Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #140!

This week we're sharing more on our upcoming optimisation efforts, including special focus being given to Stalingrad, a first look at some upcoming free customisation DLC and highlighting some cool Hell Let Loose content that caught the attention of the team.

Let's get stuck in shall we!



In case you missed it, last week we talked briefly on optimisation and how we plan on tackling performance across the game, especially on Stalingrad. If you haven’t read this yet, you can check it out here -> Dev Brief #139

The main purpose of this week's early Dev Brief is to kindly ask the community to jump into the PTE if at all possible. In addition, if you can pass the message on to those who may not keep an eye on the day to day communications, we would really appreciate it.

We will be aiming to have the PTE on Thursday the 12th of August, starting at approximately 4pm BST. This will be later than the usual PTE start time, as we feel it will be easier for the community to fill the servers during this period. This will also mean it’s more suited for the different EU/US time-zones.

The focus of this PTE will be performance and optimization. We understand that this may not be as exciting as testing new content, but there is a benefit to the entire community if we get this tested. The sooner we get it tested at full capacity, the sooner we can deploy the patch. We prefer not to be in a situation where we have to patch again because we missed something crucial.

So please if you are available, consider helping us stress test the server & join us!

Once you have played, help the team by filling out the feedback form HERE.



We also want to quickly mention and give the community a heads up that soon we will be running our first console Beta. If this interests you, please keep an eye out for communication on how to be a part of it.

If you or someone you know has a PlayStation 5, we would love for you to join the DEVs in being one of the first to try Hell Let Loose on next gen consoles.

We are very excited to test this with the community, and will follow up with further details on how to apply for the BETA in the next week or two.

We are curious to know how many of the community have a next gen console, so if you do please take a minute to fill out this quick poll.

Next Gen Console Poll



We will be highlighting more and more of the fantastic HLL content we are seeing on a daily basis. We highly recommend giving them a watch. Below are a few recent videos we enjoyed, and we will share a few every Dev Brief, or as often as we can. If you see a Video you like make sure to post in the Discord #hll-videos channel.

Thanks to everyone involved in creating such entertaining material for the world to see:

AUTHENTIC WORLD WAR 2 COMBAT - Hell Let Loose Gameplay - FriendlyNikolai


Hell Let Loose | Random Moments 5 (Update 10: Soviet Time) - DarkLiberatorZone


Hell Let Loose - The Tiger Tank Is Still Great (Update 10) - The Fresh Baked Goods


Tips for New Players - Hell Let Loose Hints and Tips - Terrydactyl Gaming






After seeing the community enjoying the limited Silver Vanguard DLC we showcased on the release of Version 1.0 we've taken a minute to sneak a preview of some of the future free cosmetics currently in the pipeline.

Like the other forces, the Soviets will receive a line-up of equivalent unlockable uniforms to celebrate newly acquired role levels. Check out the Ameba Winter Uniform and Ameba Camo Autumn uniforms below.

Ameba Winter Uniform -



Ameba Camo Autumn Uniform -






Submission by: |||™ BimSekai


Submission by: RenanM

Showcase HLL in a creative way. This can be a sketch, drawing, painting, original screenshot or reworked screenshot that is instantly recognizable as Hell Let Loose.

Simply submit your linked art image, along with your Discord name and ID. Please make sure you are in the official Discord so we can contact you directly.

Join the Discord here.

We will be giving away a few HLL Keys, and an exclusive helmet to our favourite pieces. We will highlight this art across our channels and in the Discord.

This screenshot competition will run until Friday August 13th. So feel free to use the latest U10 Eastern Front content.

Please only ONE submission per person.

We look forward to seeing them - HLL Fan Art/ Screenshot submission form


That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

If you join us in the PTE, thank you! We really appreciate it!

See you on the frontline.

Hi everyone!

Thanks for jumping into our release of Update 10 and fighting across the Eastern Front!
We were thrilled to see such a large number of players grab the game for the first time.

We want to thank you - the community - for being so welcoming to all the new players. We know that large influxes of new players are wonderful because the community grows, but that there are also teething issues as people learn the game for the first time. It’s always a tricky balance to manage and we greatly appreciate the welcoming environment that you’ve made the game - both on our social channels and in-game.


We also want to explain to all new players that during the development of Hell Let Loose we post a weekly “dev briefing”. This weekly post tends to focus on one area of development - be it a new weapon, vehicle or feature, or it may look at a map, a technical change within the game or put a spotlight on community activity. We tend to post them on Thursday or Fridays - depending on the course of development. So far we’ve posted one every week for more than 130 weeks and will be continuing this into the future.


We know that optimisation has been an issue on Stalingrad - resulting in a stutter occurring on specific hardware. We spent a long time profiling this, as the correlation between the stutters and in-game activities were hard to trace. Each time we’d look at what may be causing it (explosions, or spawning, or throwing objects), the profiling would show acceptable results. We were also aware that this was only occurring on specific machines, and it didn’t seem to be universal to any spec of machine (meaning that some machines at each end of the spectrum suffered from it).

We can happily report that with the extremely hard work of our wonderful QA team, tech artists and programmers, the issue has been found - namely a texture streaming issue on specific hardware that locks up the machine temporarily on the game thread.

As a result of this, we’re currently running several PTEs to ensure that the fixes made give a considerable frame boost to Stalingrad especially and eliminate stutter.

• The micro stutter should be fixed across all maps on GPUs with 3GB+ of VRAM.
  
• These optimisations should increase FPS in all maps, but we have focused our testing on the Eastern Front.
  
• You should expect to see a major general FPS increase in Stalingrad.
  
• The physics stutter was removed from Stalingrad in PTE in the most recent PTE, and similar work is currently being done on Kursk.

We appreciate the patience as we continue optimisations across different areas of the game as quickly and methodically as we can. We are working very hard to make sure players have the best experience possible, cheers.


Thanks to all those who jumped in the most recent PTE to test the latest build. We’ve seen some promising improvements with the latest round of optimisations, but still need to stress test this with more players. The feedback is that players are getting significantly more frames on Stalingrad (with reports between 10+ to 30+ FPS) and elimination of stutter.

To help us totally put this issue to bed, we’d love you to assist us by jumping into the PTEs that we’ll be hosting over the next couple of weeks before deploying Patch 16. We’ll attempt to give as much notice as possible, and will consider alternate & more flexible timing across the different timezones. Please checkout the discord, for the latest PTE information.


Description:

Dan Carlin - the man behind the fantastic Hardcore History podcasts - talks with Max about Hell Let Loose, the genre, its development, growth and challenges through the broader context of wargaming, ethics and depiction of history.




Incase you missed it, we’re excited to present an incredible player guide that has been put together by some brilliant contributors. Even in its early stages this unique concept impressed the team and we were very excited to see it progress from start to finish. Our heartfelt thanks goes out to the people involved for making it possible:

Authors: Dbl0Douche, General T, Inchon, Nuc1e4r, Oddball, Xiang_Ganger.
Editor: Dashthirty
Art and Design: MoscaTnT


You can Download the New PLayer Guide PDF here: {LINK REMOVED}https://bit.ly/HLLNewPlyrGuide
We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did!



This will run for approximately 1 more week. So please consider U10 Eastern Front content.
Showcase HLL in a creative way. This can be a sketch, drawing, painting, original screenshot or reworked screenshot that is instantly recognizable as Hell Let Loose.

Simply submit your linked art image, along with your Discord name and ID. Please make sure you are in the official Discord so we can contact you directly.


