HELL LET LOOSE

Learn by dying like a dog for no good reason

Conventional WWII shooters have the player inhabit Tom Hanks’ Captain Miller – the Saving Private Ryan protagonist who, through a combination of gumption and dumb luck, is witness to meaningless death but never its subject (well, not until the very end, at least). Black Matter CEO Max Rea likes to say that Hell Let Loose newbies are the men standing behind Hanks on the D-Day landing craft – the ones who take a bullet the moment the ramp hits the beach.

“Normally, I think people’s first or second game is an extremely overwhelming and bewildering experience that’s largely just terrifying,” he says. “Things are exploding incredibly loudly around you, you wonder how you’re alive still, and then you die. You never see the person who kills you.”

Then comes an inflection point, Rea says. “Most players will figure out, ‘Is this something I want to overcome? Do I want to be the wolf at the top of this animal kingdom, or can I just not handle it?’” The Captain Millers of his studio’s 50v50 FPS earn their coolheadedness and knack for survival through study and experience.

It’s a brusque approach to onboarding, especially in the sphere of large-scale multiplayer where indies are understandably concerned about low player numbers ringing an early death knell for their games. “If you don’t have enough players to fill a server, then new players won’t come to the game,” Rea says. “That was by far the biggest worry.”