Hell Let Loose is daunting, but once you get a grip on the basics the rest comes easily. I’m here to give you the intro to the game I wish I had. I’m not going to bog you down with needless crap or strategy, I only want to tell you how to play the game.
 
 

Do I need a Microphone to Play?

Yes but no. I’m not going to encourage playing the game without a mic, directional callouts, calling when you throw a grenade, basic stuff to help the guy next to you survive is always helpful. That said there are always players without a mic, and the game still goes on as normal.
 
 
Certain roles however like Officer, Commander, Tanks, Recon, and certain tactics all demand some level of coordination you simply cant achieve by typing.
 
 
If you have no mic, there are many options. I’m not going to hit you with amazon links, but there are mod mics, headset mics, webcam mics, earbud mics, hell if you have an old rockband mic put it in a cup.
 
 
Also make sure to ask if people can hear you fine when you’re ingame, misconfigured audio is man’s greatest enemy.
 
 
 

Graphic Settings

“Can I run the game?”
 
HLL is very CPU dependent. I ran an I7 4770k before, a very old CPU and averaged 20-40 fps. I now run a Ryzen 5600x, and typically get 70-90 fps. Both systems use a GTX 1080 TI.
 
 
Here are the settings I currently use, I haven’t had any issue with clarity or performance:
 
 

 
 
Important Settings?
 
Anti-Aliasing Method, and Foliage Quality. I keep AA method on Community TAA because it looks the smoothest, and in a game full of hedges, bushes, and trees, a pixelated mess strains the eyes. Foliage Quality however I keep at the lowest (medium) because some foliage doesn’t appear at lower settings, and common grass disappears at a closer distance making spotting the enemy easier.
 
 
Aside from foliage and AA, I think the game looks the same regardless of what settings you use.
 
 
 

Joining a Game

HLL doesn’t have a lobby system or matchmaking, only a server browser which may be confusing to younger or newer gamers (not dissing, not everyone has a Quake dad). So let me break it down:
 
 
1. When you click enlist, let the server browser load. HLL’s browser freezes the game for some ungodly reason so just be patient, it doesn’t take long. Don’t incessantly refresh either, same thing.
 
 
2. You can ignore 90% of the buttons, the only important one is the players tab; click it until it looks like the picture and it will be sorted from most to least players.
 
 

 
 
3. Scroll down and find a server with 60-80 players, preferably with around 100 ping or less. Servers with this count of players have typically just changed map and many people have left, but not so many that it will die out. This means you don’t have to wait in a queue to play, and you’ll get to play a full match. Having a full server doesn’t matter as much in the beginning of a game either.
 
 
4. If you have friends, call out the server’s name and map. They can search using the server name filter also shown in the picture to join the same server as you. Joining via the steam friends list also works (sometimes? It doesn’t work for me, I have to manually join.)
 
 
Also call out what team you’re going to join and what squad, preferably don’t make your own squad as it forces you to become officer, not ideal for new players.
 
 
 

Newcomer Classes

Join an Infantry squad and get a feel for the game, the controls, shooting, performance, etc. Its fine to play a bit of follow the leader, shoot some baddies, get your sea legs. I do not recommend joining an armor squad or recon squad when you’re new, they’re harder to play and demand a better overall understanding of the game.
 
 
While the game tells you to play rifleman for your first time, here are my personal thoughts on each class and its viability for a new player. If you don’t want to read it all, just read the first sentence. I do recommend trying out most of the roles (commander/recon excluded) at some point because it’ll improve your understanding of the game.
 
 

 
 
Commander: Don’t.
 
 
Officer: Not for your very first time. Once you understand how objectives, spawns, and supply works maybe give it a shot, my first officer game was 3 hours in thanks to my friend ditching. The main thing about officer is you need a mic; at some point people will rely on you and you’ll need to communicate with them, even if its to say you don’t know what you’re doing.
 
 
Rifleman: It’s recommended for a reason; it’s extremely simple to play. You get a gun, grenades, and an ammobox. Levelled up, it has the more useful explosive ammo box which refills grenades and rockets. That said, it is very bog standard and has no particular speciality.
 
 
Assault: Fine, if nobody else is playing it go for it. They’re quite simple, they get a gun, grenades, and smoke grenades. While they can get work done, you should probably know why a smoke grenade goes where or what to do after killing a group of baddies first.
 
 
Automatic Rifleman: Go for it, they get grenades and a gun with good dakka. You have no real utility to worry about besides spotting bad guys and shooting at them.
 