Submission by: JT1902


Submission by: [BST2] El CaMaRaDa

Join the Discord here - https://discord.gg/hellletloose

We will be giving away a few HLL Keys, and an exclusive helmet to our favourite pieces. We will highlight this art across our channels and in the Discord.

Please only ONE submission per person.

We look forward to seeing them!
HLL Fan Art/ Screenshot submission form - https://forms.gle/4rkW2ZGJsKWjRcuv6


And that’s all for this Dev Brief. Once again thanks for all the support, have a great weekend and see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

We hope you all had a great weekend on the frontline!

Today we're humbled to share with you a truly amazing community created guide that can only be described as 'The Ultimate New Player Handbook!.

This fantastic guide combines top tier knowledge of the frontline with fantastic artwork and design to create something truly special.

Before we dive into the guide we'd like to highlight the frontline heroes who together planned, designed, wrote and created what you're about to read:

Authors
Dbl0Douche
General T
Inchon
Nuc1e4r
Oddball
Xiang_Ganger

Editor
DashThirty

Art and Design
Moscatnt

If you see any of these damn fine soldiers on your team be sure to say hi and make sure they get a seat on the transport truck!

A Message From Inchon

This guide was created to help improve the quality of gameplay for new players, help clarify some items for veteran players, and maybe even provide something for those of us with thousands of hours in game. I would like to thank the team from around the globe that helped put this together and especially Mosca whose cartoons and presentation made an otherwise dull product look like an actual used World War II soldiers guide. Thank you to DannyArt and the Black Matter team for providing the in-game icons and their factual review of the guide before presentation.

We do plan to keep this updated as the game changes and possibly move onto an advanced guide as there was many things we cut out in order to make each page roughly a 2 minute read. We hope you enjoy!
















NOTE: If you require a version with a larger page / font size, or would like to chat with the creators of the guide you can do both over on their Reddit post HERE.

That wraps up today's post, we just had to share this fantastic community project with you and we hope you find it equally entertaining and informative.

You really are an amazing community - thank you.

We'll catch up with everyone in a few days as part of our weekly Developer Briefing, so speak to you again soon!

See you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Thank you all for your amazing support so far with the arrival of Update 10 and our launch out of Early Access.

The team are already working hard going through everyone's feedback, comments and bug reports as we move towards our first post-launch steps. More news on that will be coming soon!

With Update 10 came with it a swathe of new and returning players to the frontline, which is awesome! To you we'd like to say welcome, it's great to have you with us!

To aid those of you who are fresh to the front we thought we'd share an awesome video guide created by veteran player and Community Bastion, Monoespacial.



The video below is Mono's complete guide for beginners, covering everything from tanks, Roles and the metagame to spawn points, use of supplies and strategic understanding of the game.

These next 20 minutes are well worth your time:


Knowledge is power!

If you're looking for specific information from the video we've grabbed some timestamps for you below -

Intro & Content Guide
Team Comp & Important of Supplies
Squad Basics
Role - Medic
Garrisons & Outposts (Spawn Points)
Commander Abilities
Role - Machine Gunner
Role - Anti-Tank
Role - Engineer
Role - Armour & Recon Basics
Capturing a Sector & Winning
Communication
General Tips
Artillery
Tanks
Closing Comments

If you learn something from Mono's video and appreciate his welcoming information, give his video a like and maybe even drop him a subscribe to keep up to date with his Hell Let Loose content.


That wraps up today's post!

If you haven't yet be sure to download the free Silver Vanguard DLC, you've only got until August 10th to claim it before it goes...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1647960/Hell_Let_Loose__Silver_Vanguard_DLC/

We'll see you on the frontline.

Hello Community,

The day is here!

Our Early Access period has been an extremely busy one for the whole dev team. When we released the game in June of 2019, we knew that there were several key pieces of tech under the hood that were either unfinished, or needed a serious rewrite if they were to stand the test of time. Even basic functionality, such as vaulting and leaning was not yet in the game. We had two vehicles, no progression system, no customisation system, no Commander abilities, no nodes and a single game type. In short, we had our work cut out for us!

Over the past two years, we’ve worked hard to build out and rewrite much of the necessary core infrastructure to make sure that working on Hell Let Loose into the future is a far easier experience, and that we can maintain a standard level of quality across the project. We want to thank you all for supporting us during this period - offering feedback and following the project as it’s progressed. It means a huge amount to us.



We also want to welcome all the new players who’ve just picked up the game - whether in the last month or on our release. We’ve opened up some new channels in our Discord overhaul to assist you in getting into the game - be it asking questions or finding a unit to play with.

Lastly, we want to thank our original Kickstarter backers. Your support was what enabled us to begin this journey almost four years ago. We know that crowdfunded projects are always a huge risk - more often than not failing to materialise at all. We want to thank you for taking a chance on us, and we’re excited to continue fulfilling our mandate.

Roadmap 2021/2022

Leaving Early Access can best be described as the end of the beginning. With that in mind we’ve put together two roadmaps for you to take a look at.

The first shows the journey we’ve been on - to bring you up to speed, and the second shows you the future ahead for the coming year and a half.



We’re committed to continuing to deliver our usual large scale updates, but will be working to balance these with smaller and more critical patches to solve urgent issues. We’re very excited to continue to polish and expand Hell Let Loose.



Obviously, we’ll be watching feedback immediately after the launch to determine any changes that need to be made, and we’ll also strive to add greater detail by releasing smaller roadmaps with more information as updates are released and if priorities change.

We hope you’re as excited by the future of Hell Let Loose as we are!

DLC

Keep an eye out for the release of our free Silver Vanguard DLC, as well as an optional paid cosmetic DLC - “Lethal Tide”. The best way to learn how to acquire the Lethal Tide DLC is to follow our social channels, as it will be available to purchase on the Steam Store as well as other unannounced locations.

Unlock access to join the Silver Vanguard and take to the front lines with an array of unique helmets and uniforms. Roll up your sleeves and get stuck into the thick of it with the German

forces, blend into the background in the Soviet “Ameba” camo helmet or take to the US tanks and show off the “Hell on Wheels” jacket!


Free for all current Hell Let Loose owners, or anyone that plays Hell Let Loose before the 10th August 2021.

Please note: This will become available to download at 5pm BST / 6pm CEST on July 27th.

Silver Vanguard pack contains:

• German Forces – "Rolled sleeves" uniforms for 11 roles.
  
• US Forces - “Hell on Wheels” jacket for Tank Commander’s and Tank Crew
  
• Soviet Forces - SSh-40 Covered Ameba helmet

Early Backers

If you are an early backer, expect an email with your DLC key bundle over the next few days! This will include the Italian camo for the Major backers reward and the Lethal Tide DLC free as thanks for your early support.


Disclaimer:
There were 1500+ tracked changes to the game for Update 10. We’ve tried to include absolutely everything we can below with regard to them, and had to summarise smaller changes to fit within the word count. Any oversights are entirely accidental and not intentional.

