We’re pleased to confirm that Hotfix 2 for Update 18 is now live across all platforms.

This update contains the fix for the crashing issues that have affected Hell Let Loose since the release of Update 18. The fix makes both the client and server more robust against assets with incorrect LOD materials that could previously cause the physics engine to crash. As a result, both servers and clients will now be much more stable than before.

We want to thank everyone who shared crash reports, feedback, and support during our investigation and testing over the past few weeks. Your patience and cooperation have been invaluable in helping us deliver this fix.

Alongside the release of Hotfix 2, the team continues to monitor live performance and community feedback closely. We will share further updates in the coming weeks, including our plans for Update 19 and beyond.

We’re committed to ensuring Hell Let Loose delivers the most stable and enjoyable experience possible, and we couldn’t have done this without your ongoing support.

Thank you,
The Hell Let Loose Team

We’re pleased to announce that Hotfix 2 for Update 18 will release tomorrow for all platforms.

We understand that the past few weeks since Update 18 have been challenging and we recognise how much this has impacted the community. We take full responsibility for this and want to reassure you that we’ve taken important lessons away from the experience.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing our plans to strengthen communication and feedback opportunities with the community. If you have any suggestions of things you’d like to see, be sure to let us know in the comments below.

We’ve also listened closely to your feedback and have made the decision to delay the release of Update 19. This will give us additional time to ensure that it launches in the best possible state. We’ll share the new release date soon.

We’d like to extend a special thank-you to server owners, community testers, and players who supported the team throughout the investigation and testing of Hotfix 2. Your cooperation and feedback were instrumental in helping us identify the issue and verify the fix.

Following the rollout of Hotfix 2, we’ll continue to post regular updates as we move toward the release of Update 19. For those who want to see the technical details, please be sure to read the blog post from Friday 24 October where Kieran, Studio Technical Director at Expression Games, goes into detail on the reason behind the crash and what’s been done to resolve this.

We remain fully committed to making Hell Let Loose the best experience it can be for all players, and we’re excited to share more about Update 19 and our plans for 2026 in the near future.

Thank you again for your patience and support over the past few weeks. Your feedback continues to shape the future of Hell Let Loose, and we’re grateful for everyone who has shared their thoughts with us. We’re looking forward to finishing 2025 strong with you, including the release of the brand-new Smolensk map.

Today marks a major milestone in our ongoing efforts to resolve the stability and crashing issues that have affected Hell Let Loose since Update 18.

After many days of investigation, testing, and community support, we’re pleased to share that the team has successfully identified the root cause of the problem and implemented a fix. This new build has been tested and is almost ready for an rollout as Hotfix 2.

We know how disruptive the last week has been for many of you, and we want to thank everyone who has continued to provide reports, feedback, and patience as we worked to get the game back to a stable state. Your input has been instrumental in helping the team reach this point.

• The team has identified the root cause of the crashes affecting Hell Let Loose since Update 18.

• The issue was linked to a physics material reference error caused by certain assets, which could result in client and server crashes.

• A new build containing a fix for both client and server crashes has been created, tested, and certified.

• This fix is now available for Steam players and server owners through a new ‘Experimental Branch’.

• The full Hotfix 2 release will roll out on Steam and other platforms early next week following platform approvals.

• Players and server hosts on the main branch or console platforms are advised to remove the following maps from rotation over the weekend:
  Carentan, Foy, Omaha, Utah, Remagen, Sainte-Mère-Église (SME), Stalingrad

• The team will continue to monitor for any remaining issues, while also preparing additional asset corrections for Update 19.

• Thank you to everyone who provided reports, feedback, and patience. Your support directly contributed to identifying and fixing the issue.

After yesterday’s breakthrough in reproducing the crash, Kieran and his team worked late into the night to pinpoint the exact cause. It wasn’t an easy process, but by the end of the evening they had successfully identified the specific issue, allowing work on the fix to begin immediately.

This morning, the first new build containing the fix was completed. It also includes an additional correction for another potential fault in the same chain of logic.

