I go back to Counter-Strike, to the early days of 1.6, and for me personally, I think that set the ground rules for what a good online FPS should be. Counter-Strike – and this is still true for CS2 – is all about risk and consequence. You get one life per round and are incredibly vulnerable. It’s not like Call of Duty or even Battlefield, where standard game modes give you armor and power-ups. It’s raw. I’ve always preferred shooters in this tradition. So, it would seem, are many other PC players. One of the most violent, violent and brutal FPS games available in almost four years, it is like no other Hell Let Loose just set a new Steam record.
Taking place amidst the actual battlefields of World War II, Hell Let Loose manages to strike a balance between a playable FPS game and something closer to a full-scale simulation. Respawning is allowed, but the stakes are high – a single bullet is enough to kill you, and every death means fighting and making your way to the front lines. Hell Let Loose has no spray and pray; no glimmer of glory. You need to move slowly, work with your team and take cover. If you manage to kill one of the enemies, it feels like a huge achievement.
Back in November, the Hell Let Loose Wacht am Rhein DLC arrived with a variety of new forms and units. At the same time, developer Team17 released update number 16, which included a new map, numerous quality of life and bug fixes, and added the much-desired freelook feature, as well as a dynamic weather system.
Most recently, Hell Let Loose was available for free on the Epic Games Store. Combined with the shooter’s consistently strong reputation (after more than 86,000 user reviews, it still boasts a “very positive” rating on Steam), Hell Let Loose just hit a record number of players.
As of Sunday, January 5th, 20,338 people were playing Hell Let Loose at the same time, the highest number of concurrent users in the game’s history. In the last 24 hours alone, this shooter has peaked at over 17,000 concurrent players, more than rivals like Destiny 2, Battlefield 1, and Battlefield 2042. If you want to try Hell Let Loose for yourself, you can get it here.
Otherwise, try some of the other best WWII games or perhaps the best war games on PC.
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