Eastern Front

• Added Stalingrad map
  
• Added Kursk map
  
• Added Katyusha Strike Commander ability
  
• Added RUS uniforms
  
• Added ZIS-2 AT-Gun
  
• Added Soviet Artillery Piece
  
• Added RUS vehicles including:
  
• T-34 medium tank
  
• IS-1 heavy tank
  
• Ba-10 recon vehicle
  
• ZIS-5 truck
  
• Added RUS weapons including:
  
• DP-27
  
• Mosin Nagant 1891
  
• Mosin Nagant M38
  
• Mosin Nagant 9130
  
• Mosin Nagant 9130 Scoped
  
• SVT-40
  
• SVT-40 Scoped
  
• PPSh-41
  
• PPSh-41 Drum Mag
  
• PTRS-41 Anti-Tank Rifle
  
• Nagant M1895 Revolver
  
• Tokarev TT33 Pistol
  
• RDG2 Smoke Grenade
  
• RG42 Frag Grenade
  
• Satchel Charge
  
• PMD-7 AP Mine
  
• TM35 AT Mine

Western Front

• Added Sainte Marie du Mont v2

Meta

Removed resource cost from vehicle roster spawns - Vehicles that are automatically spawned will no longer consume resources. This is designed to remove the uncontrollable Fuel cost to the Commander, to create greater strategic impact on vehicles spawned and resource handling.

Nodes provide a flat rate income of +10/min per node - Based on feedback from the community, the additional gain of resource income that came with the control of enemy sectors was tipping the scale too far in one direction, resulting in a steamroll.

Change to an ambient resource gain of +10/min - Because teams don’t have control over what sector they’re required to capture, it never really made sense to delegate specific resources to a sector. Resource gain tied to sector control created a compounding imbalance the further the attacking team pushed the defenders back, causing a steamroll.

When a sector is captured the team capturing gains 25 of each resource, the team losing loses 25 of each resource. This represents a non-compounding benefit/loss to the gaining or losing of a sector to prevent steamrolling but still reward victory or defeat in a sector.

Changed the Encouraged ability to double ambient resource generation for 5 minutes - This was required to bring the ability in line with the resource changes.

• Changed Offensive mode active sectors from 2 to 1
  
• Balanced starting resources
  
• Increased Commander ability costs
  
• Reduced team limit on nodes from 4 to 3
  
• Increased manpower bleed during overtime from -1 to -5 to reflect new resource values

Armor
For an in-depth explanation on the following changes read here: {LINK REMOVED}https://bit.ly/DevBrief135

• Added a new hitbox collision system
  
• Added a new vehicle physics system
  
• Added an Engine component to all vehicles
  
• Tracks do not transfer damage to the Hull unless the shell continues to hit and penetrate the Hull armor
  
• Refactored the armour weapon/ballistics system
  
• The switch seat duration for tanks is now dependent on its class
  
• The enter/exit duration for Tanks is now half the switch seat duration
  
• Removed collision from tank barrels
  
• Added smart material system for all Russian vehicles
  
• Adjusted Armor collision behavior
  
• Adjusted Armor health values
  
• Adjusted Armor damage values
  
• Reduced muzzle smoke from tank barrels when firing
  
• Increased repair speed of Blowtorch & Repair Station
  
• Improved FX for penetrating, non penetrating and ricocheting shells
  
• Improved reliability of projectile Impact/Ricochet FX
  
• HE shells can now damage tank tracks

Tweaked HQ automatic vehicle spawns to the following:

HQ#1
Light Tank
Transport Truck
T-34/76 (RUS ONLY)

HQ#2
Medium Tank
Supply Truck
Transport Truck

HQ#3
Recon Vehicle
Transport Truck

Gameplay/Features

• Re-enabled bullets traveling the direction of the weapon’s barrel
  
• Enemies marked by the Recon plane/vehicle are now displayed to the Support role.
  
• Removed the ability to hip fire Machine Guns without bracing.
  
• Artillery dispersion increased to 2m-20m
  
• Satchel Charges can now be placed in friendly HQ sectors
  
• Updated Field Manual and Hints
  
• Reduced the height and density of foliage
  
• Updated Controller mapping for Infantry
  
• Added new Controller functionality
  
• Added a new Gun Crewman loadout to the AT role containing the AT-Gun
  
• Reduced the size of OPs and added a shine effect
  
• Improvements to Ultrawide support
  
• Slightly reduced crouched run speed
  
• Continued game-wide optimisation passes
  
• Optimised bombing run explosion
  
• Optimised TPP muzzle flash
  
• Optimised multiple VFX
  
• Increased Satchel Charge damage
  
• Removed distance limitation on AT-Guns
  
• Updated GER manpower nodes with authentic pattern
  
• Allowed reloading while falling to fix irritating bug when stepping off small steps while reloading.
  
• Adjusted Kar98k’s front sight
  
• Disabled the ability to reload Launchers while sprinting
  
• Improved the reliability of placing fortifications on certain terrain

Animation

• Introduced a TPP flinch animation when a player is shot
  
• Improved the TPP vaulting animation

HUD/UI

• Added the server name, gamemode and map name to the scoreboard (Can be toggled in settings)
  
• Redesigned the Main Menu UI
  
• Allowed players to mouse over a locked loadout to see its contents
  
• Spawn location list numbers start at #01 instead of #00
  
• The vote kick interface now uses the same pop up style as the invite to unit notifications
  
• Commander abilities are displayed in the Text Chat with their location when used by the Commander
  
• Added a keybind for dismissing Hints
  
• Updated tank component icons
  
• Updated sector icons
  
• Updated Controls options UI
  
• Updated the in-game loadout background
  
• Leaving a server now returns the player to the Enlist screen
  
• Enabled zooming in on the character in the Barracks
  
• Recolored Garrison and HQ map icons for better readability
  
• Added a “Ping” visual effect that highlights the player’s location when opening the tactical map

SFX

• Added new SFX for multiple weapons
  
• Added new SFX for multiple vehicle engines
  
• Added SFX when vehicles collide with an object
  
• Added SFX when entering/exiting a vehicle
  
• Added SFX when switching seats in a vehicle
  
• Added SFX for Coaxial and Hull mg reloads
  
• Added SFX to Outposts and Garrisons
  
• Added SFX that signals the final 30 seconds of the match
  
• Improved SFX for penetrating, non-penetrating and ricocheting shells
  
• Lowered the volume on truck horns
  
• Replaced steady aim inhale sound with exhale sound

Visual Improvements

• Updated the Community AA to produce a sharper image
  
• Reworked weapon Scopes to eliminate visual jittering (This is WIP and will continue to be improved upon in upcoming updates)

Trucks

• Machine Guns are now able to damage Trucks
  
• Strafing Runs are now able to damage Trucks
  
• Improved ability to climb steep terrain

Localization

• Fixed many instances where a word or phrase was not localized in non-english languages
  
• Implemented localisation for achievements and rich presence

Server Administration

• Added an icon to display the player’s location while using the Admin Camera
  
• Added the ability to adjust movement speed while using the Admin Camera (Scroll wheel by default)
  
• Added the ability to zoom in/out while using the Admin Camera (Q/E by default)
  
• Locking on to a vehicle in Admin Camera now places the camera higher behind the vehicle