Since then, our QA team has been rigorously testing the new build, which was successfully certified this afternoon.

With this update, we have addressed both client crashes (often seen as mass disconnects) and server crashes (which previously caused players to lose connection).

We would like to note that, due to the nature of the issue, there may have been other undefined behaviours linked to it that did not always result in a crash. These should now also be resolved. However, following this hotfix, we will continue monitoring to ensure there are no remaining causes of client disconnections.

Thank you all for your patience. We can now confirm that a new build of Hell Let Loose has been created and includes a fix for the crashing issue. Below are the key details to be aware of:

A new Experimental Branch is now available on Steam. You can access it by navigating to:
Steam → Hell Let Loose → Properties → Betas → Experimental Branch

Head to the Properties section of the Hell Let Loose app on Steam. Do this by right clicking on Hell Let Loose, or hitting the settings cog within the Steam page.

Go to Betas, and then select ‘experimental_branch’

• The “None” option is the default/main branch that has the current Live 18.0 Hotfix 1 build

• The “experimental_branch” right now has 18.0 Hotfix 2 build

Switching to the new branch in the Steam client is a 3.2GB download. Those that switch, once the patch rolls out globally next week, will need to switch back to the main branch ‘None’. Once back to the default branch, you will be instantly in as it will be the same build at that point.

This branch includes the client-side fix, and community servers can now opt to move across. A number of official servers are also live on this build.

Please note that this is an opt-in process. Servers and players using the Experimental Branch will not appear in the default server list. This setup is intended for those who want to play on the new build servers and on the new build.

A full release of Hotfix 2 will come out on Steam early next week alongside the other platforms.

Due to approval requirements, this version will not go live on other platforms today. It is currently scheduled for release early next week.

In the meantime, for all other platforms (and for those on Steam who have already begun seeding on the main branch) we have shared a list of maps that have been identified as potential triggers for the crash:

• Carentan

• Foy

• Omaha

• Utah

• Remagen

• Sainte-Mère-Église (SME)

• Stalingrad

These maps have the highest likelihood of triggering the crash. We strongly recommend removing them from rotation if you are on the main Steam branch or any other platform (Epic, WinStore, Xbox, or PS5).

Thank you again for your continued patience and support. It has been invaluable throughout this process, and we deeply appreciate everyone in the community for working with us as we’ve resolved the issue.

Yesterday, Kieran, Studio Technical Director at Expression Games, shared a detailed breakdown of the work happening behind the scenes to uncover the root cause of the crashes, and why this issue only appeared in the live environment. Following the breakthrough we had last night, we were able to identify the cause of the crashing issue and deliver a fix.

With this in mind, we wanted to continue our commitment to transparency by providing a deeper explanation of what went wrong and how it was resolved.

The crash can manifest on any client or the game server. In both cases, one of the following functions would typically appear near the top of the call stack:

The crash appeared to happen randomly and didn’t have a 100% reproduction rate, which made it extremely difficult to track down.

When the issue first began to appear in community reports post-Update 18, the team reviewed crashes captured through Backtrace in the development environment. We later confirmed that the issue had existed since 28 July 2025, with only four crashes recorded during that time (between 28 July - 16 October): two server-side and two client-side. This immediately showed how hard it was to reproduce under normal development conditions.

At first, it was unclear whether the cause was related to server type (GPortal versus community servers), differences in server tools like CRCON, whether it required a full server populations, or specific gameplay situations that you you seen in a public game environment.

To narrow things down, we explored all these possibilities in parallel. We collaborated closely with the community, server owners, and War Correspondents to gather reports and eliminate potential causes.

Because the issue occurred so rarely during testing, it became clear that the only way to properly diagnose it was to continue investigating while the bug remained live in the game. If we had rolled back Update 18, there was a real chance we might never reproduce it during internal testing, which would have prevented us from finding and fixing the issue.

On Wednesday 22 October, the first successful reproduction of the crash occurred on an live official server, ruling out both the server provider and external tools (e.g. CRCON) as contributing factors. During this time, we identified that the Foy map had the highest rate of reproductions, thanks to reports from the server owners and War Correspondents.

