Hello everyone,

And welcome to the Update 15.0 PTE, this PTE will be running throughout the weekend and we’re looking forward to getting your input on some of the content we’ve been working on listed below.

• New Map: Mortain - Warfare, Offensive & Control Skirmish (featuring day, dusk and overcast/rain variants)
  
• Map Updates: Sainte-Marie-du-Mont (with new night, dusk and overcast/rain variants)
  
• New Control Skirmish: Sainte-Marie-du-Mont (featuring day, night and overcast/rain variants)
  
• New Front End: Mortain Theme

• Mortain Warfare - Day
  
• Mortain - Control Skirmish - Overcast/Rain
  
• SMDM - Warfare - Night
  
• SMDM - Control Skirmish - Rain

Mortain has been a labour of love for the Environment Art team for some time. The reception during the previous PTE and the feedback following it has had a profound and positive effect on the map’s development. I would like to extend sincere thanks from us all, for the community rallying behind us as a development team and putting your faith in us to deliver a map that players want to play.

As mentioned in a previous dev briefing, focusing on your feedback from the last PTE, we have made significant changes within the town adding numerous enterable buildings to aid players in urban combat. Alongside this, we have introduced new structures within destroyed buildings, to offer new verticality and sight lines across Mortain’s town.

We have continued to take steps in optimizing the map and with great support from Technical Art, various changes across meshes, textures and shaders have been made to increase framerates on both PC and console.

During the last PTE, grass, hedge, and wheat culling happened much too early on. We have increased the draw distance of all foliage significantly, which should help to aid players hiding in tall grass and foliage. Due to the sheer performance impact of rendering thousands of blades of grass 300+ metres away, there may still be areas where at long distances foliage does not render as expected, but we are approaching this issue as a high priority and you should notice a significant improvement over the last PTE.

You may notice when playing Mortain, that upon aiming down sights, there can at times be a sudden change between LODs and shadows close to your camera. This is a known issue that is unfortunately visible across every Hell Let Loose map, but due to Mortain’s lighting being particularly bright with strong shadows, it’s much more apparent. We are actively investigating ways to combat this, however this is a long standing issue in the game and is tied to how LODs are handled at different FOVs. Although this issue won’t be fixed for the PTE, we hope that this doesn’t impact your experience of Mortain negatively.

I would like to extend a personal thank you to the QA and Community teams who diligently helped filter through feedback and helped give the Environment Art team and Level Design team a much clearer picture of how we can polish Mortain for this PTE. Although this isn’t the official release of Mortain, we are confident through their efforts and ours, that this version of Mortain will be an experience you enjoy and we can’t wait to hear your feedback both positive and constructive.

Ryan Thomason-Jones, Senior Environment Artist - Expression Games

To celebrate this PTE and release of Mortain, we have updated the main menu environment for the game to include a scene from one of the main streets in the town. With this being the first new map since Black Matter departed, we wanted to do something special with the theming, so decided to make the world black and white reminiscent of films and pictures from the past.

The new environment is significantly lighter than the previous scene performance wise, so console players in particular should find that the scene runs much smoother, and assets load in quicker on full release.

Adding to the wartime footage aesthetic, post process effects such as static and scanlines were added, along side some fantastic work from the audio team, who adapted the Hell Let Loose music to sound as though it was playing through a gramophone.

Although our primary objective is to make engaging and beautiful in-game maps, we hope that the next time you boot up Hell Let Loose, you immediately feel immersed and it adds to your experience of the game.

Ryan Thomason-Jones, Senior Environment Artist - Expression Games

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to every player who took part in the previous Mortain PTE and provided feedback on the map. The Level Design team has taken the time to read every comment provided.

What was a clear takeaway from this is that the town of Mortain lacks a sufficient amount of enterable buildings. Having assessed the layout of the town, and taking into account optimization factors as well as sight lines, we have added more than 40 new enterable buildings, not just in the town, but across the entire map:

• More enterable buildings in the town around the Hotel De La Poste capture point
  
• The building at Les Aubrils Farm has been opened up
  
• Several buildings around Le Ferme Du Deschamps have also been opened up
  
• Other main design changes since the last PTE:
  
• The capture point “Le Hermitage Farm'' has been renamed to “Les Aubrils Farm” - this is a more thematic name for the region that we have captured
  
• The capture point “Farm of Bonvoisin” has been renamed to “Le Ferme Du Deschamps” - this is a more thematic name for the region that we have captured
  
• The capture point Southern Approach has received a cover pass

In addition, the Level Design and Environment Art team have been working on adding upper floors to the ruined buildings in the town. This creates additional opportunities and strategies for players to utilize the buildings more efficiently.

Carl Rutter, Senior Level Designer - Expression Games

Mortain is our first original Control Skirmish Mode and therefore the first map developed in tandem with the Warfare and Offensive game modes.

For the Control Skirmish mode of Mortain, we decided on making the La Petite Chapelle Saint-Michel the active capture point to fight over. Not only does this sit well within the centre of the map to provide a balanced experience for both forces, but we also feel that it is the strongest capture point in tone and theme.

Mortain has the same rules as the other Control Skirmish maps, with 2 transport trucks, a medium tank and 2 sets of pre-placed nodes per force that allow players to jump straight into the action.

Carl Rutter, Senior Level Designer - Expression Games

Thanks to the feedback provided by various community members, time was taken to adjust and iterate on the Southern Approach capture point. The focus of this was to address the lack of clarity on what was being fought over, along with a general lack of cover.

To tackle this, we increased the overall defences in the area to help sell the ‘defence in depth’ theme of the capture point, along with adjusting the location and size of the hard capture area itself. These defensive improvements consisted of an increase to the trenches in the area, a pillbox, a supporting barbed wire ring around the point and the narrative addition of a fight already taking place here between armour units.

Kienan Southern, Junior Level Designer - Expression Games

To coincide with the release of a Control Skirmish mode for Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, we looked into issues commonly brought up about the map as a whole across various community forums. Keeping in mind that the map is a fan favourite we chose to focus solely on the most impactful changes, those being to address the lack of enterable areas within the town and the inaccessible Brécourt Manor courtyard.

To this end, a lot of time was put into opening up new routes and buildings within the town centre. Opening these areas should allow for a more 360-degree approach to the capture point, reducing bottlenecks for players moving towards the church and providing more safe havens for outposts and defensive/aggressive garrisons.

The addition of new enterable buildings also allows for more close-quarter gunfights, as well as vantage points for machine gunners to aid their squad's approach through the streets.

Kienan Southern, Junior Level Designer - Expression Games

The set-up for this Control Skirmish mode is focused around the Cattlesheds capture point from Warfare and Offensive, allowing us to capture a nice balance of spaces that should make both infantry and vehicle combat intense.

The bocages surrounding the Cattlesheds provide cover and routes into the capture point and the space within it provides engineers ample opportunity to bolster your team’s defences.

For tanks, the nearby open fields afford the space to bombard the opposition from a distance, or to act as support for the infantry pushing the objective.

Kienan Southern, Junior Level Designer - Expression Games

These PTE sessions are a way for you as a community to feedback on Hell Let Loose work in progress, which means we can look to implement your feedback before a patch or update is released. Although we can currently only hold public testing sessions on Steam, we encourage everyone to take part to be able to share feedback.


For today’s session, there is a list of unfinished items/bugs that we’re aware of, including:

• [Mortain] The tactical map does not match the visual representation of most areas in-game.
  
• [Mortain] Collision issue when attempting to enter certain houses while crouched/prone.
  
• [SMDM] [15.0] Numerous parachutes are scattered around the north of the map with incorrect positioning.
  
• [Mortain] Aiming down sights can cause jarring shadow and LOD changes.

You are welcome to both stream and record PTE footage, but as these sessions are showing unfinished work, it’s always good to let your individual communities know that the footage is from a PTE session, where you might encounter unfinished items, bugs and other issues.


Once you have completed a game and are ready to provide feedback, please use the forms below!