Bug Fixes
[Fixed] MG34 and MG42 are missing default zoom when ADS
[Fixed] Players receive no damage when in the Artillery seats from Tanks' MG/Coaxial weapons
[Fixed] German Recon Vehicles’ Coaxial MG34 firing VFX is misaligned with the barrel
[Fixed] Player's are not awarded XP points if multiple level 0 ghost structures are upgraded to level 1 within the 60 seconds XP cooldown
[Fixed] Placing small ammo, explosive ammo, or medical supplies box on any team uses the German Satchel placement animation
[Fixed] On offensive mode, attackers are unable to place a garrison once the Defenders HQ becomes the active sector
[Fixed] Certain projectiles have no collision with players who are seated in trucks
[Fixed] From TPP, the cannon of the Tiger tank jitters when rotating
[Fixed] Player can cancel a reload on the MG34 and Walther P38 by switching weapon
[Fixed] Machine Gun reload animation does not play when leaving deployed state after beginning a reload
[Fixed] The engineer can dismantle friendly HQ repair stations
[Fixed] The speedometer of light tanks can be stuck between 6-11km/h
[Fixed] The acceleration audio for the light tanks is incorrect if the user quickly shifts up gears whilst driving
[Fixed] After initiating a vote to kick, pressing twice the "Y" or "N" button counts as a second vote for the vote initiator
[Fixed] The placed airhead icon slightly overlaps with the dropping airhead icon
[Fixed] AT-Gun scope is offset
[Fixed] The title may crash when quitting the game after after a natural map transition
[Fixed] If the player enters the Admin Camera while prone on the front of the tank causes the vehicle to fly
[Fixed] Running over / Colliding with players in a vehicle causes a short repeated SFX / audio issue
[Fixed] Multiple issues present on MG42 animations while bracing
[Fixed] Multiple visual issues with the M1A1 Thompson weapon
[Fixed] Accepting the request to join a unit after changing teams will put the player in the squad of the enemy team
[Fixed] Supply Trucks are observed to slide slightly when on an angled surface and standing still
[Fixed] Social media links are not appearing on Front End menu
[Fixed] Changing stance to prone or crouched after vaulting can cause US players to appear standing when viewed in TPP
[Fixed] When leaning using the M1 Carbine, player's hand goes through the gun
[Fixed] Amount of aim offset for a Tank changes when the tank is at an angle
[Fixed] Players are unable to place satchel charges on the treads of the enemy tanks
[Fixed] The external cargo on the US Heavy 75 and Heavy 76 tanks have no projectile or bullet collision or passthrough functionality
[Fixed] Locking on a vehicle while the vehicle is being destroyed, locks the camera inside the vehicle until the user unlocks it
[Fixed] The "unlock from target" Admin Camera button has no functionality when the targeted vehicle is destroyed.
[Fixed] Toggle Clip button "J" has reversed functionality for Admin Camera
[Fixed] The Admin Camera HUD does not display the Sector Progress Bars
[Fixed] The player still has collision with vehicles while using the Admin Camera mode
[Fixed] The US Small Ammunition box, Medical Supplies box and Explosive Ammo box have identical models when held in hand
[Fixed] Player can become stuck inside assets/terrain when revived in certain conditions
[Fixed] Placing a deployable no longer takes priority over movement
[Fixed] The satchel will float when placed on the front of the German Medium Tank
[Fixed] Animation issue present when leaning and having a Bazooka or Panzerschreck equipped
[Fixed] Various Player created structures are observed to not award any combat score when dismantled
[Fixed] Spamming the "Join" button and spamming "Y" when popup message appears, on a locked Squad in the deployment screen can cause the player to crash the game
[Fixed] Inconsistent level requirement for the "Raider" loadout in the Assault role between teams
[Fixed] Blood VFX on player models has been observed to noticeably flicker
[Fixed] The Enlist screen is inconsistent when referring to the US team
[Fixed] Unit member names for Infantry Units are misaligned when displayed on the in-game HUD
[Fixed] Map does not open with an "On Press" instead it opens with an "On Release" when using the default Map key
[Fixed] Unable to switch off "Show chat for new message" toggle
[Fixed] UI icon for favourited servers does not remain highlighted when selected on the 'Enlist' screen
[Fixed] Pressing the default open map key [M] during an open text chat will open the in-game map
[Fixed] Occasionally the user is unable to change the Fullscreen Resolution
[Fixed] Redeploy Button is still accessible when dead on the KIA screen
[Fixed] Enlist screen sometimes shows 'Text Block' placeholder when servers have not yet loaded
[Fixed] When changing role from "Officer" to "Commander" without leaving your unit, the "Leader Settings" button remains on the deployment screen.
[Fixed] Opening the "Barracks" for the first time after playing a game with one of the factions, the loadouts presented in the initial page are inverted for each role.
[Fixed] The 'Deploy' button will remain red after selecting a new spawn point during the deployment countdown
[Fixed] Switch Team button is usable for a split second when Team Switch is on cooldown
[Fixed] Players will not receive the "Failed to Deploy" message when the spawn they are attempting to deploy on is destroyed
[Fixed] Some Hints and Field Manual entries display debug text
[Fixed] Hints will be interrupted if a newer hint is triggered
[Fixed] Strong Point icons do not go grey when the sector is contested
[Fixed] Text chat becomes non-functional if pressed and re-pressed while aiming down sights
[Fixed] Changing a keybinding removes the player's ability to return to the frontend via the [Esc] key
[Fixed] Many situations which should trigger hints do not
[Fixed] [TPP] The satchel charge can clip through the player model when performing a climb animation
[Fixed] [TPP] The US Supply Crate is clipping through the player model when performing vault/climb animation
[Fixed] [TPP] The German and US resupply boxes are clipping through the player model when performing climb animation
[Fixed] [TPP] The German Supply Crate is clipping through the player model when performing vault/climb animation
[Fixed] [TPP] The animation for the Support Role holding the Supplies is misaligned with the Player's left hand
[Fixed] [TPP] As Support, the Supplies placement animation is misaligned with the character model

Utah
[Fixed] An instance of misaligned foliage textures

Hill 400
[Fixed] A rock which can be exploited to see through
[Fixed] Several trees clipping through a stone fence

Foy
[Fixed] A barbed wire asset with missing functionality
[Fixed] An asset displaying a pink texture when viewed from a distance
[Fixed] Multiple misaligned assets

Omaha
[Fixed] Invisible collision present in a specific area
[Fixed] Multiple floating assets on the beach
[Fixed] Multiple assets clipping into objects or terrain
[Fixed] Multiple misaligned mudbanks
[Fixed] A roof of a shed clipping through the side of the house next to it

Carentan
[Fixed] Z-Fighting visible on Brick wall texture
[Fixed] Multiple clipping fences
[Fixed] Gaps visible between Brick wall assets
[Fixed] Multiple assets clipping into objects or terrain
[Fixed] Section of misaligned dirt track
[Fixed] Area on the map that vehicles can all get stuck on
[Fixed] Deployable equipment can’t be placed on Sidewalk / pavement

Hurtgen
[Fixed] Multiple floating/misaligned assets
[Fixed] LoD transition issue with a building row asset

Sainte Mere Eglise
[Fixed] Multiple locations where the player was able to become stuck

Purple Heart Lane
[Fixed] Multiple floating/misaligned assets
[Fixed] Multiple assets clipping into objects or terrain
[Fixed] The edges of certain parts of terrain are visible
[Fixed] Invisible collision present in multiple areas of the map
[Fixed] LoD issue present on the ground in areas with very shallow water

Known Issues
Below are known issues in U10 which have already been fixed in the upcoming Patch 16:

• The supply crates in the back of Supply truck have no bullet collision
  
• [SMDM-O-GER] Defenders can push until they reach the attackers' HQ if the first point is not captured.
  
• [SMDM-O-US] Defenders are unable to access the entirety of the first initial HQ strongpoints.
  
• [FOY-O-GER] Attackers Commander is unable to spawn vehicles on the right-side HQ
  
• Some performance hitches can occur on the Stalingrad map depending on density of location and specific hardware.
  
• Marine Uniform sleeves have a stretching issue in FPP.

We will be fixing the following with a new method for U11:

• Sniper scope reticles can become misaligned with the scope during certain animations

We also want to reiterate that armour physics and driving experience is still a work in progress and will be subject to additional polish.