The next day (Thursday 23 October), QA focused on Foy specifically. At that point, there was a theory that the new artillery strike commander ability might be related. While that turned out to be true, although not in the way initially suspected, it was during these tests that we got lucky.

A QA tester experienced a crash after entering a building. One by one, other testers entered the same building and also crashed. That gave us our 100% reproduction case.

When performing physics tests in Hell Let Loose, the game often requests the physical material of the object being interacted with. This information determines what visual effects, particles, and sounds are used when bullets or projectiles hit that surface.

With Update 18, some assets were re-imported to resolve texture issues, but this process unintentionally affected their Level of Detail (LOD) setup. As a result, certain objects were referencing one fewer material than they should have.

When the physics system interacted with these assets, it sometimes attempted to read a material from an invalid memory address. Depending on what that memory address pointed to, what happens next is down to chance, with one of two outcomes occuring:

• The game continued running, unknowingly using corrupted data.

• The game crashed immediately in one of the previously listed functions.

This randomness explained why reproducing the crash was so difficult; it depended on chance whether the invalid pointer caused an instant crash or not.

For reference, the three most likely causes of the crash, in order, are:

1. Simulating a bullet trajectory, and it hitting a “bad” object

2. Simulating a projectile (e.g. artillery), and it hitting a “bad” object

3. Walking on a “bad” object

Using the PhysX API directly, the team implemented a validation step to ensure that when retrieving a material index, it matches a valid material within the asset. If the index does not map correctly, the system safely exits that process without returning a physical material, preventing the crash.

In practice, this means that for “bad” assets, the correct visual or sound effect may occasionally not appear. However, since this issue has existed for months without being noticed, the impact will be minimal, and most importantly, the game and servers will no longer crash.

Over the coming weeks, the team will continue identifying and repairing these affected assets to ensure they are corrected for Update 19.

In future non-shipping builds, whenever this issue is detected, a red on-screen message will appear that reads:

This system allows QA to easily identify and report any problematic assets. Since the message clearly shows the actor and component names, the art team can quickly locate and fix the issue.

Because this error can occur through any kind of physics interaction (shooting, bombing, or walking on an affected surface) QA will naturally encounter and resolve these assets during standard gameplay testing.

Update on our investigations into the server and stability issues since Update 18.

Thank you to everyone who has continued to support us and share crash reports over the past few days. Your feedback and detailed reports have played a huge role in helping us make real progress.

Today, we’re pleased to share that we’ve taken a major step forward in our investigation. The team has been able to consistently reproduce the crash, which brings us much closer to identifying the exact cause. We know how important stability is to your experience, and we remain fully committed to resolving this issue as quickly as possible.

• The team has made a major breakthrough in the investigation.

• We have now found a consistent way to reproduce the crash, allowing us to focus on a much narrower area of the game’s systems.

• This issue has been extremely difficult to track down, as reproducing it in a QA or development environment was nearly impossible until now.

• With this progress, the team is closing in on the root cause and continuing to work around the clock toward a fix.

• We will share more information before the weekend so stay tuned.

Today marks a significant step forward in resolving the current crashing issues.

As of this afternoon, the team has discovered a consistent way to trigger a crash. This breakthrough allows us to focus on a much smaller area of the game’s systems to pinpoint the exact cause.

This particular issue has been a needle in a haystack to uncover. The conditions required to reproduce it are so specific that encountering it within a QA or development environment is almost impossible. Finding a reliable way to make it happen marks a major turning point in our investigation.

The team continues to work around the clock to determine the root issue, and have been focused on getting this resolved as soon as possible.

We will be sharing another update tomorrow and hope to have more information available before the weekend.

As part of our update yesterday, we shared more behind-the-scenes details about the process of tracking down the cause of the recent crashes. The response from the community has been incredibly supportive, and it’s been great to see players taking such an interest in how we’re approaching our investigation. With that in mind, we wanted to expand a little further on how we got here and what we’ve been doing to resolve the issue.

