Hell Let Loose, the hardcore multiplayer World War 2 shooter from Black Matter, has an official release date.
Developer Black Matter shared an update on its plans during the Future Game Show powered by WD_BLACK, with studio founder Maximilian Rea taking center stage to reveal that Hell Let Loose will leave early access on July 27; the headlining feature of the 1.0 update will be the introduction of Soviet forces and accompanying Eastern front battles such as Kursk and Stalingrad.
He also re-confirmed the studio's plans to bring Hell Let Loose to new-gen consoles by the end of 2021.
"Hell Let Loose began as the idea of a couple of hobbyist game developers all the way back in 2015," Rea says. "Following a successful Kickstarter, we launched into early access in the middle of 2019. Since then we've delivered nine enormous updates, including entire system overhauls, six new maps, tons of new weapons, gadgets, and vehicles, as well as expanding our unique real-time strategy-inspired metagame. As a result we've been fortunate to sell more than a million copies during our first year of early access. 2021 is only going to be bigger."
Hell Let Loose doesn't go into full-blown "historical ARMA" levels of simulationism, but it places a much heavier emphasis on strategy and players filling specific squad roles across the battlefield than, well, Battlefield. It also prides itself on grounded action, with a minimalist user interface that eschews common shooter aides like bullet counts and a minimap. With 100 player battles stretching across infantry, tanks, and artillery, you'll have plenty of ways to make a difference in the fight - and also plenty of ways to get taken out.
Meanwhile, players in the role of officers and a single supreme commander dictate the flow of the battle by sending squads to claim specific sectors, yielding resources which can then be used to reinforce their own war effort. It's a lot to wrap your head around at first, but as the Steam reviews show, nearly 30,000 early access players already swear by it.
Check out our E3 2021 schedule to make sure you don't miss any announcements from all the events.