Game Articles

We have had some great articles and reviews of our Full release during a sneak preview with NME, and Gamestar.de

You can read these and a few others below.

NME
https://www.nme.com/reviews/game-reviews/hell-let-loose-review-2999404

GAMESTAR
https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/hell-let-loose-shooter-test-review,3371944.html

ScreenRant
https://screenrant.com/hell-let-loose-game-review/

PCGamesN
https://www.pcgamesn.com/hell-let-loose/review-10


Thanks to the entire community for the support during Early access!

See you on the Eastern Front o7

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #137!

This week's Brief is a special one as it's the last one before we leave Early Access next week and enter Version 1.0, heralding the arrival of the Eastern Front and Soviet forces.

To say the whole team is excited is an understatement, we can't wait to take this next step with you, our awesome community.

This huge next step will be one of many as we continue to further grow Hell Let Loose post Early Access. We'll be sharing more of what that looks like as part of Tuesday's Launch Dev Brief which will feature our 2021 / 2022 Roadmap.

For those eager to dive into Update 10's Changelog we'll be posting that here on Steam on Monday 26th.

Now, back to today's brief as we've only got some things we think you'd appreciate seeing...



We’re extremely happy to finally reveal the full Eastern Front Trailer, which premiered last night on Twitch as part of Twitch Gaming's The Weekly!

It captures a huge amount of hard work that the whole team has put in - from the levels, to the animations, sound, characters and so much more. We really hope you enjoy it!


URA!



To celebrate all the incredible support you as our community have given us during the ups and downs of our Early Access period, we’re excited to announce that we’ll be giving all current owners of Hell Let Loose the “Silver Vanguard” DLC pack.

It’s a small way that we wanted to say thank you for coming on the journey with us. Take a look below to see the full contents. We also want to let you know that we’ll continue to rotate previous DLC (Summer / Winter Warfare Packs) in case you didn’t pick it up the first time.

As is the case with past DLCs, Silver Vanguard is only for a limited time during our release.



How do I get the Silver Vanguard DLC?

It’s free for all current Hell Let Loose owners, or any customer that purchases Hell Let Loose before the 10th of August 2021. We'll reveal the specific redemption details as part of our post on Tuesday 27th July.

What is in the Silver Vanguard DLC?

Unlock access to join the Silver Vanguard and take to the front lines with an array of unique helmets and uniforms. Roll up your sleeves and get stuck into the thick of it with the German forces, blend into the background in the Soviet “Ameba” camo helmet or take to the US tanks and show off the “Hell on Wheels” jacket!

Silver Vanguard pack contains:

• German Forces – "Rolled sleeves" uniforms for 11 roles (helmet not included).
  
• US Forces - “Hell on Wheels” jacket for Tank Commander’s & Crew (helmet not included).
  
• Soviet Forces - SSh-40 Covered Ameba helmet

Onwards to the weekend!

That wraps up this week's briefing!

We hope you enjoyed the trailer. Let us know your thoughts and favourite moments in the comments, as well as what you're looking forward to the most with the arrival of the Eastern Front next week.

Have a great weekend everyone!

We'll see you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

We hope you're all having a great week and honing your strategies ahead of the arrival of the Eastern Front on the 27th!

Today we're sharing an exciting bit of news with you as tomorrow we'll be premiering the full Hell Let Loose - Eastern Front launch trailer as part of Twitch Gaming's The Weekly Show!

Not only that but Max will be talking all things Hell Let Loose and answering questions live for about half an hour on Stream.

Trailer Premier & Interview Stream

You'll want to head over to the Twitch Gaming channel via THIS LINK to catch everything live!

Time & Date

Trailer Premier: 7:30pm BST / 8:30pm CEST / 2:30pm EST / 11:30am PST on July 22nd.

Make sure to arrive 5-10 minutes early so you don't miss the premier, we look forward to seeing you there!

In the meantime here's a couple of screenshots from the trailer to tide you over...





We'll be back in the next day or two with our pre Version 1.0 Dev Brief!

See you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #135!

This week we're got a big one for you as we delve into and detail the armour overhaul coming in Update 10 on July 27th.

From the changes themselves to new additions and our reasoning behind them, today we're pleased to be in a position to sit down and go through everything with you.

A lot of these changes have been inspired, guided and provoked from community feedback, so thank you to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts with us on armour throughout Early Access.

Right, let's rev the engines and get stuck in...



Hi everyone,

We’ve been working very hard on our continued armour rework - the majority of which will be landing with Update 10. We’ve incorporated feedback from across the entire community and it’s meant reworking many areas of our code and logic - including both projectiles, armour, the way armour functions on the vehicles, and the componentry of each piece. Alongside this, it’s also meant reworking the complex driving models for every vehicle in the game in order to get the best possible outcome - that balances expectation with reality.

It has also touched the base roster, ammo quantities, vehicle costs, sound effects, visual effects and many more aspects (such as no longer allowing AT to reload a launcher/AT rifle while sprinting!), as we rebalance the entire armour spectrum in line with adjusted line-ups and the coming new medium tank offerings for both the US and German forces (Sherman for the US and Panzer IV for the Germans).

In Hell Let Loose, armour is designed to function largely as it did in real life - with tense duels, surprise attacks from superior positioning and requiring the support of the surrounding team (when it comes to protecting the flanks from infantry attack).

Armour Hit Boxes

The largest rework by far has to manually build and apply accurate armour hitboxes to all vehicles in the game. One of the large issues previously was projectiles would strike small pieces of geometry on the exterior of a vehicle (like a hook or spade or edge) and it would lead to random outcomes (be in a bounce, non-penetrating explosion or penetration).

This led to very unsatisfying gameplay, where some vehicles could be destroyed in a single shot, or some other totally random outcome. In reworking all of these hitboxes, we’ve now assured a very binary outcome that can both be learned and relied upon. We have found that this now produces better armoured encounters in which crews are able to clearly understand the combat taking place.




Hit Statuses

In line with our efforts towards eliminating the randomness of armoured combat, we’ve reworked both the sound and look of penetrating shots, non-penetrating shots (ones that explode on the side of the vehicle) and ricocheting shots. They are now far more distinct and should help crews keep much better track of how the action is progressing. In addition, the tank shell flyby sounds have been greatly improved, leading to a more dramatic soundscape on the battlefield.

Ricocheting


Non-Penetrating


Penetrating


Resource Costs

In reworking the way Resource Nodes function and accumulate resources, we’ve rebalanced costs of vehicles to match. Our ultimate desire has always been to create relative scarcity of Fuel, that would then force a Commander to make greater strategic decisions with their armour crews to decide which vehicle would be best to bring in to supplement the base roster of vehicles. Something we were missing from our “Company of Heroes” comparisons was a distinct battle order by which a Commander would bring in specific vehicles. We are keen that every decision the Commander makes is driven by necessity and not by endless surplus.

Scarcity of Heavy Tanks

As we begin to introduce more medium tanks to the game, we’re keen to rebalance the base roster (the default line-up each team receives in order to make sure they’re viable from a vehicle perspective). As such, we’ve removed Heavy Tanks from the default line-up to make them rarer and more intentional in their use. We want their presence on the battlefield to reflect a concerted choice and strategy, rather than business-as-usual. In doing so, one of our aims is to shift the standard vehicle effectiveness down - towards medium tanks, light tanks and eventually assault guns. Until this time, Heavy Tanks have often seemed like the majority of the vehicles on the battlefield - which does not reflect the historical weighting and lead to problems elsewhere - such as needing standard anti-tank players to field equally powerful weapons to destroy them.