Here is an explanation from Kieran, Studio Technical Director at Expression Games:

“The release build for Update 18 was starting to be finalised from 10 September, over a month ago. This means the underlying issue responsible for the current crashes has likely existed since that point, and possibly even earlier within our development environment.

Prior to yesterday afternoon (22 October), we had only observed a handful of unrelated crashes internally, and none provided indicators of the issue that has since appeared in the live environment.

The challenge we face is that this specific crash occurs when something has already gone wrong before the actual crash point. As a result, the crash dumps we collect, both from our internal testing and from the community, show where the crash happens within PhysX but provide little insight into how the physics engine reached that unstable state.

Our next step is to fully understand what conditions lead to the crash so we can reliably reproduce it. Once we can reproduce it consistently, we can verify a fix and roll it out confidently to everyone.

The good news is that on Wednesday 22 October, we successfully triggered the crash on a live server outside of the development environment for the first time. This discovery allowed us to focus our search on what causes the crash. By attaching development tools to clients playing on live servers, we were then able to collect detailed debugging information whenever a crash occurs, helping us better understand its cause.

Using this approach, as of this afternoon we have now been able to reproduce the crash within the development environment. This marks a major step forward, and we are closing in on the root cause.

We would like to thank everyone who has been submitting crash logs and reports during this process. Your contributions have been an invaluable resource in our investigation. We’re confident that once we’ve confirmed the exact issue, we’ll be able to prepare and deliver a fix as soon as possible. Your support means a great deal to me and to the wider development team.”

Update on our investigations into the server and stability issues since Update 18.

Thank you to everyone in the community who has been sending us crash reports since our last post. These have been incredibly helpful for the team and are allowing us to narrow down the cause of the crashes.

• The team has identified a likely cause of the crashes related to the PhysX physics engine.

• These crashes can affect both servers and players, often resulting in multiple players disconnecting at once.

• During our testing today, we have seen a client crash ourselves when connected to a live server, allowing for more targeted investigation.

• Some additional crashes may be related to DX12 compatibility issues. Updating drivers or switching to DX11 may help.

• The team continues to investigate and will provide further updates as progress is made.

• If you can reproduce the crash, then please reach out to us.

If any members of the community have been able to reproduce crashes consistently, we would greatly appreciate you sharing the details with us. Knowing how to trigger the issue would significantly speed up our efforts to identify and fix it.

From our investigations so far, we have determined that the problem is likely related to a complication within the PhysX physics engine used in Hell Let Loose.

There appears to be a crash within the PhysX library that can manifest in several ways. It can cause both servers and connected clients to crash. When this happens, multiple players may crash simultaneously, which explains the instances where groups of players drop out of matches at the same time.

This issue has not occurred in our development environment, which makes it more challenging to diagnose. We are working hard to understand what is causing it to occur in the live game, where there are many more variables than in testing.

During our testing today, we have seen a client crash ourselves when connected to a live server. Now that we have seen this, we are able to get a number of developers to attempt the same with development tools attached to analyse what in-game scenario triggers the crash within the PhysX library.

We hope this breakdown helps provide some clarity on the situation and where we currently stand in our investigation, and as we asked at the start, if anyone has found ways to reproduce this crash consistently do reach out and let us know.

While reviewing crash reports, we have also seen a number of reports related to DirectX 12 (DX12).

In Patch 17.1 the game was changed to use DX12 by default, where it previously used DX11. For players with compatible graphics cards, this provides a performance improvement.

However, some graphics card drivers and certain GPUs may experience instability when running DX12, which can lead to crashes.

If you are experiencing crashes, please first ensure that you are using the latest graphics card drivers for your system.

If crashes continue, you can switch the game to DX11 mode by going to the Game Options menu and changing the “Renderer” setting at the bottom of the Video section to DX11.

We want to acknowledge the ongoing issues some players are experiencing, including server instability and client-side crashes following Update 18 and its recent hotfix. We recognise how frustrating this can be and want to assure everyone that we are fully focused on resolving these problems.