Check your Steam Library for the Hell Let Loose (Public Testing) application, or re-download it from the Steam store, you’ll want to boot this version up to take part in the PTE!

Once you’re in and have selected a server, you’ll be able to test out the new game mode!

Submit Feedback: https://forms.office.com/e/kf9f2e6cRY

Share Bug Reports: https://forms.office.com/e/d12qrUXEqz


Please note:

Because PTEs are run on development servers that have logging activated, you will experience a slight decrease in performance. You will also not earn any XP and your progress will not be carried over to the live game.

Hello everyone,

We've just deployed a hotfix to address some issues that surfaced with Patch 14.8. Please see the changelog below.

We're continuing to work on Update 15, and are currently looking at scheduling in Mortain PTE 2.

We'll share more news on that next week! Thank you for your continued feedback and support.

• [Fixed] Restarting the game will reset the progression of achievements on XBS
  
• [Fixed] [Offensive] The Commander can't select the first row to spawn vehicles
  
• [Fixed] [RCon] All Skirmish variants are shown in the Admin Log as "Warfare"
  
• [Fixed] [Achievements] The "Rule Breaker" achievement unlocks also with Infantry/Recon full squad
  
• [Fixed] [PS5] [Skirmish] Won Skirmish matches are incremented 4 times than the default amount for all relevant Skirmish Achievements on PS5
  
• [Fixed] The AT-Gun of the British Forces cannot be destroyed by tank or anti tank rounds.

See you on the frontlines. o7

Hello everyone,

Patch 14.8 – British Forces Rework Part 2 and the launch of Skirmish, is now live on all platforms.

This update completes the British rework phase of development. We decided to expand on the initial release of the British forces last year following a swath of valuable feedback. After two content updates comprising overhauls, we feel confident in the enhancements and improvements to transform this portion of the game. Thank you for your assistance in helping us accomplish this!



We’ve also implemented a new game mode, Control Skirmish. Based on feedback from previous PTEs, we’ve focused on refining our ‘seeding’ (rebranded to Control) game mode which originally featured on Foy and Kharkov.

Skirmish is a gateway experience for new players of Hell Let Loose. This game mode allows players to get straight into the action and experience some of the core mechanics of Hell Let Loose with fewer moving parts.

This is a quicker 50vs50 experience for some of our core audience who want to hop in for a few games and immerse themselves in the battle immediately.

Featuring a new type of garrison - the forward position, each side will be limited to one Armour squad and one Recon squad; the Commander can only spawn in medium tanks and no artillery pieces will be placed on the map.

Both teams start with control over their half of the map while the middle sector is neutral with a single capture point. Both teams must fight, attack and then defend this single capture point. Only the middle section of the map and the single capture point can change hands. At the end of the game, the team that controls the capture point is declared the winner.

To support this, there will be dedicated servers on PC, running these Skirmish maps, 24/7, so they’re always available for you to join.

• HLL Official - Europe #16 > HLL Official Skirmish - Europe #01
  
• HLL Official - US East #12 > HLL Official Skirmish - US East #01
  
• HLL Official - Asia #16 > HLL Official Skirmish - Asia #01

When analysing the previous iteration of El Alamein, the map’s desolate landscape stood out as an area for improvement. Building placement has increased substantially to over 300%, whereas rocks have increased ~33%. We also recognised that many vehicle routes failed to connect throughout the map, featuring frequent dead ends – frustrating armour units. El Alamein was famous for its tank battles, and we’ve made changes to improve and add complete routes.

We’ve also worked on the HQs and capture points to improve balance and gameplay.

We’ve redesigned El Alamein to deliver an improved gameplay experience that also accommodates Skirmish. Map visuals and layout have been enhanced and improved – bringing graphical consistency to the level with an overall colour and tone pass. We’ve transformed the roads to increase visual quality; populated many open, empty areas; and new military posts have been set up across the map.

El Alamein has undergone a remarkable transformation, thanks to the hard work of the Environment Art team aiming to update the map making it feel refreshing and engaging. We recognised the frustrations and disappointments expressed by the player base regarding the previous state of El Alamein. Therefore, we dove into the level, eliminated dull open dead spaces, and elevated its overall appeal. The revamped version features many enhancements, including large and small canyons, new trench areas, revitalized town sections, abundant cover to thwart pesky snipers, an expanded oasis, and a newly incorporated town.

Additionally, lush foliage now adorns the entire map, enriching it with vibrant hues alongside the exciting new additions of ruins. But, for us, the most exciting new addition is the mines! You can move across the map through cool tunnels giving new routes and opportunities for gameplay across the map. We've listened to your feedback, and we hope you enjoy these improvements - welcome to the new and improved El Alamein.

Jack McFarland, Environment Artist - Expression Games

The Technical Art team have been working on steadily addressing the performance issues throughout Hell Let Loose. Some of these issues that stand out have been cataloguing and optimising excessive texture sizes, addressing missing VFX LODs, reducing excessive mesh densities and ensuring LODs are drawing at more performant distances.

The recent art refresh brought along a welcome facelift to El Alamein and with it some challenges for the Technical Art team. Working closely with the artists to ensure their vision was not compromised while keeping performance within acceptable limits. A lot of this was down to addressing the many new assets that had been added (adding to a strain on the CPU). This meant merging most assets as Hierarchical Instanced Static Meshes (HISM is an instancing method that allows for better memory performance and supports LODs with good asset culling which results in better rendering performance). When doing this pass we asked the artists to approach it with small to medium-sized HISM merges as we were mindful when reducing the draw calls on the CPU not to overburden the strain on the GPU.

In addition to this, we also addressed issues where there were excessive triangles on some assets (e.g. aircraft hangers) and proposed a much more efficient way to build them.

We addressed some VFX issues whereby some particles would continue to render beyond the point that they were visible to the player. An optimisation pass was implemented on the character driven VFX of dust/mud kick-up, we created LODs and set them to cull at a distance that was more performant and not noticeable by the player.

When looking at specific issues around frame drops, it was discovered that burning or damaged vehicles had a particle light with an excessive radius attached to the effect. This was drawing several times adding to light complexity and this has since been removed.

As well as optimising, we have been looking at improving the look of the fire VFX and adding some more atmospheric dust based effects to El Alamein.

There is also ongoing R&D into some new weather VFX coming to HLL which we can talk about in more detail in the coming briefings.

Technical Art Team - Expression Games

With Oasis being the central Capture Point on the map, it sits right in the heart of our talented Environment Art’s piece of map refresh work, so we decided to make that the centre of attention for Skirmish - Control Mode. The mixture of high, open elevation juxtaposed with the ruined compounds provide an interesting battle ahead which should cater to most playstyles.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

With Control Skirmish’s focus on a single Capture Point, we wanted to utilise an area of the map that catered to multiple playstyles, with a myriad of approaches to gain control of the area.

To accomplish this, we created a custom Capture Point just north of the traditional “South Railway” objective in Warfare and Offensive, allowing players to fight over the “Underpass”. To enhance this area we placed additional train cars to block overly long sightlines straight down the railway tracks, as well as increasing the foliage and defensive structures along the embankments and surrounding the underpass itself.

Kienan Southern - Junior Level Designer, Expression Games

The British Airborne played a pivotal role in Operation Market Garden, with Driel being one of the locations involved.



The plan employed all three Allied airborne divisions. The British incurred the hardest task of all – their directive was to capture the integral bridge over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem; the most distant objective from the Allied front line. Around 35,000 Allied parachute and glider troops were deployed to the operation.

The Red Devils DLC is playable in all recon and infantry squad roles.


Polish Paratroopers played a key role for the Allied forces in Market Garden. Held responsible for the failure of Operation Market Garden, Major-General Stanislaw Sosabowski was used as a scapegoat to blame for the Battle of Arnhem fiasco.

Only the inhabitants of Driel recognised the devastating struggle the Polish army troops endured; suffering heavy losses through unfavourable circumstances and poor planning by the British High Command. They see the Polish soldiers as their liberators, with General Stanislaw Sosabowski at their head.

