are not displayed as intended.
  
• [Fixed] Visible issues with the face shadow when the Winter Alfred head variant is equipped.
  
• [Fixed] Visible issues with the face shadow when the Winter Alfred head variant is equipped.
  
• [Fixed] Gore skeletal meshes still have incorrect vertex weights
  
• [Fixed] German Anti-Tank Hands have a strange inverted normal
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] The player's hands jitter when the binoculars are equipped
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] Multiple issues present with M1919 Browning LMG equipped while looking up and leaning right
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] Multiple clipping issues occur when the M1 Garand is equipped, and specific actions are performed while looking up.
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] Multiple clipping issues occur when the M1918A2 BAR is equipped, and specific actions are performed while looking up.
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] Multiple clipping issues occur when the M1918A2 BAR is equipped, and specific actions are performed while looking forward.
  
• [Fixed] Current death animations are playing the "lay down" animation instead when a character is shot.
  
• [Fixed] Swapping to the pistol from a Primary Weapon immediately after jumping will cause the pistol to float into the Players hand.
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] Character's fingers are bent backwards on the off hand whilst crawling with grenades equipped
  
• [Fixed] The wrench will clip through the player's hand when constructing the German AT gun
  
• [Fixed] Animation bug when running
  
• [Fixed] The MG42 clips through the player model when equipped
  
• [Fixed] Players stuck in vault animation
  
• [Fixed] [FPP] Animation problem with the left hand while vaulting/climbing with specific equipment
  
• [Fixed] The player can run underwater on multiple maps
  
• [Fixed] [FPP] The left hand is missing when the player has Bazooka equipped and is vaulting/climbing over objects
  
• [Fixed] [FPP] After resupplying, the first German grenade is invisible
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] Panzerschreck clipping through the ground when prone
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] Character legs unnaturally change position when swapping between main weapon and pistol
  
• [Fixed] The animation for switching to the primary weapon is displayed unrealistically when observed from TPP
  
• [Fixed] Character models animate as if they're holding a 2 handed weapon when climbing or vaulting with certain equipment in TPP
  
• [Fixed] Binoculars don't have a TPP Switching animation
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] The Springfield sniper doesn't animate whilst being reloaded
  
• [Fixed] The player may become invisible and invincible after deploying their LMG
  
• [Fixed] No footstep effects or water effects for TPP players.
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] The player may be observed to be stuck in a static pose after vaulting
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] Multiple weapons/equipment are not correctly attached to the player's right hand whilst vaulting/climbing
  
• [Fixed] [FPP] Visual issue present on initial weapon grip when spawning
  
• [Fixed] The US AT mine will become misaligned when walking backwards whilst stood up with it from a TPP.

• Added Korean language support.

• Added new tank shell explosion fx.
  
• Added new artillery shell explosion fx.
  
• Added new AP mine explosion fx.
  
• Added new AT mine explosion fx.
  
• Added new Bombing Run explosion fx.
  
• [Fixed] The player's outline is visible on the smoke VFX of the Bazooka and Panzerschreck weapons on Low, Medium and High video settings.

• Added new explosion sfx (mine, artillery, bombing run, all types of tank shells).
  
• Added new bullet flyby sfx for high calibre weapons (for every kind of weapon).
  
• Added new bullet impact sfx (for every kind of impact).
  
• Added new grass footstep sfx for long and short grass.
  
• Added new internal and external sfx when firing vehicle and static heavy weapons.
  
• Added new sfx when reloading vehicle and static heavy weapons.
  
• Added new interior shell penetration sfx when vehicles are penetrated by AT rounds.
  
• Added sfx when shells ricochet off vehicles.
  
• Add an Interior/Exterior checkbox to vehicle seats to define which audio slots are used in different vehicle seats.
  
• Increased audible footstep range from 30m to 50m.
  Sfx for truck engines and functionality.
  
• Added uniform sfx for placing ghost items and building fortifications.
  
• Added UI sfx when players are resupplying.
  
• Changes to how external audio sounds when players are inside tanks.
  
• [Fixed] Performing a jump after running for several seconds results in two exhale audio cues to play at the same time.
  
• [Fixed] Multiple actions volume are not affected by the SFX volume slider.
  
• [Fixed] Missing TPP AP/HE shell reload SFX for the 'Tiger 1' German Heavy Tank.
  
• [Fixed] Inconsistency with Bombing run between the number of explosions seen and the number heard.
  
• [Fixed] The SFX for driving through water is not affected by any volume slider
  
• [Fixed] Splash SFX is absent if the player mantles out of water

• Implemented Prestige medals to appear beside name on the scoreboard and on the HUD. These change every 50 career levels and begin at level 50.
  