 
Medic: Give it a shot. You’ll learn how the revive -> bandage process works, and people always appreciate a medic trying their best. Less essential, but you’ll still learn to stay alive so you can help your team, an important fundamental for many other classes.
 
 
Support: I don’t recommend this for new players. Support can be an extremely good class but it requires understanding the supply system and strong teamwork.
 
 
Machinegunner: I don’t recommend this class for newbies. MG isn’t hard to play and its open on a squad more often than not, but its stationary nature means you’ll be sitting around not learning the game. If you can’t deduce enemy spawnpoints or the frontline then you’ll also be sitting around not shooting.
 
 
Anti-tank: Hard to say. Sometimes a single AT guy can swing the game, sometimes you can read the dictionary and your team will never see a tank. If your team has been getting mopped up by a tank and nobody on the squad has switched, I say go for it. Otherwise leave it, as someone with more experience may feel the need to switch.
 
 
Engineer: If nobody else is taking it and you’re deep into the game. Engineer is one of the more complex classes to play with lots of direct ties to the game’s various logistics systems, and have a more direct effect on the outcome of the game. That said, there’s a decent chance your fellow engineers can fulfill the more complex needs for you. You still have landmines which are simple to use.
 
 
Armor: I don’t recommend playing armor classes as a new player. Tanks are more complex to control, have a major effect on the outcome of the game, require lots of coordination, and need a vague understanding of the games supply system.
 
 
Recon: Not for a new player. Recon isn’t inherently more complex than infantry classes, but there are two holdups: Firstly there can only be 6 (I think) recon players per team. Secondly, recon is generally considered to have a different overall objective to the rest of the team and if you have no clue how the regular game works how can you know what to do as a recon?
 
 
 

Objectives

Before we get into this, I want to state I’m giving a more complete and detailed summary here. I don’t expect you to read or retain all of this section right away, but hopefully you can at least skim it and get the gist before coming back for the details.
 
 
There are two gamemodes in HLL: Warfare and Offensive
 
Warfare
 
Warfare is the primary back and forth mode, each match is 90 minutes long. 5 objectives appear on the map, and your team’s goal is to capture all of them or hold more than the enemy when the time runs out. Each game begins with each team stuck at their base for around 2 minutes, typically with players piling into a transport truck found at each Headquarters spawn before making for the neutral middle point at often the 40-60 second mark.
 
 
Offensive
 
In offensive, one team is attacking and one is defending. The attackers have 30 minutes to take a point, when they do the timer resets back to 30 minutes. Defenders win if the clock runs out. If you’ve found yourself accidentally spawning at the headquarters instead of the first point as a defender, no worries just redeploy.
 
 
The Objectives
 
In either mode, you’re trying to capture objectives. Objectives are the black circles found on the map, hostile ones are in the red zone and friendly are in the blue zones. You must be in this circle to capture a point.
 
 
This isn’t Battlefield, you cannot back cap The only friendly objective that needs defending is the one at the front of the blue zone, and the only hostile objective that needs to be taken is the one at the front of the red zone. If you see people way in the back of hostile territory, it’s probably recon doing stuff. If its not recon, they’re probably drunk.
 
 

 
Excuse the primitive editing
 
 
Spawnpoints
 
Keeping your spawnpoints secure and hidden while searching for and destroying the enemy spawnpoints is the real moment to moment objective in HLL. There are a few methods of spawning but the two most important are Outposts and Garrisons
 
 
Outposts, often called out as “O-P” come in the form of noisy radios. These are spawns exclusive to a squad and placed by officers, are free to place save for a cooldown, and have the shortest respawn timer. They are most frequently destroyed by infantry coming within a short distance of them. Call it out to your squad if you destroy one to give them some peace of mind.
 
 
Garrisons, often called out as “Garry” come in the form of tables with food on them. These are team wide spawns placed by officers using supplies. They cost 50 in friendly territory and 100 in enemy territory, up to 8 can exist per team, and they have a 45 second respawn timer. Garrisons also cannot be placed within 200 meters of another friendly garrison (one grid block on the map). They are destroyed by large explosives or by running up and holding your use key for a time. Garrisons can also be rendered inert by nearby tanks or enemy infantry, so they are often found farther away from the frontline. If you see an enemy garrison call it out and mark it, and do your best to secure and destroy it.
 
 
Outposts and Garrisons are also destroyed if the region they are in is converted to hostile territory.
 