The Polish Parachute Brigade DLC is playable in all recon and infantry squad roles.

With Black Matter’s inclusion of the Driel map into the game we did extensive historical research into this part of Market Garden (the Allied operation in Holland in 1944). One of our key findings was the role of the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade, part of the Allied airborne deployment, alongside the British 1st Airborne Division. In particular their actions at Driel and the bitter fighting and sacrifices made to aid in the British withdrawal from Arnhem. To honour the Polish involvement at Driel, we have included a new Polish paratrooper uniform and beret for players who wish to represent the Polish forces in this battle.

Matt White, Creative Director - Expression Games

Created as a thank you for your support, especially over the past 12 months, the British Near Miss helmet references that trailer and the ensuing rework for the British forces.

As part of this rework of the British content, we have looked at what weapons the British forces would have been equipped with. With that in mind, we have introduced:

• Sten Gun Mk V
  
• No.4 Mk I Sniper
  
• Thompson 1928A1
  
• No.82 Gammon Bomb

These are more thematic reflective, representative of the weapons used in the theatres, and more authentic to some of the forces in the battle—for example, the Sten Mk V used by the British Airborne in Operation Market Garden.

We also looked at what vehicles and armour should be included in El Alamein and Driel. Part of this work was to include armour that is more reflective of the history and so for El Alamein we have included:

• Crusader Mk III (Medium Tank)
  
• M3 Stuart ‘Honey’ (Light Tank)

And for Driel we have included:

• Churchill Mk VII (Heavy Tank)

Extra effort was made to include a second type of Churchill with the Mk VII to better reflect the variant of Churchill that would have been present in Western Europe in this point of the war.

Matt White, Creative Director - Expression Games

Having the opportunity to create iconic weapons and vehicles for Hell Let Loose is a
tremendous honour for myself and the team, and represents a very fun challenge in
the form of doing justice to the real-world look and history of said assets.

Maintaining historical accuracy is of paramount importance on a project like this,
everything from the exact model (and sometimes even sub-model) that would have
been used in that theatre at the time, the tools and equipment, and of course the
camo and markings all play into ensuring the asset is as accurate as possible whilst
also playing and feeling well in-game.

As these are the first new weapons and vehicles that Expression Games have added to the
game, we were particularly keen to ensure that these assets looked as awesome as
possible. Plenty of time was spent gathering reference images and combing through
videos to cover every angle, and even more time was dedicated to modelling and
texturing these assets to both look great and tell a story about the kind of conflict
they would have gone through.

I truly hope you have fun taking the M3 Stuart for a spin around the dunes of El Alamein, and land some nasty headshots using the new No.32 Scope for the No.4 Mk 1!

Daniel Midghall, Hard Surface Artist - Expression Games

The No.82 Grenade (aka the ‘Gammon Bomb’) is a new and unique piece of equipment dropping into Allied loadouts on Driel for Patch 14.8.

This detonate-on-impact device can be a devastating ambushing weapon against enemy infantry and a useful tool for disabling and destroying enemy vehicles.

Due to its size, shape and weight, the throwing distance of the Gammon Bomb differs from other grenades in-game by having a shorter range. Players have the ability to underarm throw this grenade for the purpose of dropping it onto enemy positions from above, however, trying this at ground level may lead to… an unfortunate outcome.

The table below gives an idea of how the No.82 can damage or destroy different vehicle types.

Jack Jenkins, Game Designer - Expression Games

• Skirmish

• El Alamein Refresh
  
• Driel Updates

• No.4 Mk I Sniper (6 mags)
  
• Sten Gun Mk V (8 mags)
  
• No.82 Grenade ‘Gammon Bomb’
  
• Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Drum Mag (5 mags)
  
• Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Stick Mag (8 mags)

• Churchill Mk VII (Heavy Tank)
  
• Crusader Mk III (Medium Tank)
  
• M3 Stuart ‘Honey’ (Light Tank)

• British Airborne (Paid)
  
• Polish Parachute Brigade (Paid)
  
• Near Miss Helmets - British 8th Army (Free)

• The gore filter has been introduced as requested by content creators from the player base

General:

• [Fixed] Smoke grenades in the shadow of other objects appear to flicker with light and shadow
  
• [Fixed] Performance issues on all maps are observed when firing the flamethrower
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] Molotov's can be seen through smoke clouds
  
• [Fixed] Breathing while sprinting audio can overlap itself
  
• [Fixed] Sten Gun asset is positioned slightly too high when ADS-ing
  
• [Fixed] After changing video settings and leaving the game the settings did not apply to the game
  
• [Fixed] Loading in some specific maps will trigger a softlock - Rarely seen however a fix was found
  
• [Fixed] Character model arms will flail wildly & unrealistically when quickly switching between loadout items
  
• [Fixed] The top of the Churchill Mk III heavy tank has an area where there is no player or bullet collision
  
• [Fixed] The Churchill Mk III has high armour instead of medium on its rear panel
  
• [Fixed] The Lewis Gun has a capacity of 47 rounds rather than 97 and a different number of magazines for each British faction
  
• [Fixed] Players can hide the satchel charge inside the Churchill Mk III tank
  
• [Fixed] The Medic's armband is missing from the Khaki Drill uniform

Purple Heart Lane:

• [Fixed] [PHL] Sky rain PFX are generally invisible & do not match the intensity of the rain effect on the ground
  
• [Fixed] H1 Trees outside the playable area are brighter than others also low-quality bushes are present

Kharkov:

• [Fixed] Some destroyed vehicles across the map present stone SFX and PFX
  
• [Fixed] [F6] Burned house wrecks and snow assets are missing collision in sector F6

El Alamein:

• [Fixed] [B6] Tank stops after colliding with the sand near the main road
  
• [Fixed] [F7] [C3] Significant FPS drop in the sector when turning toward the landscape
  
• [Fixed] El Alamein's colour scheme feels flat
  
• [Fixed] Bullet collision is not present on canvas covered barrels and tires in multiple sectors
  
• [Fixed] Vehicle outlines can be seen on the tactical map
  
• [Fixed] Incorrect penetration value on wooden railings
  
• [Fixed] [C6] The smoke in sector C6 presents LOD issues
  
• [Fixed] Airfield Hangers - sandbag asset not rendering
  
• [Fixed] Invisible bullet collision is present on the hangar's door
  
• [Fixed] Uneven terrain can cause built items to glitch into the ground or sky
  
• [Fixed] [I4] Floating Cart Asset located in sector I4
  
• [Fixed] Infantry mines will partially clip through the rear floor of the aircraft hangers
  
• [Fixed] H8 The cliff found in sector H8 presents misalignment issues
  
• [Fixed] [A5] The cliff found in sector A5 is misaligned with the ground
  
• [Fixed] H4 Wooden Pallets present draw distance issues
  
• [Fixed] In multiple hangars the terrain is misaligned
  
• [Fixed] [E3] Misaligned rock formation in sector E3
  
• [Fixed] [B5] A pile of crate assets is floating on sector B5
  
• [Fixed] A ripple effect is visible in a small radius around the player when driving on flat surfaces
  
• [Fixed] [J6] Assets in this sector are missing textures, polygon faces or are very noticeably misplaced
  
• [Fixed] [J5] Assets in this sector are missing textures, polygon faces or are very noticeably misplaced
  
• [Fixed] [C9] Assets in this sector are missing textures, polygon faces or are very noticeably misplaced

Driel:

• [Fixed] [A1] Windmil presents LOD issue
  
• [Fixed] [G1] Black textures can be seen on some steps
  
• [Fixed] [H9] A road is misaligned on sector H9

Hell Let Loose console & PC owners will receive the ‘Hell’ Pattern Trench Gun for free in Classified: France '44!



You are tasked with commanding an elite team of allied special operators in Nazi-occupied France wreaking havoc in the run-up to D-Day in an ambitious turn-based tactics game. Take on the might of Germany's war machine and launch daring raids in occupied territory.

Classified: France ‘44 releases March 5th on Steam and current-gen consoles.