• Added the ability to “Favourite” a particular team/role/appearance in the Barracks menu. This will default to this for the main menu.
  
• Implemented scaling player HUD icons. As players move away from you their icons become smaller. This also affects other icons in the game. The desire here is for a less cluttered HUD without sacrificing necessary information.
  
• Updated game fonts to be more legible on higher and lower resolutions.
  
• Integrated Steam rich presence. Your steam profile now shows the map you’re playing, the number of players in the game, your team and the gamemode.
  
• Implemented new dynamic loading screens.
  
• Implemented Unit Designation and Unit VOIP icons onto the deployment screen.
  
• Justified and fixed spacing for deployment screen elements.
  
• Added quick “Create Unit” buttons to the deploy menu.
  
• Tweaked all map icons to be better balanced according to importance and legibility.
  
• [Fixed] On the In-Game Map, the red highlight on Outposts and Garrisons do not disappear after an enemy moves further than 50m from them.
  
• [Fixed] Inconsistent width of cooldown progress bars for Commander abilities.
  
• [Fixed] The 'Enemy Near' tooltip will not show while hovering the cursor over a spawn point that has an enemy nearby.
  
• [Fixed] The 'Cancel' button on the 'Create a unit' screen can not be clicked on in certain instances.
  
• [Fixed] Playing in 1280x768 on an ultrawide monitor will cause UI elements to overlap on the statistics screen.
  
• [Fixed] The button prompts to the right of the in-game map are not centralized with their black backgrounds.
  
• [Fixed] The broadcast message can overlap the match timer.
  
• [Fixed] Overlapping UI element on the in-game map screen when the game is running in certain resolutions.
  
• [Fixed] Commander order symbols will not become inverted when they are hovered over/selected
  
• [Fixed] The timer and deploy icon do not become inverted when the cursor is hovered over the 'Deploy' button.
  
• [Fixed] The map name is present on the in-game map's key but is missing from the deployment screen map's key.
  
• [Fixed] Inconsistency in the colour of jacket shown on the US Summer uniform icons
  
• [Fixed] Missing ingame icon for the german anti-tank PAK 40 wrench
  
• [Fixed] AT Guns had swapped optics.
  Changed CANCEL button to APPLY when something is changed in loadout & appearance.
  
• [Fixed] 'Match is over!' notification text format is inconsistent with other notifications
  
• [Fixed] 'You were kicked for being idle' text format is inconsistent with other frontend notifications
  
• [Fixed] 'Ping!' markers placed by the Commander will not be shown on the HUD next to the Commander's name above the unit's member list
  
• [Fixed] [SPACE] button prompt on the 'You have died' screen is incorrectly scaled
  
• Enabled tool tip when you mouse over to "Join as commander".
  
• We now conceal the health status of the enemy team on the scoreboard.
  
• [Fixed] Player icons on in-game map are too small in comparison to the other map icons.
  
• [Fixed] Inconsistency for the Engineer role icon in the deploy menu, in-game UI and on the map.
  
• [Fixed] The commendation icon's digit is not centered when there are 0 commendations
  
• Increased the transparency of the colored overlay on the map to make it more subtle and increase legibility of all other information.
  
• [Fixed] Inconsistency with how buttons are highlighted
  
• [Fixed] Multiple options menus will appear off-screen when the User switches the resolution from 1920x1080p to 1024x768p while in fullscreen mode
  
• [Fixed] The active area of the Map Player Icon does not match the shape of the icon
  
• [Fixed] The Player's map icon can hide multiple other map icons at all levels of zoom
  
• [Fixed] The German Recon Vehicle Commander seat UI has overlapping UI elements in a couple resolutions.
  
• [Fixed] The icon for reviving a player is the same as bandaging.

• Fixed an issue causing grass not to spawn on certain maps.
  
• [Fixed] At a FOV higher than 90 certain pieces of loadout equipment are offset when held or placed on the ground.
  
• [Fixed] When sat in the 2nd seat of an artillery cannon, the player's helmet will not be equipped on their player model
  
• [Fixed] 'SSAO' settings can create a lighting issue in-game
  
• Dismemberment is now far more consistent and less goofy.
  
• [Fixed] [PHL] No water splash FX present when the player shoots the water
  
• Removed the ugly transition when entering a vehicle where you'll see an intermediate screen or your FPP rig disappears.
  