 

 
On the left is an OP, on the right is a Garry. These are the American variants but the radio/table principle remains for each faction.
 
 
There are three other methods of spawn: Half-Tracks, Airheads, and Headquarters. Half-Tracks are vehicles called in by the commander but anyone can drive them, when the engine is off they are a 60 second team wide respawn. Useful, but niche and rarely seen. Airheads are called in by a commander and only last a few minutes, but can be placed anywhere in the map and are often used for breaking stalemates. Keep an ear out if your squad leader or the commander calls out to redeploy and use the airhead spawn. Headquarters are the 3 spawns at your base, they’re not that useful aside from getting vehicle spawns but they can be taken out by a nearby enemy presence, so you can’t rely on them if your defense is on its last legs.
 
 
I’m not here to overwhelm you with tactics, but if you see crowds of enemies consistently coming from a direction, its worth calling out to the squad leader and investigating for OPs or Garrys.
 
 
Supplies
 
Commanders have their own currencies, but supplies are the currency of the infantry. They are used by officers to build garrisons, anti-tank to build stationary guns, and engineers to build nodes to give the commander resources or defensive structures. Supplies are good! It’s worth noting supplies can only be spent up to (I think) 100 meters away from the source.
 
 
Where do they come from?
 
The most common is the commander dropping supplies down, which can be seen on the map. Typically these are meant for squad leaders to place garrisons in enemy territory, and have 150 supplies, but offensive garrisons only cost 100 so if you see a supply drop with 50 left you’re usually free to spend it on coke and hookers.
 
 
The second method is the support class. Supports have a box they can drop just about anywhere to give 50 supplies after which it goes on a cooldown. This is useful for anti-tanks who need to set up a stationary gun or officers that are placing a defensive garrison, as garrisons in friendly territory only cost 50 supplies.
 
 
The third method is supply trucks. Supply trucks have two seats and the back is covered up. Only one respawns in the center headquarters, but you can ask the commander or get squad leader to badger the commander for a supply truck at a different HQ spawn. Supply trucks drop two boxes of 150 supplies, and are refilled at the soccer net looking thing at any HQ. Supply trucks are typically used in two situations: when other methods of getting an offensive garrison up have failed or are otherwise unavailable, or when engineers are building stuff. Whatever you do, please don’t use supply trucks to taxi yourself to the frontline, only take them if you’re actually going to use the supplies and not get the thing blown to ♥♥♥♥. Seriously.
 
 

 
The truck on the left has a covered back, that means it is a supply truck. The truck on the right has an exposed back, and is a transport. These are the American variants, but the covered/uncovered system remains for all factions.
 
 
 

Ask Questions

This isn’t 2006 anymore, people don’t call you the gamer word because you’re new these days. The best HLL games are the ones where both teams fight tooth and nail to win, and that doesn’t happen until everyone knows how to play. Ask questions if you’re unsure of something, look up an answer, try to learn. I’ve seen people in HLL get mad at inexperienced players who get defensive and pretend they’re trolling or hot ♥♥♥♥, but I’ve never seen an HLL player get mad at an inexperienced player who asked how a mechanic works.
 
 
And hey, once you’ve learned how to play you can teach the next guy and feel the warm fuzzys in your stomach! Or maybe thats the MG42 filling you with hot lead idk. Anyway, I hope this guide taught you something, and I hope it helps you enjoy one of the best multiplayer shooters ever made!
 
 

 
 
 

Random Tips

Here’s anything useful I can think of that isn’t related to learning the core of the game. New players can generally ignore this until they figure out the game.
 
 
-Hug the hedgerows, last I checked there’s no visibility check for destroying enemy outposts or disrupting garrisons, only distance.
 
 
-Watch the chat, commanders often type what they’re doing in there such as airstrikes or airheads, as commanders have no other way to directly relay messages to the team.
 
 
-If you create a squad or become officer, you cannot switch away by normal means. You have to leave the squad and rejoin to pick a new class. If you’re the only person in the squad, it will disband when the last person leaves.
 
 
-Artillery is always located in the central headquarters and disrupting it is often the main goal of recon players. When I order a supply truck from the commander I like to ask for it on one of the side HQ’s as this usually avoids encounters with recon.
 
 
-My god stop using supply trucks to taxi your fat a*s to the front line
 
 

 
 
Here we come to an end for Hell Let Loose Beginners Handbook + Video Settings hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!