Hell Let Loose: Vietnam Launches Tomorrow With Helicopters, Tunnel Networks and Full Crossplay

Five years after the original Hell Let Loose turned "communicate or die" into a whole genre niche, its standalone follow up is finally here. Hell Let Loose: Vietnam launches tomorrow, August 13, on PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store and the Microsoft Store, plus PS5 and Xbox Series X and S. The standard edition costs $39.99, with a 10% discount running around launch that brings it down to $35.99, and there is a pricier deluxe edition if you want the extras.

This is not an expansion bolted onto the WW2 game. Developer Expression Games rebuilt the formula on Unreal Engine 5 as its own game, and you do not need to own the original to play it.

Video: Hell Let Loose on YouTube

What actually changes in Vietnam

The core is still 100 players split into two teams of 50, fighting across large maps where squads, officers and a commander have to actually talk to each other to win. Vietnam ships with six maps based on real locations, and the two factions play very differently, which is the biggest shift from the WW2 game.

The US side gets fully operational helicopters for fire support and supply drops, which is the first time the series has put players in the air. The North Vietnamese Army answers with buildable tunnel networks that let squads pop up behind enemy lines for ambushes. Both sides get patrol boats for river fighting, and traversal has been expanded with swimming, climbing and crawling, which matters a lot on maps full of gorges, paddies and thick jungle. The familiar Warfare and Offensive modes return alongside a rotation of additional modes.

The other headline is crossplay. For the first time in the franchise, PC, PS5 and Xbox players share the battlefield from day one, and community server owners can choose full crossplay, PC only or console only depending on what their regulars prefer.

Worth jumping in on day one?

There are honest reasons for optimism here. The game was supposed to launch June 18 and Team17 delayed it specifically to work on performance after beta feedback, and the open crossplay playtest in July gave the team a real stress test before launch rather than after. That said, this is a 100 player Unreal Engine 5 shooter launching into a very crowded month for military FPS fans, with Battlefield 6's Top Gun update landing August 18 and Modern Warfare 4 looming in the fall. Launch week server load is the classic failure point for games like this, so if you are on the fence, a few days of patience costs nothing. If you already love the original's slow, tense, voice chat driven firefights, though, this is the easiest recommendation of the week.