Ultimately, the sight of a Tiger 1, Jumbo and IS-1 (and eventually the Tiger II, IS-2 and Pershing) should be rare, exciting and terrifying to the enemy, and indicate specific intentions of the Commander.

Engine Component

In line with rebalancing armour and the introduction of anti-tank rifles, we’ve added the engine components to vehicles in order to allow different, less-potent forms of anti-tank weaponry to effectively hinder and nullify armour in ways that aren’t a simple critical-kill.

It is now possible to knock out a vehicle's engine by penetrating the engine bay - resulting in its total immobilisation.

Manoeuvrability and Gears

We’ve worked hard on the manoeuvrability and gear ratios in this rework. We’ve attempted to emulate the real principles of driving in greater manoeuvrability at low gears, while straight line speeds are higher but less manoeuvrable. However, this is still a work-in-progress as we figure out the best mixture of handling.

Physics

We’ve made several improvements to our physics handling and the interrelationships between different vehicles, as well as to the way in which we handle collisions. This has resulted in:

• Reduced the likelihood of getting stuck between objects
  
• Reduced the likelihood of vehicles bouncing off objects at speed
  
• Reduced the ability for lighter vehicles to knock around heavier vehicles
  
• Reduced the jittery behaviour of vehicles while stationary or between objects
  
• Fixed visual stepping on tank barrels as they move
  
• Improved the ability for trucks to climb steep angles

Sound Effects

Alongside every other improvement, we’ve worked on the following sound effects:

• Added SFX when colliding with objects
  
• Added SFX for entering and exiting vehicles
  
• Added SFX for switching seat in vehicles
  
• Updated Tank Engine and Tracks SFX
  
• Updated Turret traverse SFX

Continued Improvements

As always with Hell Let Loose, we’ll continue to improve this gameplay as we introduce a variety of new vehicles into the game. We can already see the need for a potential armour degradation mechanic in the near future to emulate the failure of a particular surface.

Armour rework Summary

The below changelist is subject to change based ongoing balancing and community feedback after the U10 update.

Added Engine Compartment

• Shuts off the Engine and prevents an Engine start
  
• Disables at 0% HP
  
• Enables at 100% HP

Adjusted vehicle health and damage

• Mirror matchups will result in ~2 shots to kill
  
• Shooting a higher classed Tank requires 2-3 shots to kill
  
• Shooting a lower classed Tank requires 1-2 shots to kill
  
• Reduced Handheld-AT damage to require an additional rocket to destroy Heavy Tanks
  
• Increased AT-Gun HP to compensate for the PTRS damage and require 2 handheld shots

Adjusted Tank Armor Ratings

• Increased frontal armour for most Tanks requiring precise shots or flanked angles
  
• Increased side Hull armour on some Tanks requiring handheld AT to shoot the rear
  
• Increased Turret Cupola armour so it’s no longer a go-to easy weak spot

Adjusted Behaviour of certain areas of Armor

• Tank barrels can now ricochet
  
• Turret cupolas can now ricochet
  
• Turret cupolas now only transfer damage to the Turret and not the Hull
  
• Tracks can now be damaged by HE shells
  
• Tracks can no longer be exploited to bypass the Hull armour
  
• Tracks will not ricochet shells
  
• Miscellaneous items attached to vehicles no longer deal damage to the Hull when shot

Other improvements

• Removed exploitable locations on Tanks that tricked the system into thinking the shell was impacting the rear/side of the Tank
  
• Disabled the ability to reload the Bazooka and Panzerschreck while sprinting
  
• Improved reliability of the correct impact/ricochet FX being played
  
• Increased the repair speed of Blow Torches and Repair Stations
  
• Increased Satchel damage to instantly destroy any vehicle
  
• Removed collision from Tank barrels to eliminate jittery movement
  
• Allowed Satchels to be placed on the Tracks of Tanks
  
• Slightly reduced muzzle smoke produced from Tank barrels when firing
  
• Added new FX for shells that hit but do not penetrate
  
• Adjusted the FX for ricocheting shells to be more distinguishable
  
• Updated vehicle seating UI
  
• Updated vehicle component icons
  
• Adjusted gear speeds to be more uniform
  
• Allowed MGs to deal damage to Trucks
  
• Removed Heavy Tanks from automatic HQ spawns and added a Transport Truck to each HQ
  
• Removed resource cost from HQ spawns
  
• Added SFX when colliding with objects
  
• Added SFX for entering and exiting vehicles
  
• Added SFX for switching seat in vehicles
  
• Updated Tank Engine and Tracks SFX
  
• Updated Turret traverse SFX
  
• Increased duration for entering and exiting Tanks
  
• Increased duration for switching seat in Tanks
  
• Refactored vehicle weapons to support Ballistics
  
• Introduced Smart Materials to the interior and exterior of new and some existing vehicles
  
• Shells no longer travel at a weird offset when firing on uneven terrain

IS-1

The IS-1 was an early variant of the Soviet Stalin heavy tank, developed from the battle-proven KV type. The KV was one of the most well-armoured heavy tanks at its point of introduction, but by 1942 was vulnerable to experienced anti-tank teams and heavier German armour. In addition, it was slower, more expensive, and no more heavily armed than the now large numbers of T-34 tanks rolling off the production lines.

The decision was made to improve the armour and armament of the KV, which would enable it to retain its battlefield niche. The resulting redesign would be named IS-1, after Joseph Stalin. The chassis, iterated on the KV, deleted the hull gunner position and instead had the driver seated in a centrally located compartment. Its weight was used more efficiently with critical components being better armoured while actually being lighter than the KV. The turret retained the three-man configuration of the KV, but was fully cast and fit the powerful 85 millimetre D-5T gun.

The IS-1 performed well, but the T-34 would eventually be up-gunned with the same 85 millimetre gun. Thus, experiments to put increasingly larger guns in the IS hull would continue and the definitive production variant would be the massive 122 millimetre gun armed IS-2.




BA-10

The BA-10 was a Soviet armoured car from the Second World War. A pre-war design placing an armoured hull over a Ford AA-derived chassis, the BA-10 had a somewhat ungainly appearance and a high centre of gravity. It was armed with a 45 millimetre gun, giving it excellent firepower for its weight.

The BA-10 found itself somewhat poorly suited to the rigors of Eastern front combat. Its thin armor and high profile made it vulnerable to fire, and tracked vehicles proved to be better at traversing the poor roads that stretched across the Soviet Union. Where available, it would use its speed to serve as a reconnaissance vehicle instead.




Onwards to the weekend!

That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into the armour overhaul. It'd be great to hear what you think, so share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

July 27th is rapidly approaching, so you won't have long to wait until you can get stuck into these sweeping improvements.

Have a great weekend everyone!

We'll see you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #134!

This week Max and the team have got together to give you some bitesize updates on a few different areas of the game.

From optimisation to particle FX and the addition of new audio and visual meta components we're taking a quick look under the hood!

Make sure you stick around until the end too as we'll be revealing some of the new, free customisation items that you'll be able to unlock in Update 10, as well as sharing with you some more details on the Soviet inventory!

Let's get stuck in shall we...



Hi everyone,

We would like to thank the community for jumping into the PTEs and offering fantastic feedback. It’s great to know what you’re enjoying, and the constructive notes are guiding our continued work - be it gameplay, bug fixing or optimisation. Thanks for working with us to continually improve the coming Update.