No activation is needed, it will show in your inventory if you own HLL.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2085370/Classified_France_44/

Hello everyone,

We loved your positive reception to the Mortain changes shared in the latest dev brief! Thank you for participating in PTEs and sharing your insights – we’re pleased with the valuable feedback the testing periods have provided.

We’re delighted to reveal the Hell Let Loose 2024 roadmap! All content stipulated below is not an exhaustive representation of this year’s content – all updates will continue to comprise quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes.

The content ahead represents a stable development plan and allows us to confidently meet targets, having learned from overly ambitious roadmaps in the past. Everything below will be released across all platforms.



We’ll share more on each aspect of the roadmap as we progress.

Thank you, we’ll see you on the frontlines in an exciting year for Hell Let Loose!

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

Hello everyone,

Welcome to our Mortain-focused dev brief, highlighting various changes and implementations thanks to your feedback.

Mortain is a new map for Warfare, Offensive and Skirmish gamemodes. This map is based on the US defence of the French town of Mortain, which sits in a shallow valley – where the US rallied against German troops amid Operation Lüttich. The battle took place in August 1944, in Normandy, France.

In this dev brief, one of our Senior Environment Artists will cover enterable buildings, provide additional context on Collégiale Saint Evroult and La Petite Chapelle Saint-Michel, discuss the environment; foliage and more. We want to be as transparent as possible when it comes to our development process on new maps – and we hope this provides useful insight into what it entails.

Mortain is due for release after part 2 of the British Rework.

I would first like to say a huge thank you to all of the players who participated in the Mortain PTE. The team across all disciplines are incredibly grateful for the tremendous amount of feedback, both positive and constructive about your experiences. Now we've had time to thoroughly process your comments, let’s talk about some of the pain points and changes we have already started to implement thanks to your suggestions.

Another thing to note is that when we have released images of Mortain in the past, I've used offline rendering techniques to produce the best image quality possible. But, to give you the most up-to-date images since the map is still in development, the in-game screenshots within this dev briefing are taken straight from the engine in real-time, so what you are seeing is Mortain from a developer-only point of view and may not represent in-game accurately. All of the work in this briefing is a work in progress and subject to change.

We acknowledge that players generally really enjoyed the urban combat that Mortain had to offer. Still, one consistent piece of feedback we received is that it was disappointing how few buildings were enterable by the player.

In truth, this is a concern we had about the map for a while, but due to the amount of new content required for Mortain and the significant amount of work required to retrofit old interiors with our refreshed buildings, we decided to create a singular variation of enterable buildings that could be reused across the map. Upon reflection, however, we understand that more enterable buildings are a priority for players. I'm happy to say that we have successfully created 3 more variations of enterable buildings and have begun their rollout in Mortain.

In real terms, due to the number of reusable assets we utilise within Hell Let Loose maps, this means up to 63 buildings already placed in Mortain could potentially be accessible across the map, with the possibility of more to come.

Given that we want the map to flow and provide enjoyable combat for players, our Level Design team now has the task of deciding which buildings they feel appropriate to be enterable - and will be implemented with support from our Technical Art team, to ensure this doesn't impact performance.

In addition to this, we are currently producing an extended amount of modular pieces used in our destroyed buildings kit, including floors, stairs and strategically placed inner walls, to offer players a similar experience to fully constructed enterable buildings, while maintaining the destroyed appearance and feel we offered in the PTE. We are excited to implement the new assets and thank the community for raising concerns which have created positive changes for Mortain's urban gameplay.

As with any PTE, members of the development team jumped into Mortain to experience first-hand how players were feeling as it went live and one piece of consistent feedback we heard was that the town, and in particular the buildings, felt too clean and lacked immersion.

Admittedly, with Mortain being the first map constructed by Expression Games, optimizing old assets and applying memory-saving shaders was our priority. We wanted to tackle performance issues seen across other maps, and although we researched to make sure textures and materials were dated correctly for the period and location, we missed the mark on creating a town that feels engaging and at war. Now that we are confident that our optimization work has been effective, we will look to polish the visual aesthetic of the town to be more in line with an active battlefield.

For us, that will include reworking textures to look old and grimy, smaller varieties of rubble will be implemented to compliment our existing piles and a VFX pass will be done as well as other ways we are looking to add polish and immersion.

Besides enterable buildings, further feedback we received, is that players were disappointed that both the Collégiale Saint Evroult and La Petite Chapelle Saint-Michel are unenterable.

We completely understand the community's frustration with the decision to have them closed off, and so I'd like to give a brief explanation of why this was the case.

Collégiale Saint Evroult - The large church within Mortain town, is a historically accurate building that remained largely untouched during the conflict, but I should start by saying that we agree that it really should be open.

The decision to keep the Collégiale Saint Evroult closed was made very early on in the development of the map. As with any game, there are a certain amount of people working on a given piece of work, and at the time we prioritised our efforts across lots of content which is to be revealed in the roadmap. Being a historically accurate building, we would look to provide an accurate representation of the interior, as well as the exterior, which is a large task given its size and technical complexity.

Having reassessed what we need to focus on to meet our proposed schedules, we have decided to concentrate our resources on delivering the rest of this year’s roadmap content polished and on time.

That being said, we want to be as transparent and open with players as possible, so the possibility of us opening the church post-release of the map is not out of the question, we just need to balance it across our priorities as a team and the roadmap going forward. For the time being, we will look to add set dressing around the church so it’s clearer to players that this isn’t accessible.

Much like the Collégiale Saint Evroult, La Petite Chapelle is a historically accurate building that would require a bespoke interior mesh, and although it could be feasible to open the Chapelle in time, we feel getting the town to a good place is our greatest priority, and so this also won't be available on the release of Mortain.

We received lots of positive comments about the elevation and uniqueness of the Petite Chapelle capture point, and the current consensus is that it's well-balanced from a gameplay perspective, so any decision to open it would have to be carefully considered. But again, this is not out of the question further down the line.

The positive reception to Mortain's luscious new foliage has been overwhelming, although we acknowledge that there were some teething problems.

To ensure the map ran smoothly during testing, we overcompensated by culling grass, trees, and crops earlier than we needed to. Given that the performance for Mortain's wooded areas is good, we are confident that we can push the distance at which foliage culls further away, so there should be less advantage for snipers and players with a keen eye.

However, we cannot guarantee that the foliage will always keep you hidden from several hundred meters away, as we need to ensure that the map still runs smoothly and that comes at a great cost. Despite this, we hope the next time you play Mortain there is a noticeable difference when observing foliage at a distance, and as a minimum, it maintains consistency with other Hell Let Loose maps in terms of render distance.

Although this is a general overview of the key pieces of content we are currently working on, every comment and score submitted through the PTE feedback form has been analysed by the team, so there are lots of changes being worked on that aren't mentioned in this summary.

I hope that this insight into our plans for Mortain shows our commitment to listening to and actioning your feedback. Hell Let Loose is defined by its gritty feeling and tactical gameplay, but more importantly, its community. As developers, we naturally won't get everything perfect the first time. But, I know first-hand that every person on our team is dedicated to bringing you the best experience possible, so we thank you all for your contribution to making that a reality.

See you in-game,

Ryan Thomason-Jones - Senior Environment Artist, Expression Games

We hope you enjoyed reading about the changes and improvements coming to Mortain. We’re looking forward to sharing more details and developer-focused information throughout the year.

Thank you to the development team across all disciplines for their contributions to Mortain, and for sharing their hard work and passion for Hell Let Loose.

Mortain will release after part 2 of the British Rework; but before that – the roadmap. Reveal coming shortly!

Hello everyone,

Public testing is now underway for Patch 14.8 – British Forces Rework Part 2. This is the final part of the rework, with our focus shifting to Update 15 after 14.8’s release.

This testing period will run over the weekend, closing off at 2 pm GMT on February 12th. 

PTE 14.8 will feature seven maps in rotation across Warfare and Skirmish modes. Our goal for this testing period is to gather your feedback on the latest iteration of Skirmish – thanks to your feedback – on Driel and El-Alamein. In addition, we want your thoughts on how the new tanks function in Warfare; the historical accuracy of upcoming DLC and your impressions on some new weapons.

