If you're a fan of WWII-related war or entertainment games, you'd be hard-pressed to find games on today's Steam marketplace that truly capture this era in history. However, there is one game players should note: Hell Let Loose, which is way better than most, if not all games in this genre.
Hell Let Loose is a team-based tactical shooter set during World War II, specifically on the Western Front. Players join squads (led by squad leaders) to coordinate movement and strategy. And it is up to these squad leaders to relay the commands. To win battles, everyone must work together.
Players familiar with Rising Storm 2 Vietnam or Verdun should feel right at home with Hell Let Loose. However, where this game differs from other titles is its server size of 100 players, as well as a resource management system and combat split between infantry, tanks and artillery.
Through teamwork, players must use all three combat types, resources, and a respawn system to win matches and matches. If one of these links in the chain breaks, defeat usually results.
Engage in gruesome and immersive shootouts
Hell Let Loose delivers precisely what the title suggests, and players will quickly discover each other as soon as they're in the middle of a firefight.
The firefights are immersive as hell, and there's nothing quite like hearing bullets fly past your ears while looking for a safe place to figure out what exactly is going on. The game's suppression system also adds to those intense moments of realism in firefights - when you come under enemy fire, your whole world warps.
When this happens, your screen will turn black and white and objects around you and in the distance will become difficult to see until you take cover. It's a great system and adds a ton of realism while also serving as a useful tactic to hold enemies in place while your teammates adopt a flank.
This is exactly where the game succeeds the most, as similar FPS games seem to stagnate on unique mechanics.
Complete and action-packed gameplay
Developer Black Matter Pty offers dozens of maps with a frontline system where two teams can be pushed, supported, or hold their own ground protecting a series of objectives.
Game modes are extremely fun and enjoyable and can last up to hours, depending on each team's performance. The resource spawn system can also contribute greatly to the length of a match. Hell Let Loose's resource system allows players to build supplies needed to build garrisons and allows the commander to call in artillery or bombardment fire.
If your team doesn't have any spawns (called garrisons) or outposts placed near the points, or simply isn't properly supplied: your chances of holding points, well...tanks.
I think it's a great system, one that really helps the game take advantage of a realistic supply system. Overall, Hell Let Loose's gameplay hadn't changed much since the game's early access – it's only gotten finer and arguably more solid all around.
However, some early access issues persist. Hell Let Loose sometimes relies too much on player communication for the game to be fun. This is a problem, as players entering the fray solo will sometimes find a team full of communicative players too pushy.
This, in turn, can lead to players not enjoying the game because the team leader and/or other players are not communicating or laying down spawns, which can lead to poor and frustrating situations like than die and be forced to walk for miles.
Miscommunication also applies to the rest of the team: if players don't communicate, it often leads to resource nodes not being placed, spawns not being placed, which can then lead to the other team to roll you for the whole game.
Luckily, situations like this don't happen often and can be avoided by joining community servers and finding people to play with through their discords, or just playing with friends.
A vast arsenal of WWII weapons
Hell Let Loose offers a huge range of WW2 weapons that make sense and feel like they should be in a WW2 game. These weapons sound realistic and can often bombard the battlefield in an orchestra of death, while sounding just as live from afar and, to be blunt: scary when fired in your direction.
However, some weapons can sometimes feel like throwing jellybeans at someone (looking at you Tommy Gun) and can take away from the fun of the shooter. But for the vast majority of my time, most firearms seemed like fitting tools in a soldier's arsenal.
Tanks and artillery also performed well and were some of the best parts of the game. I especially liked how tanks could be the very factor that gained or lost certain points on the map, but were also guns glass at the same time – a good balance on the developer's side for such a lethal vehicle.
For example, if you advance too far or are unaware of your surroundings, you can easily be overwhelmed by infantry and be destroyed. But if you play smart, you can easily use tanks to rank kills and dominate the warzone, often winning the point for your side.
The same goes for artillery, but using artillery is a bit tricky to use at first because you have to calculate distance etc. However, once you get the hang of it and use an artillery calculator app, artillery can become one of the best parts of the game.
Breathtaking battlefields
Right out of the gate, Hell Let Loose features vast and beautiful environments spanning multiple maps that provide unique playgrounds for immersive FPS tug of war. In these areas, players can stage and fight life-or-death battles between the opposing side, with plenty of leeway.
Maps like Utah Beach and Foy are also breathtaking with advanced visuals, likely due to the fact that these maps were modeled on real reconnaissance imagery and satellite data, according to the game's Steam store page.
Despite the game's gorgeous design, however, maps can often feel "too big" and much larger when you're forced to travel great distances because your team leader has failed to place checkpoints. recurrence. Apart from this exhausting aspect, the cards for the vast majority of the game were excellent and very varied.
Verdict
This is largely due to the uniqueness of the game systems which require players to fill the roles of a fully operational squad of soldiers and manage supply lines. It's fun all around, and when the bullets start flying, it's an experience you can't get anywhere outside of a corny Hollywood war movie.
Since Early Access, my opinion of the game hasn't changed at all, and I highly recommend picking it up if you have a few friends to play with or might enjoy it as much as you should. It's always difficult for solo players. While I don't recommend jumping to random servers, you might find Hell Let Loose to be one of the best and most immersive FPS games currently on the Steam market, just like I did.
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