We will continue to run PTEs over the next couple of weeks to ensure that we have a stable build for U10. Bug fixing and optimization is always a key focus, and we are doing our best to eliminate as many issues as possible before launching out of Early Access.

We are also keen to reiterate that we will be running more thorough PTEs for future updates, as we feel it’s a great opportunity to iterate on fixes and identify large scale issues.

On a final note, we’d appreciate it if the community joined us in helping keep content from the PTEs under wraps by not streaming, discussing or posting photos of the PTE across any open channel and instead give their feedback in the directed locations. We would prefer to be able to keep running these testing sessions and our ability to keep this content a surprise will have a large impact on whether we continue or not.


Optimisation

Hell Let Loose is a tough beast to optimise! With 100 players and concurrent physics on all vehicles (as well as 10+ multi crewed vehicles per game) - it’s definitely a challenge.

That said, we’re working hard to instance, merge and build HLOD out for all maps - including our new Eastern Front maps. Alongside this, we’re reducing poly and triangle counts, as well as looking at our different settings to see if we can assist lower-end players in squeezing out the best possible performance without compromising gameplay (ostensibly by removing shadows or foliage completely).

So far, our PTE’s have shown increased performance across the board and we still have more to do. Like everything in game development, it’s a tricky balance between visuals and optimisation. As we introduce different LODs within the game we also need to adjust them to maintain as high a quality visual as we can.


Particle FX

Particle FX have been an area that were largely untouched since we began work on Hell Let Loose. We’re currently in the process of onboarding a full time FX artist who will work over the existing FX - including muzzle flashes, ambient fires, back blasts and more. Initially though, we’ve gone through and optimised a huge number of these elements in a way that is visually unnoticeable to the player. That said, you can expect both increased performance gains plus a visual fidelity increase over the coming updates. We especially need to nail these aspects down prior to our Fire update.



We’re doing a pass on many smaller map elements that are crucial to the meta. These have largely gone untouched for the entire duration of development, and we knew that we needed to revisit them.

Sound

Where appropriate, we’ve attached authentic radio clips from each of the forces to both OPs and Garrisons. This is to enable players to get a sense of proximity to a spawn, as well build the immersion of the battlefield soundscape.

Look

Hell Let Loose has hugely dense maps - visually in terms of realistic battlefield clutter and also in terms of gameplay elements - players, ammo boxes, supply boxes, mines, vehicles and much more. Many of you will also know that the meta of Hell Let Loose largely hinges on the placement and destruction of the OP, Airhead and Garrison spawn points, as well as interacting with other small objects such as ammo boxes. There are many times where even experienced players will come within range of the enemy spawn point, but due to intense clutter or bad luck, will fail to see it until players spawn on it, leading to either a successful attack being thwarted due to their failure to find a small object, or a mass spawn-kill as they mow down the recently spawned players.

Instead, we have been road testing a slight shine on battlefield objects of meta significance to increase decisiveness in attack and defense, as well as increase battlefield awareness (without you needing to constantly toggle the HUD to see icons, or open your map).

The shine only occurs when within 30m of the key object, and is limited to objects that demand crucial player interaction (OP, Garrison, Airhead and Ammo Boxes). You will still need to interact with the objects as you always have - as well as learn the difference in appearance between them.

Size

Spawn points are the bread and butter of Hell Let Loose, and their placement can make the difference between winning and losing. We’ve road tested a smaller OP size that is uniform across all forces. It’s far easier to place in trenches and much less obstructive, and the same sizing means that no force experiences a disadvantage when placing them.

We will be applying the same logic to Garrisons in future updates - both making them easier to place, as well as bearing a similar sized visual signature.



Discord - Join the Community

Over the next couple of weeks we will be making some changes to the Discord. This will essentially be an audit to ensure we have all the correct and up to date information, as well as designated locations for different conversations about the game.

The Discord has grown enormously over time, and as a result we’ll be restructuring elements of it so that each channel functions better and all types of player - for dyed in the wool veterans, those experiencing technical issues, those keen to provide feedback, those looking to group up or join a clan and finally a location where newcomers can feel welcome.



Here is a sneak peak at a couple of the new free cosmetics coming to Hell Let Loose. We will be following up on how these items will be unlocked/acquired before U10 launches on July 27th.












More of the Soviet Inventory

Lastly this week, here are a few more items that will be included in the Soviet inventory.

RGD-2

The RGD-2 was a smoke grenade type mass-produced in the Soviet Union. Visually little more than a cardboard tube, it was activated by striking the washer included in the body of the grenade against the ignition match. After a few seconds, smoke would billow from either side of the housing. It was available in a number of different smoke colors, and is still being manufactured today.

RG-42

The RG-42 was a fragmentation grenade of Soviet manufacture. A simplified alternative to the complex stick-type RG-33, the RG-42 was able to be produced in smaller factories and workshops. The smooth cylindrical outer shell contained both the explosive charge and a number of steel sheets designed to fragment on detonation.

POMZ

The POMZ was a type of Soviet anti-personnel mine. A simple fuzed TNT charge with a fragmentation sleeve, the POMZ was attached to a wooden stake and embedded in the ground. It was triggered by tripwire, which could be tied to another stake or otherwise attached to the environment.


Onwards to the weekend!

That wraps up this week's Dev Brief, thanks for stopping by!

As you likely already know we have an incredibly exciting month ahead of us as we gear up to leave Early Access on July 27th and welcome in the arrival of the Eastern Front!

Leaving Early Access heralds the next step for Hell Let Loose and we can't wait to take it with you.

Have a great weekend everyone!

We'll see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #133!

This week we've got a big one featuring a Steam Free Weekend and sale, new Stalingrad information and screenshots, plus an update on Sainte-Marie-Du-Mont and a look at the Soviet Rifle arsenal that you'll be wielding from July 27th!

Before we dive in though we just want to say a huge WELCOME to all the new players joining us from both the free weekend and the sale - we hope you have an awesome time! We're humbled to have an amazing community here, so don't be shy, say hi when you jump into a unit and make some frontline friends.

Now let's get stuck in shall we...



Free Weekend

That’s right, HLL is free to play this weekend!

Welcome to all our new players. We will be available for you to enjoy Hell Let Loose for free from 6pm BST today until 6pm BST Monday.

We highly recommend joining the community on our OFFICIAL DISCORD where you can stay up to date with all things HLL, and get support from the community as a new player!

We also recommend taking a quick scroll through our announcements & Developer Briefings. Here you will see we are committed to our development through weekly ongoing communication. You can also see what content we have planned for our next update.

Check them out here!


Steam Summer Sale

In addition to the free weekend Hell Let Loose is -25% Off during the Steam Summer Sale.

Please note: This will be the final opportunity to get HLL at a discounted price before we leave Early Access!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/686810/Hell_Let_Loose/



Hi everybody,

We’re excited to announce that we’ll be leaving Early Access with the launch of Update 10 in the coming weeks and the introduction of the Soviet forces. For us, it represents the solidification of several foundational elements for the game. We know that there will be many questions around us leaving Early Access and what that might mean for the future of the title.

Don’t worry - as you’ll discover below this represents the completion of some key infrastructure beneath the hood - including finalising workflows that will enable us to work far more efficiently in the future. You’ll also see that we’ve got huge things planned for the game that we’ll talk through below.


Our Goals During Early Access

Hell Let Loose is an epic journey for both the whole development team and community.

Beginning in 2015 as a hobby, we’ve both expanded and learned so much during the development of Hell Let Loose.