Please continue to read for an extensive look at PTE 14.8. You can find the Feedback Forms at the bottom of the page.

Thank you, as always, for taking the time to participate in our public testing environments – helping us shape Hell Let Loose for the better.

Next week, you can expect to see a Dev Brief on Mortain – covering changes stemming from your feedback.

• El-Alamein - Warfare - Day
  
• Driel - Warfare - Day
  
• El-Alamein - Skirmish - Day & Dusk
  
• Driel - Skirmish - Day, Dusk & Night

Skirmish Mode Updates

Based on the community sentiment feedback from our previous round of Skirmish PTEs on El-Alamein & Driel for the ‘Phased’ & ‘Majority’ modes, combined with the feedback we had received from the Foy & Kharkov ‘Seeding’ mode PTE’s, we have settled on refining the core gameplay loop first for the aforementioned ‘Seeding’ mode before branching out into other modes.

‘Seeding’ has also been rebranded as ‘Control', the decision behind this was to rebrand it into a title that is more fitting for the type of gameplay loop involved.

For 14.8 we will be releasing to you the first ‘Control’ maps under the ‘Skirmish' umbrella: El-Alamein, and Driel, with the potential to explore and refine alternative modes and mechanics in the future.

Since the last PTE, the following adjustments have been made all Control mode maps:

• The match timer has been reduced from 45 minutes down to 33 minutes, which includes the warm-up timer.
  
• The warm-up timer at the beginning of a match has been adjusted to 3 minutes to match Warfare/Offensive.
  
• Overtime that exists in Offensive mode has been implemented. If a team is capturing the objective when the timer hits zero, they then have until their manpower resource depletes to zero to capture the point.

To allow players to begin the match on an equal footing, the following changes have been implemented:

• Each faction now has a set of pre-placed nodes at each HQ, to provide enough Commander resources when the match starts.
  
• Each faction now has one medium-sized tank pre-placed at a HQ from the beginning, to allow the Armour squad to jump straight into the action without relying on a Commander. Each subsequent tank will have to be spawned in via a Commander as usual.

As always, we would love to hear your thoughts on these adjustments, ahead of release.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

El-Alamein (Skirmish) - Oasis Capture Point

With Oasis being the central capture point on the map, it sits right in the heart of our talented Environment Art’s piece of map refresh work, so we decided to make that the centre of attention for Skirmish Mode. The mixture of high, open elevation juxtaposed with the ruined compounds provide an interesting battle ahead which should cater to most playstyles.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

Driel (Skirmish) - Underpass Capture Point

With Skirmish - Control’s focus on a single capture point, we wanted to utilise an area of the map that catered to multiple playstyles, with a myriad of approaches to gain control of the area.

To accomplish this, we created a custom capture point just north of the traditional “South Railway” objective in Warfare and Offensive, allowing players to fight over the “Underpass”. To enhance this area we placed additional train cars to block overly long sightlines straight down the railway tracks, as well as increasing the foliage and defensive structures along the embankments and surrounding the underpass itself.

Kienan Southern - Junior Level Designer, Expression Games

British Rework - Second Instalment

As a design team, we wanted the HLL community to help shape this second installment of the British rework by choosing the tank to replace the Cromwell in North Africa. The public vote showed a clear winner and development began on the Crusader Mk III, which will be available in El-Alamein for players to get hands-on with during this PTE.

The previous improvements that came with part one of the British rework allowed us to take a deeper look into the historical accuracy within the faction and continue to build on what we started. Tweaks to existing loadouts have been made across both British factions, replacing some weapons (like the Pattern 1914 Sniper) with more fitting, historically accurate choices for the theatre and the time.

With these changes to the loadouts and the addition of new uniforms, weapons and tanks, 14.8 is helping to shape the faction into being the iconic WW2 force that many from the HLL community are so familiar with.

Jack Jenkins - Game Designer, Expression Games

Patch 14.8 includes the second instalment of the British rework, complete with new loadouts, uniforms, and vehicles for the North African (8th Army) & European Theatres.

• Introduction of the British Airborne Uniform (Paid DLC)
  
• Introduction of the Polish Parachute Brigade Uniform (Paid DLC)
  
• Introduction of the British 8th Army ‘Near Miss’ Helmets (Free DLC)

• Gammon Bomb (No.82 Grenade) - European Theatre: the Gammon Bomb (No.82 Grenade) will be available to the Anti-Tank Ambusher, and Engineer Field Engineer loadouts.
  
• Sten Mk V - European Theatre: the Sten Mk V will be available to the Officer Standard Issue, Assault Standard Issue, Anti-Tank Ambusher, Engineer Field Engineer and Spotter Standard Issue loadouts.
  
• No.4 Mk I Sniper - European Theatre: the No.4 Mk I Sniper will be available to both Sniper Standard Issue and Veteran loadouts - North African Theatre: the No.4 Mk I Sniper will be available to both Sniper Standard Issue and Veteran loadouts.
  
• Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Drum Mag - European Theatre: the Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Drum Mag will be available to the existing Assault Raider loadout and to the new Automatic Rifleman Drum Gunner loadout.
  
• Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Stick Mag - European Theatre: the Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Stick Mag will be available to the Commander Standard Issue and Assault Veteran loadouts.

• Churchill Mk VII (Heavy Tank) | European Theatre - playable on Driel Warfare
  
• Crusader Mk III (Medium Tank) | North African Theatre - playable on El-Alamein Warfare/Skirmish
  
• M3 Stuart ‘Honey’ (Light Tank) | North African Theatre - playable El-Alamein Warfare

These PTE sessions are a way for you as a community to feedback on Hell Let Loose work in progress, which means we can look to implement your feedback before a patch or update is released. Although we can currently only hold public testing sessions on Steam, we encourage everyone to take part to be able to share feedback.


For today’s session, there are a list of unfinished items/bugs that we’re aware of, including:

• The game may crash after the timer ends on El-Alamein Skirmish.
  
• On the enlist screen, all servers state the gamemode as ‘Warfare’ (even though it may be ‘Offensive’ or ‘Skirmish’) and only updates once the user has visited said server.
  
• ‘Driel - Day’ has the same icon on the enlist screen as 'Driel - Dusk'.
  
• ‘El-Alamein - Skirmish - Day’ loading screen has incorrect text.
  
• Some Skirmish hints may not contain the final text.
  
• Within Skirmish Maps, some pre-placed nodes may not be visible, however, resources will still correctly increase every minute - the base rate is 50/min for every resource. Reloading into the server resolves this, but is not necessary.
  
• The M3 Stuart ‘Honey’ is missing player collision on its turret.
  
• The Churchill Mk III and Mk VII suspension parameters are still being refined.
  
• The Churchill Mk III and Mk VII has some locations on which satchels can be placed, but not defused.
  
• The Churchill Mk III and Mk VII can have various vehicles drive underneath it.
  
• The Churchill Mk VII incorrectly has heavy armour on its rear section, instead of medium armour.
  
• The Crusader Mk III suspension parameters are still being refined.
  
• The British Airborne and Polish Parachute Brigade Berets have a LOD hole that can appear on the top of their heads.
  
• The British Airborne and Polish Parachute Brigade helmets are not yet implemented in-game.
  
• The ‘Near Miss’ British helmet is currently being displayed as 'Airborne Helmet’.
  
• El-Alamein has multiple objects presenting shadow blending inconsistencies.
  
• El-Alamein has rock formations presenting a poor level of detail.
  
• The Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Stick Mag has the incorrect 3D preview, loadout icon and line art.
  
• The Thompson 1928A1 Horizontal Grip Drum Mag has the incorrect 3D preview, loadout icon and line art.
  
• The No.4 Mk I Sniper is showing as the non-sniper variant in the barracks and deployment role screen.
  
• The Sten Mk V has the incorrect preview in the barracks and deployment role screen.

