Hell Let Loose Review – Outstanding WWII Shooter

Hell Let Loose is a hardcore World War II first person shooter developed by Black Matter and published by Team17. Originally releasing on Steam early access in June 2019 and v1.0 in Julu 2021, this military simulation game is currently free until January 10 on Epic Games Store and what an experience it has been. This is as real as it gets in terms of WWII combat with authentic sounds, vehicles and locations, where kill to death ratios are thrown out in favour of good communication and teamwork to maintain strategic control over 50×50 multiplayer battlefields. It can be a difficult slog playing solo in random squads and I almost didn’t give the game much of a chance, but I had a far better time playing with a couple of mates.

Hell Let Loose portrays the battles of the Western and Eastern Fronts across two game modes, Offensive and Warfare. In both modes, the to-scale map is divided into sectors that each team seeks to capture and control in 50 v 50 multiplayer battles. In Warfare mode, the game is won by either controlling all sectors at a given point in time, or by controlling more than the opposing team before the timer runs out. Whereas in Offensive mode, a defending team is in control of all sectors at the beginning of the match, and the objective for the opposing side is to push them back and capture all of sectors before the timer runs out.

You will be battling in iconic WWII battlefronts ranging from Omaha Beach and Carentan to Stalingrad and Kursk. Each team of 50 players is broken down into armour, infantry, and recon squads. These are led by officers who have a separate leadership communications channel with a direct line to an overall player-commander who is directing the flow of the game. In addition to the leadership channel, each squad has their own voice channel, and then general players can use a general voice channel. However, if you don’t have access to voice comms, there is team and proximity text chat. The action was so intense though that I hardly read the text chat, unless I died, which happened a lot. In all my years of playing FPS games, I’ve never witnessed the importance of voice communications more than in Hell Let Loose.

I have fond memories of playing PUBG back in the game’s early years where communicating amongst our team of two or four was essential. I’ve also played games like 2003’s Savage: The Battle for Newerth and even Battlefield 4 which also had a player who was a commander instructing their team. Planetside 2 has much bigger battles going on requiring immense communication, but it didn’t have that separation of the chain of command like in Hell Let Loose. When you’re an officer leading a squad, the constant communication streams can be overwhelming and hard to focus initially but are so very necessary to be successful. We would win or lose a match based on how good or bad the communication amongst the team was.

As squad leader, you do learn to zone out chatter that doesn’t pertain to your immediate position, and I definitely noticed when my name was called out by the Commander or other squad leaders. One time when we were hunkered down with the enemy camouflaged close to us in the trees up ahead, we were concentrating on the tree line as it was really hard to see the enemy unless they moved too much. I then heard, “Inferno, you have troops approaching you from the south, air strike inbound, danger close.” I passed this communication on to my squad and we turned our heads south to observe.  We heard a plane fly overhead and then saw the first blast of the air strike. It was a real ‘holy shit’ moment as we saw the blasts getting closer and closer to us, thankfully finishing just short of us and they managed to take out that whole squad. The sounds were incredible, and it was as if we were in a movie or a Band of Brothers episode.

Gunplay in Hell Let Loose is very good with low time to kill meaning you’ll usually take down an enemy in one shot. There’s no immediate feedback that you’ve killed them other than watching them fall down and not get up again. This also means that you too will likely die to one hit. If you only get clipped, you have some bandages that you can heal yourself with. The medic class becomes very important, and you’re only limited to having one medic in each squad. I think this is great and reinforces the need for teamwork and communication.

Hell Let Loose is a tough game to get started in, especially if you’ve come fresh from playing the likes of Call of Duty or Battlefield. It’s more about moving together, using cover, sneaking, observing your surroundings and ensuring you have outpost or garrison spawns set up as you advance to keep the front line moving forward. Guns sound like the real thing and as bullets start whizzing past your ear, your in-game vision starts to blur as you react to the fear and adrenalin. Players with good military history knowledge will recognise the weapons and how they sound in-game and be able to rattle off the names of the vehicles and tanks as they roll past.

You can form a tank squad of three players and take control of several different types of tanks depending on the map, but usually there’s only two found in a single battle. One person is the driver and needs to manually shift gears, one is the main gunner and the third person mans the top turret and acts as the scout. If you’re the gunner, there’s no automatic reloading of the shells, so remember to reload as soon as you’ve shot. Again, communication is key here as you try to manoeuvre the tank onto the battlefield and into position without being too exposed. Bullet/ammo physics are realistic in Hell Let Loose, so if you’ve got an enemy tank in your sights, you’ll need to aim higher to account for bullet drop. It was difficult to get the hang of being in a tank, but when we finally landed that killing blow, we all cheered victory. We felt like we were in the movie Fury.

There are plenty of Australian servers which is great with pings around the 50-60ms range. We didn’t feel any lag even if we did question where the heck we just got shot from. Generally, your bullets will hit their target, given the low time to kill, however your kills don’t get shown on the main scoreboard, just your combat rating. I think this is a great thing as it means your effectiveness at helping the team is measured as opposed to purely kills versus deaths. Your stats do get recorded for you to look at outside of matches. After a match, you’ll earn xp based on what you did in the game, whether you were an officer, commander, switched between soldier classes or just stuck to your favourite one. You can progressively unlock new cosmetic items for your soldiers through game time.

I was lucky to play straight away with two other mates, so while it took us a good couple of hours to get our heads around the game, we were able to learn off each other and discuss mistakes. If you are playing this solo, it’s a much harder learning experience which may turn some players off the game. Rather than just being a lone wolf, you’re going to have much more success sticking you’re your squad. Even if you are playing with mates and still getting dominated, I recommend persisting and giving it time. It is a very difficult game and one of the more realistic military simulators I’ve played, but it is so much fun.

Overall, Hell Let Loose is an outstanding WWII shooter with the most authentic experience I’ve had in a military game. The sounds and visuals are incredibly detailed and immersive, and the battlefields have been faithful designed to reflect key battle locations and capture points. The learning experience is very hard given reliance on communication and the low time to kill. I do urge you to try play with mates and to persist through the learning process as this game is really bloody good once hone in your favourite class and find a good communicative team.

This review utilised a key provided by Team17 and Hell Let Loose is available now on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation, and is currently free on Epic Games Store until January 10.

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