Thank God: The new Hell Let Loose will only have 'historically authentic' frogs

hell let loose vietnam — (Image credit: Team17)

It's a pretty great time for lovers of historical fiction in their videogames. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a banger. I understand those PlayStation folks are enjoying Ghost of Yotei (assuredly PC-bound at some point). Games like Manor Lords, or Hunt: Showdown, or good ol' Crusader Kings also let us live out our dreams of distant and alternate pasts.

Problem is, of course, the frogs. Are devs really telling me that, in an age of Unreal Engine 5, lumen and nanite-ified whatevers, game creators can't do better than a frog that's clearly seen an iPhone before?

Atrocious stuff, but fear not, because the devs making Hell Let Loose: Vietnam—follow up to 2021's World War 2 shooter that shifts the action to, well, Vietnam—know just how immersion-breaking an anachronistic frog can be. In a chat with PC Gamer magazine, creative director Matt White said the team are taking historical authenticity incredibly seriously.

"All of it is a hundred-percent historically authentic," said White, pointing out "All the uniforms or the weaponry, the environment," even "the clothes you see on the floors" as being appropriate for the time and place of the game's setting. And you bet that even applies to "the sound of the bugs" and "the sound of the frogs." These amphibians don't even know what Netflix is and the only thought in their heads is whether they're for Carter or Ford.

We don't have any images of frogs in Hell Let Loose so here's Frog Fractions, the most authentic frog of all.

It sounds like the team is using the term "historically authentic" instead of 'historically accurate' deliberately. "With World War 2, you know exactly where the battles took place," said White, but the Vietnam War is inherently harder to locate on a battle-by-battle basis. "So instead for us it's more about making sure the maps are authentic to the Vietnam environment, but picking the best location within the vicinity for gameplay purposes."

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One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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