You are welcome to both stream and record PTE footage, but as these sessions are showing unfinished work, it’s always good to let your individual communities know that the footage is from a PTE session, where you might encounter unfinished items, bugs and other issues.


Once you have completed a game and are ready to provide feedback, please use the forms below!


Check your Steam Library for the Hell Let Loose (Public Testing) application, or re-download it from the Steam store, you’ll want to boot this version up to take part in the PTE!

Once you’re in and have selected a server, you’ll be able to test out the new game mode!

Submit Feedback: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=dzO7_29vdE2wkFIXThwvGavPYX8LIbRMtn3WncW9OkpUQjk5V0dGNDhXWFhaMkk2SU40VE1JMERFOS4u

Share Bug Reports: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=dzO7_29vdE2wkFIXThwvGavPYX8LIbRMtn3WncW9OkpURFVVU1hHREhFVVU4UTVZMFdDMVQ4RzJHWS4u


Because PTEs are run on development servers that have logging activated, you will experience a slight decrease in performance. You will also not earn any XP and your progress will not be carried over to the live game.

Hello everyone,

Patch 14.7 is now live on all platforms! This update is primarily focused on bug fixing and enhancing the in-game experience. This version also targets some of the crash issues that console players have been incurring.

Up next is Patch 14.8 – a larger, content-heavy update that we’ll expand on in Dev Briefs soon.

Thank you to everyone who participated in our Mortain PTE. The feedback has been invaluable, and we will be detailing what’s changed in the weeks ahead.

• [Fixed] When disconnecting controller, players cannot use the mouse to clear the "Controller Disconnected" prompt
  
• [Fixed] Lost Connection to Host dialog box cannot be navigated with controller
  
• [Fixed] Focus is lost from the "Accept Invite?" prompt when spamming "request permission to join a unit"
  
• [Fixed] When launching the title in Offline mode a softlock is occurring on the IIS screen
  
• [Fixed] The DAK - Uniform is clipping with Erich's head in game and in barracks
  
• [Fixed] The Churchill Mk III presents extended invisible collision when attempting to place a satchel on the front of the tank.
  
• [Fixed] There is no Chat page in the Communication tab of the Field Manual
  
• [Fixed] Relaunching the game will reset multiple Gameplay settings to default
  
• [Fixed] The title does not render text in the Basic Training menu when the device is localized to Japanese.
  
• [Fixed] Player is unable to join some servers due to an error that occurs when a large number of servers are displayed at once
  
• [Fixed] Player is unable to join some servers due to a Game is Full message despite multiple empty slots being present
  
• [Fixed] Disconnecting on the Enlist menu, backing out and then re-accessing the menu will occasionally cause a crash.
  
• [Fixed] [Console] The player encounters a crash when suspending the application during the bootflow
  
• [Fixed] [Console] The title sometimes crashes when attempting to join the server in Warfare & Offensive mode

• [Fixed] [B5] Burned wood asset has a metal PFX when being shot
  
• [Fixed] Brick stove asset presents wooden PFX and SFX when being shot
  
• [Fixed] [B5] Players can clip inside the terrain in sector B5
  
• [Fixed] [H8] The terrain in sector H8 has no player collision
  
• [Fixed] [F8] Players are able to clip inside a part of the terrain found in sector F8
  
• [Fixed] [E5] A specific mudbank is missing player collision in sector E5
  
• [Fixed] [D4] Players are able to clip inside a part of the terrain found in sector D4
  
• [Fixed] [I4] The player can clip through the terrain in sector I4

• [Fixed] [F6] Mud SFX can be heard while walking inside the bunker

• [Fixed] No footsteps SFX can be heard inside bunkers

• [Fixed] No footsteps SFX can be heard inside bunkers

• [Fixed] Mudbanks have slush/water sound effect when the player is walking/sprinting

• [Fixed] [C2] Invisible collision present on one side of the bridge

• [Fixed] When quickly turning around, the rain effect on PHL will briefly disappear and will then slowly come back in.
  
• [Fixed] Rain effects in PHL cannot be seen when shadow quality is set to High or lower.

First off, a huge welcome to our new players; our recent influx of players who've joined us on console and PC. It’s completely normal to be closing down your machine for the day after an abundance of deaths, compounded by disorientation and dubious reactions from veteran players.

The first round of public testing for our new Warfare and Offensive map, Mortain, starts now! Taking place over the weekend, running until Monday 22 January, 11 am GMT.

We loved seeing your excitement for Mortain’s reveal in our previous Dev Brief [read here], so we’re opening the doors early for feedback. Mortain is still a few months out, so we want to collate your impressions as soon as we can, to ensure it’s polished and balanced for release.

This testing period aims to gather your insight on the overall level design – we want your thoughts on capture points, playstyles, vehicle spawns, artillery positioning, pre-placed garrisons, flow, art, and any issues you may encounter.

Please scroll to the bottom of the page for links to the forms to fill out feedback. Thank you to all of you who are taking the time to participate and help improve Mortain.


In 1944, German forces attempted a counter-offensive against the allied Operation Cobra breakout from Normandy. This counter-offensive was known as Operation Lüttich. This was planned to cut off the US spearheads, establish a German defensive perimeter in Normandy, reach the coastal port of Avranches, and seal the Operation Cobra breakout.

On the 7th of August, German forces assaulted the US-held Mortain and was successful in capturing key locations. This assault led to bitter and fierce fighting at Hill 314, with the US forces being surrounded becoming one of the recognisable heroic stands of WW2.

As this is the first full map release after taking the project on from Black Matter, we wanted it to have as much detail as possible from a sound perspective.

Mortain uses a newly developed audio system, where random ambient sounds are switched out depending on your location on the map. In short, these ambient sounds follow you wherever you go and are playing all the time, but will dynamically change when you enter a new location. This covers urban areas, forests, destroyed buildings and so on. A similar system was already in place for explosions, so it seemed like a nice progression to move this into the ambience system to support the lush areas created by the environment art and level design teams.

In the last major update, we added functionality for weapons to sound different when fired in enclosed spaces like churches, bunkers, houses and so on. We wanted this to continue in Mortain; so all interior spaces have this treatment, from pillbox-type bunkers in the forests, right up to large houses in the destroyed town. We loved seeing the positive reactions when players first heard these changes last time and would like this to continue when playing in Mortain. We really hope you enjoy the sound of this new map as much as we enjoyed creating it.

Richard Blackley - Audio Director, Expression Games

Mortain introduces extra detail not previously achievable on Hell Let Loose maps. It's important to us as a team that we strive to improve the visual quality with every new map and so I'd like to mention a couple of changes we’ve made when creating Mortain that gives examples of where we’ve improved previous workflows.

The foliage has been reworked from the ground up. On previous maps, this was procedurally spawned using the landscape materials, which added a huge performance impact when blending several surfaces. Every tree, bush and blade of grass has been hand-painted to allow us more flexible control over foliage density, variety and different species. New meshes, shaders and textures have been implemented across foliage types, which visually are a marked improvement on previous iterations.

Given the density of this new foliage, there may be cause for concern surrounding performance, however in our testing so far, foliage has shown to be very performant. Although PCs in general tend to have more processing power than consoles, console players should expect the same foliage quality as PC players without impact.

Almost every building in Mortain has been reworked with new textures, geometry and shaders, which in extreme cases have up to 100x fewer draw calls than buildings in other maps. These buildings all utilize detail normal maps, which is a technique used to enhance visual fidelity up close, while not making a significant impact on performance. This technique has also been applied to props where possible to offer similar benefits.

Something we’re proud of, is providing players with an accurate depiction of the region, so the terrain uses real-world DEM/height data and has been compared with maps from the period to ensure we stay true to the shape of the battlefield at the time, accommodating for gameplay where needed.

Being the first map without Black Matter input, there has been a tremendous effort from the team to understand how Hell Let Loose maps are built and thanks to this we believe that Mortain offers a unique experience that no other map does, but also sticks to the principles that make them so immersive and believable.

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback, listening to any concerns and implementing changes where necessary so that when Mortain releases officially, we can offer an enjoyable experience that players are excited to play.