• [Fixed] The way the camera handles FoV changes after the player has experienced a map change
  
• [Fixed] German Light Tanks antennas turn invisible when viewed from certain angles.
  
• We now fade to black as you hold “Give Up”.
  
• [Fixed] Thompson ammo magazine is upside down
  
• [Fixed] Morphine Box displays a placeholder texture in TPP

• Added soft caps for US forces (we’re going to look at fitting these a bit tighter).
  
• Added Paratrooper Scrim helmets for US forces.
  
• Overhauled 1st Pattern Tanker's Jacket (Standard Issue).
  
• Added Late War Tanker's Uniform (Lv5 unlock).
  
• Added Mechanic (Lv8 unlock).
  
• Overhauled Heer Panzer Uniform (Standard Issue)
  
• Added Veteran Panzer Crewman (Lv5 unlock)
  
• Added Pea Dot Panzer Crewman (Lv8 unlock)
  
• Re-enabled cloth physics where applicable.
  
• [Fixed] Players do not see cosmetic changes in FPP if they select the German winter outfit

• Rifleman (Lv6 German)
  
• Assault (Lv8 US, Lv9 Ger)
  
• Medic Lv3
  
• Support Lv3
  
• Engineer Lv3
  
• Crewman Lv3

• [Finally Fixed] Default team nameplate distance is not set to 'Max' on newly installed game. It will now default to max.
  
• [Fixed] The German helmet Sniper Veil M42 has a noticeable drop off in LOD at a short range
  
• [Fixed] Players hit box is too large on the Players left side when shot by a tank Machine Gun while prone.
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] The player and weapon will be misaligned with their reload animation if observed partway through
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] The player can remain stuck in the shooting animation while having an LMG equipped
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] The player can remain stuck in the shooting animation while having an automatic weapon equipped and reloading it
  
• [Fixed] Heavy breathing and heartbeat audio from being in a fatal state can be heard in the post-match screens
  
• [Fixed] The Winter heads have the incorrect tooltip
  
• [Fixed] 'Tom' and 'Erich' tooltip and head will not update when the user transitions to the head variant list
  
• [Fixed] Destroying enemy recon vehicle awards 20 combat points instead of 30
  
• [Fixed] Zooming in on barracks when scrolling through cosmetics.
  
• [Fixed] Establish Airhead and Dismantle Garrison Commander abilities swap positions every time the in-game map is opened.
  
• [Fixed] The airhead asset may appear to float off the ground after landing
  
• [Fixed] Establish Airhead commander ability is misaligned from the position of its ghost.
  
• [Fixed] The tank will shoot without user input after the map was opened while LMB or RMB is pressed
  
• [Fixed] Pressing the Apply button in the Role Selection does not reset to the Cancel state until quitting and re-joining the server
  
• [Fixed] The default show chat button can be confused with "0"
  
• [Fixed] There is an extra button on the kick notification
  
• [Fixed] The title is observed to softlock when getting kicked from the server from various reasons
  
• [Fixed] Instances where the tanks only take body damage when shot into treads or turret
  
• [Fixed] The create unit screen has a strange resolution change the first time you go to the page.
  
• [Fixed] Player crashed while being tabbed-out when deployed in-game.
  
• [Fixed] [FPP] The player is able to shoot whilst appearing to reload after climbing over objects
  
• [Fixed] The player's camera may be positioned inside a player model while loading into a map.
  
• [Fixed] The 'Deploy' button timer will briefly reset before the player is loaded into gameplay
  
• [Fixed] Player may briefly fall under the map when loading a new map after a map change
  
• [Fixed] The game will not launch successfully when done through Steam Big Picture mode
  
• [Fixed] Game may crash while the Player is Tabbing in and out of the game while on the Deploy Menu.
  
• [Fixed] Players cannot join password protected servers due to Confirm button returning the players to the Enlist screen
  
• [Fixed] The internal RCON commands for banning/unbanning profanity words do not work
  
• [Fixed] The Scrollbar on the chat box has no function
  
• [Fixed] Clicking "Cancel" after confirming a server password will not return the user back to the "Enlist" screen
  
• [Fixed] Change to ‘Hide Kick Vote Requests’ setting is not applied if the Player presses [ESC] to exit the menu while in game.
  
• [Fixed] Joining a Password protected server while in the post-match screen will show the Match Over message and send the player back to the server list
  
• [Fixed] [FPP] The player is able to move camera in critical state by pressing CTRL, SPACE and Z key
  
• [Fixed] Players are able to climb or vault one another whilst they're standing up
  
• [Fixed] Pressing Tab whilst driving a tank causes it to stop
  
• [Fixed] Recon Vehicles can be driven in 5th gear whilst having 0% wheel health
  
• Fixed turning circle issue on the luchs
  
• [Fixed] The "Can't deploy at this location" message appears before spawning on one of the HQ spawnpoints.
  