When launching into Early Access, we had several key goals to accomplish during the period:
We knew that there were several fundamental infrastructure overhauls that we’d need to achieve during the period in order to make sure we were best set up to support the title well beyond our Early Access period. Our animation system required more than 50 handmade animations per item, our texturing systems meant both our vehicles and weapons were so expensive on VRAM usage that they needed to be crushed in quality, and there was a total absence of ballistics in-game - to name just a few significant absences or issues.

On top of this, we also wanted to build out the core offering of maps, roles and vehicles - and expand and polish Commander abilities.

Lastly, we also wanted to expand the size of the studio and bring on new team members who could join us in refining and building Hell Let Loose long term.

For us, Update 10 represents the success of these initial goals and our leaving Early Access. All underlying infrastructure in the game has been rewritten for much easier iteration, expansion and optimisation and were used to help us introduce the all-new Soviet forces to the game.
............
You can read the rest of Max’s message here, explaining our decision to leave Early Access and how the future is shaping up HERE!



We have already shown off a bit of Kursk, one of our new maps coming along with the Soviet’s in Update 10. Now we take a quick look at Stalingrad.

Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad was a nearly 6-month long engagement on the Eastern Front. German high command had pushed toward the River Volga in a bid to capture the strategic city, but found their progress slowed significantly once inside. One of the bloodiest battles of the war, Stalingrad alone accounted for more than a million combined casualties on both sides.



As combat progressed from the suburbs into the industrial sectors, with constant Luftwaffe bombing turning many buildings to rubble. Unfortunately for the Germans, these bombed out ruins were a perfect hiding place for ambushers and required savage room-to-room fighting to clear out. Soviet strategy was to fight the Germans as close in as possible, so as to limit their ability to use artillery or air support.



Some larger buildings which managed to survive the constant shelling would be built up as fortresses by the men who occupied them. One such building, known affectionately as Pavlov's House, became famous for outlasting a two-month siege while protecting the Russian-held Volga behind.



Ultimately, the success of the Soviet operations in the winter of 1942 would cut the German supply lines and leave their army surrounded in Stalingrad. The Germans continued to hold their portion of the city and attempted to break out toward friendly lines for another few months, but would eventually collapse and surrender from lack of supply in 1943.



Stalingrad is a very unique map amongst the existing Hell Let Loose rotation. While urban, the nature of the way the city was built allowed for long, wide roads and larger, spread-out buildings. The result is a mixture of key vertical locations (atop apartment buildings or smaller brick office blocks), open fields of fire across roads and destroyed city blocks, and dense room to room fighting in the factories and workshops. Vehicles are extremely potent due to long sight lines, while infantry have the ability to manoeuvre amongst the rubble.


Back to Sainte-Marie-Du-Mont

We have already talked about the SMDM overhaul in Dev Brief #131, but we thought it was worth mentioning again as we know the community loves this map.

Additionally one of our community members, Sam_15_SVK, has made some comparisons to the old vs new SMDM. We thought it was fantastic and worth sharing.

You can check them out HERE!

SMDM - A Brief History

The area around the village of Sainte-Marie-Du-Mont, in the Normandy region of France, was the site of many frantic skirmishes on the morning of June 6, 1944. Soldiers of the American 101st Airborne were assigned to secure the routes inland from the beaches, and eliminate any artillery batteries which could threaten the coming amphibious landing. Loading into C-47 transport planes, the men would parachute in zones radar-designated by Pathfinder teams sent in advance of the main wave.

The paratroopers and their transport crew had trained ceaselessly for the operation. Yet, as the planes flew over the mainland, trouble began to arise for the men of the 101st. Flak fire from the anti-aircraft batteries tore the sky asunder. Heavy could cover and the darkness of night obscured the landing zones, and the radar transponders malfunctioned. Many flights were blown off course, and many more had to drop their cargo blind into the darkness below. Cockpits shaking from Flak fire, the pilots could only pray that the paratroopers made it to the ground safely.

Fortunately, most of the 101st were unharmed in the landings. Often scattered and out of position, they would have to wander in the darkness as they worked to regroup their forces and begin to accomplish their assigned tasks. A workable number of soldiers had been assembled by dawn, and at around 8:30 A.M. First Lieutenant Richard D. “Dick” Winters, took a dozen men to destroy the artillery battery at Brecourt Manor.

Despite being heavily outnumbered, the battery was destroyed without incident. Similar operations in the area assisted the soldiers landing at Utah beach, who had made significant headway inland. Armor arriving from Utah would finally swing the battle for Saint-Marie-Du-Mont in favor of the 101st, and the village would be taken by the end of the day.



Mosin



The Mosin rifle was the main arm of the Soviet Union in the Second World War. A bolt action rifle feeding from a 5 round single stack magazine, it fired the powerful 7.62 by 54 millimeter rimmed cartridge.

The rifle was designed by a commission of Russian arsenal designers, with principal work being contributed by Sergei Mosin. The design for the magazine came from a competing rifle submitted by Leon Nagant, and featured an interruptor to allow the reliable feeding of rimmed ammunition.

The Mosin would prove to be durable enough for combat on the eastern front of both World Wars, though the operating surfaces of the bolt were vulnerable to mud. While not exactly cheap to manufacture, the Soviet Union could field tens of millions numbers of the rifle due to their build-up of tooling machinery.


M91

The original mass-produced variant of the Mosin which served primarily in the First World War, the M91 was the longest of all the Mosins. Its rear sight was rushed into production following a change to spitzer ammunition in the early 1900s, and was somewhat vulnerable to damage.


M91/30

The Mosin rifle was updated in form factor in the years preceding the Second World War. The handier 1891 dragoon model was chosen as the basis of the 91/30, being a couple inches shorter than the original infantry model. The rear sight was also improved, and other than a few minor changes the rest of the rifle remained the same.



M38

An even shorter version of the Mosin, the M38 Carbine was used by engineers, artillery crews, and other troops whose primary duties did not involve frontline combat. Lighter in weight but firing the same ammunition as its full-size brethren, the M38's recoil was correspondingly higher.


M91/30 Sniper

The scoped variant of the M91/30, the sniper variant, had a scope mount on the side of the receiver which accepted either PEM or PU scopes. The bolt handle was bent 90 degrees to clear the scope. They were generally made with tighter tolerances, and were capable of higher precision compared to a standard 91/30. Discerning snipers could attempt to obtain ranging PZ ammunition, which would explode on impact with the target.



SVT-40

The SVT-40 was a Soviet semi-automatic rifle used extensively in World War 2. A short-stroke piston design, the SVT was one of the earliest self-loading rifles fielded in a significant quantity by a major army. It fed from a 10 round magazine and could be loaded with standard stripper clips.

Although reasonably rugged, it was necessarily more complex than traditional bolt-action rifles. Troops in the field complained that it was difficult to maintain and susceptible to mud.

The large mass of moving parts in the forend of the rifle and the poorly bedded barrel caused it to bounce when fired, negatively affecting accuracy. PU scopes were mounted to SVTs, though the bedding issue would stop production of these marksman's SVTs by mid-war.

The SVT was intended to be mass issued in large numbers. However the high casualties and equipment losses early in the war forced the rapid refitting of the Red Army, something the simpler Mosin was more suited to. The SVT would serve in a gradually diminishing capacity until production stopped in early 1945. The additional firepower provided was not seen to be worth the additional complexity at the time.




Onwards to the free weekend!

That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

It's going to be a busy weekend on the battlefields of Hell Let Loose and we hope you all have an awesome one!

Once again welcome to all our new players and also thank you to our existing community for being so welcoming - you rock!

We'll see you on the frontline.