At this time, our investigations at this time indicate that these issues are not related to any of our server hosting partners. We’re working closely with QONZER and other providers, who continue to support us as we dig deeper into the root causes. Our team is actively investigating and testing potential solutions.

As soon as we have a more comprehensive understanding of the situation, we’ll share an update with the community. You can expect to hear more from us as our investigation progresses.

That being said, support from the community would really aid our investigations. We ask that if your game crashes, we ask you to go to either visit the new⁠ crashing reports forum within the Hell Let Loose Discord, or reply in the comments below, and let us know what was happening when your game crashed. This will be invaluable to our investigations.

Please can we ask that if your game crashes, we ask you to go to this forum and let us know what was happening when you crashed. This will be invaluable to our investigations 

Info needed in the feedback post should include

• Description of what you were doing when it crashed.,

Please see examples of what to include in the description below:

• Were you in game at the time of the crash,

• Were you shooting at something,

• What weapon were you using,

• Were you in a vehicle,

• etc.,

• Number of players in game at the time of crash,

• What map were you on,

• Were tanks being actively used in the game at the time of the crash?,

• What server were you playing on?,

• Please include anything else you think would be useful,

• Feel free to add any images or videos of the crash/report

Finally, we’d like to thank everyone who has jumped back in to play since U18 and the hotfix, and for all your continued support so far in addressing these issues.

We want to thank everyone for your patience and understanding while we worked to get this hotfix ready. Your feedback since the launch of Update 18 has been invaluable and continues to help us improve the experience.

Read the full list of fixes and changes below:

• Enemy flares can be seen on the tac-map by the opposing team

• All Recon Tanks and Half-Truck wheels can not be repaired with a blowtorch

• Killed In Action screen shows an issue when killed by environmental fire

• Kubanka hat has incorrect ribbon model and colouring

• Panther tank has a very difficult time dealing with terrain variance

  • Addressed reports of collision inconsistencies and reduced performance with the Panther. Adjustments have been made to the vehicle’s suspension behaviour and physics collision system to align its performance with its original specifications.

• Artillery Strike can trigger the “Rain Hell” achievement

• Tank skin preview can be seen through geometry to all players

• The recoil on the Luchs is excessive, making it difficult to aim as an autocannon

• Following the implementation of the new tank knockback, the Luchs experienced excessive recoil due to its high rate of fire. Adjustments have been made to the recoil and knockback force to restore proper control during rapid fire.

• The commander artillery strike ability has had several balance changes:

  • The strike zone radius has been slightly increased, making the shots less accurate

  • The number of shells that fall has been decreased from 16 to 12

  • The munition cost per placement has been increased to 125

  • The cooldown time has been increased to 430 seconds

• On top of this, the model used has been adjusted and the smoke trail removed

• Artillery Strike ability can take out spawn points

  • The commander artillery strike ability can no longer destroy garrisons

• Following playtesting and community feedback, it was determined that tank handling was not performing as intended, particularly in higher gear ranges. The balance between applied braking and thrust during steering has been adjusted to deliver a smoother and more responsive experience.

• To continue the Armor update, all tanks have undergone suspension and physics collision updates. These adjustments aim to reduce issues with vehicles becoming immobilized on uneven terrain or smaller objects, particularly those located directly beneath the tank. This change is a part of an ongoing effort to enhance Armor and provide a more consistent driving experience for future updates.

• Following player feedback and testing, several gameplay balance refinements have been made:

  • Blowtorch Repair Speed: Increased slightly, improving repair efficiency on all tank components

  • Anti-Tank Launcher Damage: Increased from 325 to 380. This adjustment preserves the same number of required hits to destroy tanks while heightening the threat level to Armor units

  • Anti-Tank Gun Damage: Increased from 350 to 400. This adjustment makes these weapons more potent against all tanks; particularly heavy tanks which can now be destroyed in fewer hits compared to the anti-tank launchers

We’re also aware of other issues reported by the community, including client-side crashes, and our team is actively investigating them. Please continue to share any problems you encounter with the support team at

https://support.team17.com/hell-let-loose/en/

❗️AWS & EOS Outage, & Hotfix Update

We're aware of a major AWS (Amazon Web Services) outage, alongside the EOS outage, which is causing players to not be able to access games & other web-based services.

