First of all, a huge thank you to the hundreds of thousands of players who joined us over the course of last weekend's Crossplay Playtest. It was fantastic to see so many players across Steam, PlayStation and XBOX taking to the battlefield together, as well as all the incredible clips, screenshots and feedback shared by the community.
With launch on 13 August fast approaching, we cannot wait for you to experience the full game, including all of the maps that weren't available during the playtest.
Since the playtest concluded, the team has been reviewing thousands of responses to the feedback survey, alongside reports and discussions across Discord, Reddit, Steam and our other community channels. This feedback has been invaluable in helping us prioritise the areas that matter most ahead of launch, while reinforcing and shaping the improvements we had already planned for release.
Today, we want to share what we've been working on since the Crossplay Playtest, including improvements that weren't ready in time for the playtest, the changes coming at launch, and what we'll continue refining after release.
Alongside continued bug fixing, optimisation and polish, the team has been focused on addressing feedback from the recent playtest. While we'll continue improving the game after launch through regular updates, here are some of the key improvements players can expect on day one:
The team has made significant progress in addressing the known VOIP issues encountered during the playtest.
Players should no longer experience the robotic voice effect in Command Chat or Squad Chat. While the issue can still occur in Proximity Chat, it should happen much less frequently.
The remaining Proximity Chat issue requires an update to the Epic Online Services (EOS) voice chat system. As soon as a fix is made available by Epic, we'll work to integrate it into the game as quickly as possible.
The team has reviewed all audio feedback from the playtest and has made a wide range of improvements ahead of launch. Audio will continue to be refined through future patches and updates, but players can expect the following changes at release:
Adjustments to helicopter SFX, including changes over distance.
Reduction in volume of front end music
Increased readability in the sonic soundscape to improve player navigation in the battlefield, including:
[list]Pings - Raised within the mix to support improvements with spatial audio
Foliage - Increased in volume to support improvements with spatial audio
All Weapons - Improved pin-pointing and adjustments to support improvements with spatial audio
Improvements to headshot and hit confirmation sounds.
Decrease in volume to water wading.
Underwater swimming audio bug resolved.
Adjustments and improvements to character foley.
Commander abilities and explosions have received further adjustments and improvements.
All vehicles and vehicle types have had an audio balancing pass.
Wider improvements and changes made within the mix.
[/list]Based on playtest feedback, we've made several adjustments to improve early player progression and better support the new weighted loadout system:
Faster player progression through earlier role levels
Improved starting weight for selected roles
Reduced the weight of selected weapons to make them available earlier in progression
We have been continually reviewing player feedback alongside gameplay analytics to ensure the battlefield remains as balanced as possible.
As players continue to develop new tactics and strategies with both US Helicopters and NVA Tunnels, we'll continue to monitor their performance after launch and make balance adjustments where necessary.
Following the Crossplay Playtest, we've already identified several changes we'd like to make to the tunnel system, with a particular focus on tunnel travel speed and the Emergency Tunnel Commander ability.
For launch, we're planning the following changes:
Reduce the maximum tunnel connection limit from 5 to 4
Reduce tunnel travel speed to make rapid redeployment less effective
Remove the Emergency Tunnel Commander ability. We believe this mechanic requires a more comprehensive redesign before it returns to the game, and we'll continue exploring how it could be implemented in the future.
As always, we'll continue monitoring feedback and gameplay data after launch and make further balance adjustments where needed.
The team are continuing work investigating the AMD GPU crashes experienced by some users during the playtest. While most issues appear to be caused by known AMD Windows driver issues outside our control, we have identified some fixes that may lessen crashes and improve stability overall for AMD users.
Based on findings and feedback from the playtest, we’ve been investigating shadows and foliage on console platforms with the goal of reducing issues with flickering and popping during gameplay. While this will remain a balance between visual fidelity and performance, we’re continuing to work hard to find the right balance ahead of launch.
We know there are still plenty of features, improvements and fixes that both the community and the team want to see added after launch. Alongside regular patches to address bugs and player feedback, we'll also be bringing new content to Hell Let Loose: Vietnam in future updates.
If you're interested in what lies beyond launch, keep an eye out for Part 2 of our Developer Q&A.
Tomorrow, 31 July, we will be releasing Part 2 of the Developer Q&A where the team will be going behind the scenes to explore how the team has developed a new Hell Let Loose experience, the ideas that were tested along the way, and how the Vietnam and World War II development teams work together, and also a look toward the future of the game, talking about the team’s long-term ambitions for Hell Let Loose: Vietnam.