Ryan Thomason-Jones - Senior Environment Artist, Expression Games

Mortain is officially the first map the team at Expression Games has researched, designed, and built from the ground up with new workflows and processes.

It was important for the team to choose a map that offered something different compared to other maps we currently have in Hell Let Loose.

Mortain was not only of historical importance during WW2 and Operation Lüttich, but also the location itself and how it could support the Hell Let Loose game modes. Mortain provides our community with a new, but still ‘tied to its roots’ experience and stood out to us as a location with lots of potential.

Mortain has a lot of history both before and during WW2, with iconic and memorable locations, including the battle-scarred town of Mortain featuring the US headquarters - Hotel De La Poste, Hill 314 that was held by US forces against German attacks and the stunning Petite Chappelle Saint-Michel that sits on top a cliff south of Hill 314.

It was very important for the team to include all of these locations and do it the right way, with extensive research and careful consideration for historical accuracy, but with a little room for creative license that still felt grounded and believable.

Mortain offers an abundance of variation, one of which is the elevation of the map, including cliffs, steep slopes and hills. The map also features lots of dense forests, fields, rocky formations and farms, and it is this level of variation that will challenge squad teamwork and tactics in different ways and emphasise the importance of different roles, which we feel is critical to creating memorable Hell Let Loose battles.

I’m incredibly proud of the team and the amount of love and care they have put into the map. We hope our community enjoys playing the map as much as we’ve loved making it.

Chris Robinson - Lead Level Designer, Expression Games

For Hill 314, we wanted to take a location that is both historically accurate and exciting for a Hell Let Loose experience never seen before in a central Europe map. The high elevation provides excellent vantage points and supports rugged challenging terrain for vehicles to have to navigate. The defensive trenches provide opportunities for gritty infantry-focused crossfire battles to take place.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

Capture Point - Hill 314

To capture the majesty of the Petite Chappelle Saint-Michel, we decided to make that the heart of the Capture Point theme. Taking reference of the existing countryside at the time, this enabled us to cater a dense woodland experience to break up those long sight lines. The natural terrain encourages players to build their defensive network to maintain maximum control of the point.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

Capture Point - Petite Chappelle Saint Michel

Situated as the last bastion of the U.S. defence of Mortain, the Hotel De La Poste tells the story of how battered the town was with artillery fire during Operation Lüttich through a Capture Point blend of narrow, partially destroyed streets, fragmented urban warfare and close quarters combat.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

Capture Point - Hotel De La Poste

With this Capture Point, we wanted to create a fictitious yet believable outpost that the German forces could have used to scout the Allied forces at Petite Chappelle Saint-Michel and Hill 314. This camp features two netted trench systems, tiered in height to allow for infantry crossfire between them. Both trenches surround a lookout tower, which is the prime position for Officers to mark approaching enemies through their binoculars and coordinate the team's defensive strategy.

Kienan Southern - Junior Level Designer, Expression Games

Capture Point - German Recon Camp

The Destroyed German Convoy captures the theme of a true story based on fleeing German forces that was stopped in their tracks by artillery fire. We knew these events happened but were unsure of where exactly. Because we found the story compelling, we decided to use this event as a Capture Point theme and provide routes along a main road that vehicles would have to either carefully navigate, or employ their strategic battle plan to circumnavigate the area.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

Capture Point - Destroyed German Convoy

Our approach to map creation follows a series of stages from our internal workflows and processes, with feedback and reviews to follow each stage. With Mortain we focused on the layout and theme of the Capture Point first, going through several rounds of iteration and feedback to make sure that they flowed nicely, and were believable, before expanding this process out into what we call “Transitional Areas”. A “Transitional Area” is defined as a space in between that connects each of the Capture Points, to allow the player a seamless transition from area to area.

With a close collaboration with the art team, we have been able to create a believable map from the ground up that not only looks amazing but also functions well for a Hell Let Loose experience. The art team was given the flexibility and freedom to add their artistic flair on top of the existing blockouts, and really bring the story of the map to life.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

Mortain - Tactical Map - Work in Progress


Mortain - Transitional Area - Early Blockout



Mortain - German HQ - Early Blockout



Mortain - German HQ - Early Blockout


Mortain - Le Hermitage Farm - Early Blockout



Mortain - Destroyed German Convoy - Early Blockout



Mortain - Town - Early Blockout



Mortain - Hotel De La Poste - Early Blockout

With regard to playtesting, it was important to not only enjoy the fruits of the teams' labour but to highlight and catch any fundamental issues with how the map flows and functions. Dedicated Commanders, Officers, and Tank Commanders, who had a lot of experience with Hell Let Loose, were assigned beforehand, to ensure that no matter what stage of development the map was at, the match would be played as close to authentic as possible. Following the conclusion of the match, a debriefing session was held, to discuss any issues/feedback from the team, these were always captured and collated so that we could take appropriate action to strengthen the map.

We were also not afraid to contrive our playtests to cater to specific scenarios, for example: If we were unsure of how a particular Capture Point worked from a Level Design point of view, we would spend time focusing only on the single Capture Point and address any feedback afterwards.

Carl Rutter - Senior Level Designer, Expression Games

• [WIP] The client will crash when choosing to leave the server.
  
• Floating Artillery - Offensive only - Functionality OK
  
• [Mortain] The user is unable to place down outposts or garrisons when standing on rubble piles or sidewalks

It’s essentially finished. The content is all planned and dates have been set. We just need to do our due diligence and ensure that all disciplines agree on timelines, to ensure we can deliver promised content on time. Then we can focus on turning an exhaustive spreadsheet into an appealing asset. We’re hoping to share this in February! We’ll keep you posted.


These PTE sessions are a way for you as a community to feedback on Hell Let Loose work in progress, which means we can look to implement your feedback before a patch or update is released. Although we can currently only hold public testing sessions on Steam, we encourage everyone to take part to be able to share feedback.


You are welcome to both stream and record PTE footage, but as these sessions are showing unfinished work, it’s always good to let your individual communities know that the footage is from a PTE session, where you might encounter unfinished items, bugs and other issues.


Once you have completed a game and are ready to provide feedback, please use the forms below!


Check your Steam Library for the Hell Let Loose (Public Testing) application, or re-download it from the Steam store, you’ll want to boot this version up to take part in the PTE!

Once you’re in and have selected a server, you’ll be able to test out the new game mode!

Submit Feedback: https://forms.office.com/e/ZcW9ccDYbi

Share Bug Reports: https://forms.office.com/e/UWa8kRYhMQ

Please note:

Because PTEs are run on development servers that have logging activated, you will experience a slight decrease in performance. You will also not earn any XP and your progress will not be carried over to the live game.

Hello everyone,

Welcome to our final Developer Briefing of the year. This edition will focus on 2024, showcasing a glimpse of our plans for the year ahead. Thank you for your continued, valuable feedback throughout the past twelve months — your insights helped us shape Hell Let Loose, and we believe we’re now heading in the right direction. Patch 14.6 is behind us, with work underway on 14.7, which will be the first update of 2024.

We plan to reveal the new Roadmap early next year to showcase upcoming content. Meanwhile, let’s have a look at some early-in-progress assets. These are all works in progress and are expected to be released across multiple updates throughout next year. The following WIPs are not an exhaustive look into next year, just a few snippets of content to expect.


A new commander uniform, inspired by US Army Officer George Patton; a revered practitioner of mobile-tank warfare in the European and Mediterranean theatres during WW2 – his illustrious military career only marred by brash and erratic behavior.

“Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”




This new uniform is a part of the Winter rework. The coat is covered with the residue of frozen conditions.




We’ve updated the rain VFX workflow on Purple Heart Lane and enhanced the puddle placements to be procedurally generated – improving the look of wet roads.






Going into 2024, we are planning to clean up some key UI elements that continue to cause poor User Experiences across HLL. Each one contributes to a lack of understanding for newer players, complex onboarding systems, accessibility, clarity, and legibility flaws, and mounting design debt that prevents flexibility to adapt to future developments in the game.