We're actively monitoring the situations with both parties and we are hoping for a resolution to the problems as soon as possible.

We are still aiming to deliver the Update 18 Hotfix 1 today, however we will keep you updated as to the status of the AWS and EOS issues which may delay release. Thank you for your patience and we hope to deliver the hotfix as soon as we can.

Hey everyone,

Thank you for taking the time to jump into Update 18 and share your feedback. We really appreciate your patience as we continue working to address the issues that have surfaced since launch.

Overnight, we deployed a server-side fix to address server crashing issues across all platforms.

So far, this appears to have gone well, and you should notice a reduction in server crashes. Please continue to share your feedback if you experience any further server issues so we can investigate and resolve them as quickly as possible.

If you are a server owner, your GSP should be able to move your server onto the new version.

Hotfix 1 will be deployed early next week with changes based on your reports. This fix focuses on balance adjustments to Artillery Strikes and Tanks, and also remedies a few bugs that surfaced with U18. Please see the full changelog below.

• Enemy flares can be seen on the tac-map by the opposing team

• All Recon Tanks and Half-Truck wheels can not be repaired with a blowtorch

• Killed In Action screen shows an issue when killed by environmental fire

• Kubanka hat has incorrect ribbon model and colouring

• Panther tank has a very difficult time dealing with terrain variance

  • Addressed reports of collision inconsistencies and reduced performance with the Panther. Adjustments have been made to the vehicle’s suspension behaviour and physics collision system to align its performance with its original specifications.

• Artillery Strike can trigger the “Rain Hell” achievement

• Tank skin preview can be seen through geometry to all players

• The recoil on the Luchs is excessive, making it difficult to aim as an autocannon

• Following the implementation of the new tank knockback, the Luchs experienced excessive recoil due to its high rate of fire. Adjustments have been made to the recoil and knockback force to restore proper control during rapid fire.

• The commander artillery strike ability has had several balance changes:

  • The strike zone radius has been slightly increased, making the shots less accurate

  • The number of shells that fall has been decreased from 16 to 12

  • The munition cost per placement has been increased to 125

  • The cooldown time has been increased to 430 seconds

• On top of this, the model used has been adjusted and the smoke trail removed

• Artillery Strike ability can take out spawn points

  • The commander artillery strike ability can no longer destroy garrisons

• Following playtesting and community feedback, it was determined that tank handling was not performing as intended, particularly in higher gear ranges. The balance between applied braking and thrust during steering has been adjusted to deliver a smoother and more responsive experience.

• To continue the Armor update, all tanks have undergone suspension and physics collision updates. These adjustments aim to reduce issues with vehicles becoming immobilized on uneven terrain or smaller objects, particularly those located directly beneath the tank. This change is a part of an ongoing effort to enhance Armor and provide a more consistent driving experience for future updates.

• Following player feedback and testing, several gameplay balance refinements have been made:

  • Blowtorch Repair Speed: Increased slightly, improving repair efficiency on all tank components

  • Anti-Tank Launcher Damage: Increased from 325 to 380. This adjustment preserves the same number of required hits to destroy tanks while heightening the threat level to Armor units

  • Anti-Tank Gun Damage: Increased from 350 to 400. This adjustment makes these weapons more potent against all tanks; particularly heavy tanks which can now be destroyed in fewer hits compared to the anti-tank launchers

We’re also aware of other issues reported by the community, including client-side crashes, and our team is actively investigating them. Please continue to share any problems you encounter with the support team at https://support.team17.com/hell-let-loose/en/

Thanks again for your feedback. Please stay tuned for more news on Hotfix 1 next week.

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

Hello everyone, 

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. 

We are working to address numerous issues that have arisen with Update 18 as a priority.

We’ll update you when we have more information on a hotfix.