Hell Let Loose: Vietnam

This game is too buggy right now don't buy it. Also they didn't put traps in because of "moral" reasons but we have napalm and everything else, very questionable decision.

As others have already said in their review, the game is a bit unpolished on launch, but for me personally I haven't had any issues with crashing, bugs, or queues, but I have had somewhat disappointing performance in-game. My main issue is with the developers' vision and the gameplay. At the moment, this is not really a Vietnam war game. The two factions are far too similar in playstyle. The only real difference is that one side has AKs and Tunnels and the other has M16s and Helicopters. Oddly, the US forces camouflage better on most maps than the Vietnamese. Where are the traps? Why do the Vietnamese have the same amount of air support and tanks available to them as the almighty US military? Shouldn't the US at least have a Cobra or Huey Gunship? The Vietnamese even have their own flamethrower! There is no tunnel combat, as they are basically just fast travel hubs. Could the developers seriously not have come up with more unique ways to differentiate the factions or add a semblance of the asymmetry the war was famous for? Some of the game modes are a total joke. The Conquest mode essentially makes the game feel like 5 separate 10v10s rather than a 50v50 match. All of the game modes revolve around controlling territory on the map, nothing creative or new that fits the Vietnam war setting better. The progression system is also a bit of a pain in the ass. Instead of unlocking different loadouts, you instead have to unlock slots and carry capacity to have more than just a primary weapon and a bandage/grenade at level 1. Meanwhile, a max level role has 3x the slots and carry capacity which seems like too much of a gap to me. Some classes like grenadier or engineer are forced to play several matches as just basic infantry to unlock the ability to carry an assault rifle and rocket launcher for example. There are not many weapon options either. No M14, no different AK types, no grease gun, no PPSh, only one shotgun and machine gun for each faction and no ammo selection like slugs for shotguns or big belts of MGs. All of these weapons and options were present in Rising Storm 2. Sure, the game is brand new and they will probably add more options, but I doubt that they would eventually double or triple the weapon variety a few years from now to match Rising Storm 2. The tank gameplay is somehow more of a joke than in the WW2 version. My gunner probably had to put 10 AP shells into the same part of the hull to destroy an enemy tank at point blank. It was basically just two civil war ironclads tickling each other to death. Also there is again no depth to the tank combat, no weak spots or modules you can meaningfully disable, it's basically just whoever can put 10 AP rounds into the other tank's center mass first. Naturally the game is still fun and has similar gunplay and pacing to HLL WW2 which I enjoyed a lot, but it just doesn't really fit the title of a Vietnam game. Unfortunately these mostly seem to be core design issues so I doubt that the game will ever feel like something other than a quick reskin of the WW2 version with assault rifles in a jungle setting. I'll probably stick to Rising Storm 2 for now until this game has a lot of reworks and a change of direction.

Not Recommended After waiting for this game with genuine excitement, I honestly cannot believe this is being sold as a finished product. Hell Let Loose: Vietnam feels like an unfinished early-access build with a Vietnam skin slapped on top of it. The technical state is embarrassing. Performance is inconsistent, animations and movement feel clumsy, textures and objects visibly pop into existence, and the server browser is a frustrating mess. Trying to join a match can turn into an endless cycle of full servers, misleading empty slots, VIP restrictions, queues, and connection errors. A multiplayer-only game should at least make it easy to actually play multiplayer. Even worse, the game completely fails to capture the atmosphere of the Vietnam War. The weapons sound weak, explosions have no weight, the jungle feels artificial and strangely lifeless, and the battlefield often sounds almost empty. There is very little sense that a large-scale war is taking place around you. Older Vietnam games, especially Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, deliver far better audio, tension, and immersion despite being many years older. The controller aim assist is another terrible decision. In a tactical shooter where positioning, concealment, and spotting are supposed to matter, allowing players to receive assistance that can detect or snap toward enemies hidden in vegetation completely undermines the experience. What is the point of carefully using the jungle for cover when another player can simply look near your position and receive help from the game? This does not feel like a meaningful evolution of Hell Let Loose. It feels like a rushed, poorly optimized reskin with a few new vehicles and mechanics added to justify selling it as a separate product. The graphics may occasionally look modern, but almost everything underneath them feels unfinished, generic, and lacking impact. After around two hours spent mostly struggling to join servers and trying to make the game work rather than actually enjoying it, I submitted a refund request through Steam. That alone should say enough about the current state of the game. Perhaps it will become acceptable after six months or a year of patches, but customers should not have to pay full price to test a supposedly finished product. At the moment, this is one of the most disappointing tactical shooter releases I have played. Do not buy it in its current state.