Hell Let Loose takes its 100-player WW2 battles into Early Access

Hell Let Loose Early Access Trailer - YouTube

Large-scale World War 2 shooter Hell Let Loose has entered Early Access, where it will remain for at least a year.

During Early Access, developer Black Matter Studio will add "several more features, maps, and quality of life changes". Its full roadmap, below (click the full screen icon to see it in more detail), shows that the first addition will be Utah Beach, one of the central locations in the 1944 Normandy landings. One side will battle up the beach from landing craft before capturing areas of the countryside inland.

The team will also add a cosmetic customization system, deployable items such as machine gun nests, and a new attack vs defense game mode during Early Access. In total, the updates will take "a year or more to complete".

I like the minimalist UI shown in the trailer at the top of this article: there are no aiming reticles, so you have to rely on your iron sights. The early user reviews are "Mostly Positive", with 78% of players impressed with what they've seen. It's not a perfect start, but it suggests you should at least keep an eye on Hell Let Loose if you're into large-scale shooters.

It's $30/£25 on Steam, and the price will likely increase as it improves.

Thanks, RPS.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.