ORIGINAL REVIEW DATED DECEMBER 2021 BELOW:

If you're the type to whine every time you get killed, or died running across an open field multiple times thinking why you got shot then this game is not for you.

Hell Let Loose is a game not meant for people with the patience of a sweaty 9-year old with ADHD who cares about K/D. It doesn't matter in this game. You know, just stick to Halo or CoD or something. This game is punishing to newcomers and it should be. Why? It helps to keep the filthy casuals out. If you're not one of those people, then read on:

You will die A LOT during the course of a match, and that in itself makes you become more patient, think more tactically in how to approach an objective by other means (e.g. long flanking, smoke + pushing, with armor support, etc) and the feeling of a successful coordinated assault via voice comms is hardly beaten by any other large-scale shooter I can currently think of. Matches alone can last anywhere from 30 min to 1.5h, so you really get immersed into a battle and watch how it plays out due to the consequence of your team's (in)effectiveness.

Time to kill is extremely quick. No dumping half a magazine into an enemy. And HLL is one of the few games to actually nail the suppression effect. You're a regular grunt who got drafted in World War II, kid. No more of that bull**** Battlefield-style-special-forces-reduced-suppression while running and jumping nonsense. You simply CAN NOT shoot back effectively while LITERAL HAIL of MG42 bullets flies a few inches from your head. This is why I cannot stress enough the importance of using effective cover and moving tactically- get caught out in the open, and you can expect to see the spawn screen a lot.

The game emphasizes a minimal UI without elements like hit markers, tracers (except MGs), enemy icons over their head.

That being said, the movement and overall flow of gameplay still feels faster than Squad/Arma, but much slower than say, BF4-BF1. AKA the Sweet Spot. There are always moments where you are in the heat of the action and lulls in the fighting. Don't like slugging it out on the front line? Hang back and help as an Engineer or a Support class and build team-winning defenses or resources for the commander. Feel like reaching out and touching someone from 400m away? Join a recon squad and help to mark key enemy positions for the team and keep the enemy guessing where your shots are coming from.

I applaud the devs for keeping the maps historically accurate. For e.g. Omaha Beach really feels like Omaha Beach on June 6th 1944. Carentan feels like an actual occupied French city.

Add to that the sheer chaotic atmosphere and audio of a large-scale firefight is really PTSD-inducing. Imagine running through Stalingrad as a Soviet grunt while a freaking barrage of Katyusha rockets screams high above and hitting MG42 emplacements in front of you as they are letting it rip through the streets. Or running for cover as you hear a BF-109 dive straight for you + squaddies for a strafing run while you are storming Omaha beach, while in the distance an American plane drops carpet bombs on the German-held cliffs. It's the immersion. I feel like a lot of players are missing out on this aspect of the game specifically, and this is something you will never, ever get from a casual shooter.

But the best part is the community (shoutout to Aussies and NZ'ers). Everyone is here for a great time, to learn to get better at the game and of course, the banter. No one likes toxic, sweaty lone-wolf individuals in this game. And on the off-chance we encounter someone in a match being a complete wetwipe, they usually get kicked.

Overall, if you're the "sort-of-casual-but-on-the-fence-about-hardcore-shooters" type of player, get Hell Let Loose. Even if you're on the losing side, the feeling of working together as a squad is its own reward. It's such a breath of fresh air from Battlefield and your run-of-the-mill casual shooter.

9.5/10