For the Tactical Map, there have been lots of considerations surrounding all aspects of the design. However, our main focus was highlighting the most important information, reducing clutter surrounding the player, and providing clarity on the state of the game.

Designs not final






For the Field Manual, we understand that onboarding new players and helping existing players is not where we want it to be. We are continuing to look into different ways we can enhance the Field Manual to support those who need help understanding the core mechanics of the game.

Designs not final




Updated on the right – the fire is completely reworked to improve performance and reduce the blown-out look of the original. VFX particle behaviour has also been reworked as well as adding in LODs that were missing on the original.




We’re implementing this primary British cruiser tank – used in the early part of WW2 – with the British Rework update Part Two. Sporting a more powerful cannon, the MK3 still boasts an impressively short reload time of 6 seconds – clearing the path for firing more rounds to finish enemies. This tank demonstrates fantastic engagement opportunities owing to its flexibility, allowing it to strategically peek over ridges in most maps.




The second part of the British Rework will introduce the Gammon Bomb (No.82 Grenade) to Hell Let Loose. Developed as a replacement for the Sticky Bomb; a volatile grenade known for being temperamental and dangerous – the Gammon Bomb served as an improvised alternative primarily used to destroy parked aircraft or vehicles.




Mortain is a new map for Warfare and Offensive modes, due early next year. This map is based on the US defense of the French town of Mortain, which sits in a shallow valley – where the US rallied against German troops amid Operation Lüttich. The battle took place in August 1944, in Normandy, France.

Units from the 30th Division, including the 2nd Battalion, 120th Infantry, and two tank destroyer platoons, were dispatched to relieve the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry. Their directive was to defend the town of Mortain, strategically utilising Hill 314 (also known as MontJoie) as a tactical defensive and overlook position.

During Operation Lüttich the town was destroyed, left in ruins with only a few buildings standing. The destroyed version of the town will be featured in the map.

Offering a plethora of notable locations – both historical and natural – Mortain features themes of contrasting areas throughout. Rock formations permeate the map alongside hilly areas of countryside and farmland.

Petite Chappelle Saint Michel

Fight for control of the famous Petite Chappelle Saint Michel from Mortain. Set atop the steep inclines of Hill 314, we have accommodated on-foot infantry routes by providing ample surrounding natural woodland cover for players to ambush their enemies and opportunities to be able to use the natural terrain to their advantage. While the Armour units must forge a path through the dense forestry, or navigate the winding dirt roads leading up to this rural central Capture Point.

Hotel De La Poste

Set in the beating heart of urban Mortain, fight over the iconic Hotel De La Poste. Infantry players must navigate the destruction of nearby shelled buildings, using rubble to their advantage amongst the devastation. Building defences at key locations can soon turn the tide of battle. Meanwhile, Armour squads have been provided routes to navigate the narrow streets of the town around the U.S’s last stand Capture Point.

Mortain is the first map built from the ground up after the departure of Black Matter. We wanted to take the principles of how Hell Let Loose maps are currently built, continuing to honour the core aspects of how the level and art is made, but also improve on them wherever possible.

We have updated Foliage, which allows us to create dense luscious forestry areas without performance impact. Stories, references and documents from the time have been thoroughly researched, to recreate historically accurate buildings where possible, and give Hell Let Loose players a glimpse at what war was like for the soldiers during that period. We look forward to talking more about these features, our process and sharing information about the development of the map as a whole soon.

The team is incredibly talented and dedicated. We’re always listening to player feedback, so we are incredibly excited to get it in front of players when the time is right. But for now, please enjoy these images that give a preview of what you can expect from Mortain, and we look forward to being able to share, test, and play it with you all in 2024

- Ryan Thomason-Jones, Senior Environment Artist

Thank you for your continued support, we look forward to seeing you next year! Have a wonderful Holidays and New Year. There's much more to share in 2024!

Hey everyone,

Patch 14.6 is now live! This update focuses on bug fixing and refining gameplay, with the addition of two night map variants: Stalingrad and Kharkov.

We’ve also made improvements to vaulting, and addressed some of the rain issues on Purple Heart Lane — we’re looking to fully resolve this in 14.7. Please see full details in the changelog below.


We’re continuing to implement more night variants with this update, to offer a variety of experiences for each map. In the weeks ahead, we’ll be giving you a first look at an entirely new map and tanks for Warfare and Offensive.


Kharkov Night | Wide open snow-covered fields illuminated only by the moon and flames



Stalingrad Night | A derelict battlefield permeated with destruction



The largest Soviet airborne operation of World War II took place during fighting around Vyazma in January and February 1942. German forces were partially surrounded, and the Soviet command developed a plan to cut them off. For nine days, more than 7,300 paratroopers were dropped under adverse weather conditions. The operation was a disaster, with the majority of airborne troopers becoming surrounded themselves. The depleted survivors fought their way out during the next several months.

After the Dnieper operation, there were further small-scale missions; however, the airborne forces continued fighting primarily in an infantry role. Airborne soldiers were dropped in actions against Japan in 1945 as well. In that theater of operations, their missions were largely to secure territory rather than take it from the enemy.

• [Added] Kharkov Night
  
• [Added] Stalingrad Night

• [Added] Red Skies (The Soviet Airborne uniform)

• [Changed] It was found that a previous vaulting bug fix had inadvertently introduced opportunities for the server and client to become de-synchronised, during vaulting under certain network conditions. This would sometimes cause vault initialisation to fail, leading to unwanted behavior. This fix was reworked to solve the issue while maintaining the synchronisation of the client and server.

• [Fixed] Undefined splash VFX where the raindrops
  * - Please be aware this does cause an issue wherein rain will not appear on Xbox consoles and will also not appear on shadow settings below “Epic” on PC due to legacy issues with the setup of Rain, we’re planning to have this fixed in the next update as a high priority
  
• [Changed] Visual Rain effects were previously broken on Xbox Series consoles, we have had to disable the rain for now on Xbox Series consoles however are looking into these rendering issues as a priority
  
• [Fixed] The options changed in the 'Audio' tab do not persist after closing and reopening the game
  
• [Fixed] "Gameplay" and "Control" options don't persist when relaunching the title
  
• [Fixed] When destroyed, AT Guns produce no explosion VFX
  
• [Fixed] Explosions VFX will move several meters away from their location when a rebase is triggered in the game world
  
• [Fixed] The 'drystone wall' asset used throughout French maps has collision in places that look passable without having to vault over the wall
  
• [Fixed] The Churchill MkIII bounces on its wheels when the player enters and exits the pause menu
  
• [Fixed] Hovering over the block button in the scoreboard displays a placeholder texture
  
• [Fixed] The MK-II Helmet is clipping with the headphones of the support class
  
• [Fixed] Joining every time in a new server will trigger a functionality issue for the VOIP
  
• [Added] The user can now skip the boot flow

• [Fixed] [C3] A large log pile asset will cull at an observable distance
  
• [Fixed] [F4] Wooden Bridge over a trench has a blocking volume, not allowing a player to cross

• [Fixed] [G4] Standing in sector G4 causes performance issues

• [Fixed] The raindrops look unnatural
  * - Noted on Xbox the rain droplets will not appear, this is due to underlying rendering issues which we’re looking to resolve as soon as possible
  
• [Fixed] Distant water reflections on PHL are displaying major corruption
  
• [Aware Of] Missing procedural grass due to terrain materials not rebuilding
  * - We’re aware of an issue on Purple Heart Lane from the previous update wherein grass is not appearing correctly, we’re looking to resolve this as soon as possible.

• [Aware Of] Missing procedural grass due to terrain materials not rebuilding
  * - We’re aware of an issue on Foy from the previous update wherein grass is not appearing correctly, we’re looking to resolve this as soon as possible.

• [Fixed] [F1] Multiple assets are misaligned
  
• [Fixed] Soviet side artillery guns are misaligned with the terrain, with the leftmost gun trapping the player once entered
  
• [Fixed] A specific yellow house asset has draw distance issues from 20m