These days, the FPS genre has become so bloated that almost every title seems to blend together. To add further insult to injury, there are tons of WWII shooters as well which makes it extremely important for a game to be special in order to actually be worth your time. Luckily, developer Black Matter captures something truly special in its painfully realistic and gloriously fun WWII shooter, Hell Let Loose.

Gameplay

I knew that Hell Let Loose was marketed as a hardcore shooter so going in I expected a lot out of gameplay. I’ve played games like War of Rights and Red Orchestra and was hoping to see something similar in execution. What Hell Let Loose does though is even better than I had hoped for and actually blew me away.

The game offers two game modes to choose from, Warfare and Offensive. Warfare plays out in a sort of conquest type of fashion where the tide of war changes depending on how your team either captures and holds control points. The Offensive mode plays out where one team attacks points while the other strictly defend. This is more akin to the Rush mode from Battlefield games.

Perhaps the most important aspect about HLL’s gameplay though is in its roles. There are 14 distinct roles and each one has an extremely important duty to their squad and team on the battlefield. Each team is led by a Commander who oversees the battle, makes the hard decisions, and leads their team to victory.

Following the commands of the Commander are the Officers, there’s one per squad and they can interact directly with each other as well as the Commander in order to help keep everyone aware of how things are going. This is probably my favorite role to play as because there’s a feeling of real impact that you can have on the battlefield.

Because you have direct contact with other important team members, there’s always a sense of teamwork at play. And because of the comradery, it’s an extremely immersive game to play, especially when you have other players who are just as pulled into it as you are.

It also helps that the game’s community has proven to be very friendly and helpful during the time that I played. Upon my first real battle playing as an Officer, I must admit that I wasn’t really ready for the role. Luckily, my squadmates were helpful in directing me in the right direction, and shortly thereafter, we won the battle.

This also highlights the absolute necessity to play your role to its fullest. Besides directing their squad, Officers place outpost or garrisons as spawn points to keep your soldiers deep in the battle. Other examples of what specialty each role brings to the table can be shown in roles like the engineer who constructs structures to protect their squadmates or roadblocks to protect against enemy vehicles.

The Recon squad-type is another extremely important role. These players keep keen eyes on the battlefield and are able to show the tides changing in order for the Commander and Officers to better make decisions on how to place squads.

As I said, all of this is what makes this game so fun and immersive. Another part of that is the fact that each map is completely unique from the other in terms of its setup. Each offers extreme variability in what you can expect. They’re also humongous in size and as your character moves at a more realistic slower pace, it can at times feel like a trek to get around.

There are several vehicles to drive such as tanks and even troop trucks. They aren’t the easiest to use so take your time getting your feel of them as they are pivotal to keeping the game going as well. They too aren’t overly quick either and don’t feel like they’re overpowered.

Gunplay is well-crafted, with guns feeling very powerful as only a shot or two gets the job done. Just like in any other game, you can progress each role thus unlock more weapons to have at your disposal. Each one has its own distinct feel from others and you’ll have to get comfortable with each one in order to get full use of it. There’s also realistic recoil as a factor in how you need to line up a shot.

Being careful on the ground is a priority as if you die, you have to wait quite a bit to respawn because there’s a cool down once you die as well as one for any of the spawn points. At times you may wait up to about a minute. Placing spawn points as an Officer in times like these is extremely important to consider because you may not have a spawn location in the right place at the right time.

To me, things like that are part of the game’s strategy. Sure, it can get infuriating to die over and over, but it’s also another aspect of the game. You may die, but a medic can heal you. If there isn’t one around, you can also just scream out for one and hope that they come by.

Visuals and Audio

HLL has a gorgeous look to its design, giving off highly realistic visuals. It’s very atmospheric when in battle as well as claustrophobic at times due to the great design choices the devs made to keep the gameplay tight. It’s very easy to hide in this game because of the realism of its lush landscapes. Players don’t just stand out and you can get picked off by just about anywhere at any time because of it.

The audio is just as great. Bombs are explosive, guns sound snappy, and the music is accurate for the time as well as sounding perfect. There’s a large scope of different terrain to go through and each has its own sound to it as well. It can be kind of tricky to sneak up on enemies at times because of it so this too requires calculation.

Replayability

HLL is the battle that never ends. Besides the obvious things such as progression, there are other aspects that warrant continuous plays. The first being something that I already talked about, its community. There’s a true sense of comradery if you have the right players along with you and it makes the game even more fun.

Besides that, there’s the quality of life things such as the fact that each map has 99 different control points. This means that no two battles are really ever the same. The other aspect is that Black Matter plans on continuing updates on the game which will bring in more maps and such to keep its life long.

What It Could Have Done Better

The thing I felt was a little cumbersome was the fact that matches can be terribly long in this game. While I enjoy this aspect, if I were cut on time, this could pose an issue. I think others would feel the same as me. It’s not a huge critique but it is worth mentioning.

Verdict

Hell Let Loose is an awesome game through and through and it has quickly become my favorite FPS title of the last few years. Because of the dedication to realism, this is a title that shines against its half-baked or hollow competitors. If you’re a WWII enthusiast, an RTS fanatic, or a hardcore FPS player, Hell Let Loose should be in your download queue, period.