Hi everyone, With great excitement, we can announce that we’ll be deploying Update 4 - complete with Sainte-Mère-Église and Foy overhaul + Offensive mode next week! Update 4 will bring another healthy changelist that we hope will tide you over until early in the new year when we’ll follow up with a Patch and then Update 5 - which is already underway. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34012997/4445351ed37c7382d0dd06c3c8791a4c4e01a4b2.jpg[/img] [i]Are you ready for close quarter combat?[/i] We’ll hit you with the Update changelist next week with the release. As usual, there’s a mixture of bug fixes, crash fixes, a new map, more customisation, UI/HUD work and more! We’re still working hard to nail some overhanging back-end issues, but we’re feeling confident on our workload over the holiday period and are excited to take some time to nail some irritating and persistent issues - as well as upgrade our sound engine and - potentially - upgrade our engine version to 4.23. With all this in mind, we thought we’d take some time to explain the ideas and drive behind our mapping, as well as the Foy overhaul that we’ll be released with Update 4 next week. [h1]Mapping Philosophy - Words from Max, Lead Developer[/h1] Over time we’re always pushing to refine the work across all aspects of Hell Let Loose. Our mapping team has been greatly expanded and we’re enjoying putting together many, many more maps, as well as improving the ones currently in the game. During our Early Access, we’re concertedly using this time to work towards a fixed number of maps, as well as generally lifting the quality across the board so that there is a consistent look, feel and optimisation present in each. In the very early days of Hell Let Loose we were entirely new to the engine - and indeed new to game development. Speaking for myself - this was the first game I’d ever worked on, and much of everything I know has been self-taught (or at-least - taught by some generous Youtube video creators!). It’s certainly been a journey to move from a complete beginner - to attempt to absorb decades of art, composition and methodology to create the maps you’re playing now. We’re very excited that throughout the coming years you’ll be able to grow with us - to watch as quality is lifted, optimisation is improved and frustrating gameplay is ironed out. Like always, we’re reading your feedback and comments and adding them to an action list. While mapping feedback may not be actioned immediately - please know that we compile all of it to work on at the soonest available opportunity. [h1]Foy Overhaul[/h1] For Foy, we stepped back and looked at all the aspects of the map - both visually and gameplay-wise - that we felt were working well. To be honest, there wasn’t much about Foy that needed any urgent kind of update, but we looked at our roadmap (which contains more snow and winter maps) and felt that we were best to make any changes now so that when we moved on to more snow maps we wouldn’t be working with a moving set of parameters. To that degree, we spent time auditing the map - looking through specific meshes, textures and locations that we felt were lacking or could be pushed towards a more photoreal quality - or a better gameplay quality. Like you, we’ve played the maps an awful lot and have got a sense of locations that could really do with more cover or flanking opportunities. We know that to some degree there will always be a furious and hectic battle in the center of the lines, but we felt that some locations and map objective combinations meant that the majority of players were forced into central combat due to the absolute difficulty of pulling off a very wide flank through open fields. When we set up the Offensive mode, we also wanted to offer Foy in a completely different weather and lighting condition to what you’ve already experienced. That is always our main challenge - to make sure that each map and gamemode you play gives you as close to a new experience every single time. To that degree, while you have that close, morning fog atmosphere for Warfare, we wanted to show off more of the map with a bright and sunny clear day. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34012997/32e8180ab2dbbc2bf7d19665fdecb5708c0daeac.jpg[/img] This first addition of Foy Offensive mode will feature the Germans as the attackers - echoing their offensive back through the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge. Foy itself was taken and retaken several times by the US forces, and we felt that this would be an interesting new set of challenges to present to both forces. Now, the clear air will allow for far greater engagement ranges and ability for tanks and machine guns to lock down key thoroughfares. Anti-tank guns and mines will be crucial for success - to stem the flow of armour, while defending the iconic chapel at the centre of the village will be crucial for the US in stopping the Germans from pushing them back into the open fields. To this degree, we also learned a huge amount in our execution of the Norman countryside in Omaha Beach and Sainte-Mère-Église. We spent the time working through the map and introducing snow drifts and embankments piled up at the edges of the roads and fencelines - natural cover that make leapfrogging across the map a much easier affair. It will still be possible to hold wide angles - but you won’t find yourself caught in hundreds of meters of open territory. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34012997/32f1c97b1c6c9f90ae2b9510daf8e17bbfefccfb.jpg[/img] You’ll also notice that many strong points and key locations between sectors have had upgrades to cover and composition. You’ll also notice that material and texture quality has been improved - as well as new vegetation added to better break up longer sightlines (and better emulate the foliage that surrounds the real-life village). [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34012997/8dd2680fca1edecef228a9444e66aa2c7519d4f7.jpg[/img] As usual, we’ll be keeping an eye on the gameplay and joining you on the battlefield. There are still a few smaller issues we’d like to polish up in Foy and we’ll do so when we introduce the US Offensive mode, but we feel that we’re much closer to what we’d consider a final product with this update. [h1]Play with Black Matter community night & a little tease![/h1] As you know 2020 is nearly upon us, so to kick off next year in style we're going to be hosting a Black Matter x Hell Let Loose community night in the third or fourth week of January! This will involve a specially picked server where we'll be wanting to squad up and play with you for the night. Each match members of the team will rotate between different units to meet and play with as many of you as possible as we fight, and chat, through the frontline. We'll be sharing the exact details early in the new year, so you can expect an exact date and time soon! Now about that tease, how about some new outfit options for Update 4... [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34012997/5cee56c762e9e0fa2d2564964d9b95684c9474ec.jpg[/img] See you on the frontline!