• [Fixed] The "Can't deploy at this location" message may appear when the player leaves the squad and has the squad outpost selected
  
• [Fixed] Servers Temporary ban pop-up message has visible debug text.
  
• [Fixed] Clones/ graphical artefact soldiers present during games
  
• [Fixed] The player is unable to cook the German grenades
  
• [Fixed] The Garrison the player currently has selected with the 'Dismantle Garrison' ability will not be highlighted

• VIP and Admin: Add list to server via RCON or cfg
  
• Added unix timing
  
• Added Official & Community server profanity filter
  
• Can now ban player using Steam ID when player is not on server

• Tweaked and overhauled several locations. This will continue.

• More than 60 floating meshes and collision issues fixed.
  
• Fixed object placement inconsistencies between Offensive and Warfare game modes.

• Fixed a huge number of vehicle collision issues across the map.
  
• Updated roads to look better.
  
• Updated lighting to feel more crisp.
  
• Fixed object placement inconsistencies between Offensive and Warfare game modes.

• Fixed object placement inconsistencies between Offensive and Warfare game modes.

• Forest floor meshes overhauled to match Hurtgen regarding visuals and performance.
  
• More than 40 floating meshes and collision issues were fixed.

• Fixed object placement inconsistencies between Offensive and Warfare game modes.

• Tweaked and overhauled several locations. This will continue.
  
• Fixed object placement inconsistencies between Offensive and Warfare game modes.

• Offensive mode is not optimal and will be reworked for next update.
  
• We will continue to look at balancing specific aspects of the game.
  
• Many smaller bugs and issues.

• Armor/vehicle physics and functionality revisit.
  
• Fixing the low quality of all FPP weapon textures (including a texture optimisation in this).
  
• Fixing the low quality of all FPP vehicle viewports (including a texture optimisation in this).
  
• Loadout mouse-overs that will show their contents before unlocking (we wanted to have this in for U8 but it was more complicated than expected).
  
• Changes and polish to any existing metagame/balance/Offensive mode issues.
  
• Increased functionality for server admins - including cameras and other tools.
  
• Investigating freelook implementation.
  
• Investigating ways of allowing players more control over which uniform is automatically applied per map.
  
• New Commander abilities.
  
• Overhauling SMDM as well as continued work on Utah Beach, Omaha Beach, SME and PHL.
  
• Small transport vehicles.
  
• Creating new vehicles.
  
• Melee implementation.
  
• New weapons for new loadouts (FG-42 and more) (we know that the Germans need some love here!).
  
• 3 new unannounced maps.
  
• New customisations.
  
• Large scale optimisations.
  
• Steam achievements.
  
• A new front.
  
• Scoping out mortars (deployable).
  
• Scoping out night modes (and what implication that could have on gameplay).
  
• Scoping out flamethrowers (carrier and mounted)
  
• Continued overhaul of sfx.
  
• Scoping extent of Campaign mode.

We’ve still got more to do when it comes to polishing and finalising what we’d consider to be a “1.0 worthy” release quality version of Hell Let Loose. We’re aware of issues with both gamemodes, with specific locations on maps, with balancing, with performance and many other aspects of the game.

Hell Let Loose is a constant passion for us as a team and we’re often trying to strike the balance of fixing endemic issues while balancing the addition of new content.

We’re very thankful for the patience the community has shown with us over the course of our development, and we want to assure you that we have many more additions to come.

Thank you all so much much for your continued support. We hope you have a brilliant time with Update 8 and look forward to reading through and collating your feedback.

See you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Today we're excited to confirm that Update 8 will be going live this Thursday, 3rd December!

As with our previous updates we'll be aiming to have the patch deployed and pushed to all servers for 11am GMT / 12pm CEST on the day.




Full Patch notes and new content information will be posted just before Update 8 goes live on Thursday.



Alongside Update 8's arrival, seasonal Winter Warfare Helmet Pack free DLC will be returning for a limited time too!



1 x US Winter Toque
1 x German Winter Toque
1 x White Painted M1
1 x White Painted M42

This free DLC is a standalone download, so keep an eye out for it on the Hell Let Loose Steam Store page when it goes live.



That wraps up today's announcement. We're excited to usher in Update 8 this Thursday along with the new content, features and optimisation it's bringing to the game.

We'll see you on the frontline.