I go back to Counter-Strike, the early days of 1.6, and for me personally I think it set the ground rules for what a good online FPS should be. Counter-Strike – and this still applies to CS2 – is all about risk and consequence. You gain one life per round and are incredibly vulnerable. It’s not like Call of Duty or even Battlefield where you get armor and perks in the standard game modes. It’s raw. I have always preferred shooters of this tradition. This apparently also applies to many other PC gamers. One of the hardest, most brutal and razor-sharp FPS games on the market, unparalleled after almost four years Letting all hell loose I just set a new Steam record.

Taking place on the real battlefields of World War II, Hell Let Loose manages to strike a balance between a take-and-play playable FPS game and something more akin to a full-fledged simulation. Respawns are allowed, but the stakes are high – a single bullet is enough to kill you, and every death means you have to fight and find your way to the front. There is no spraying and praying in Hell Let Loose; no gleam of glory. You need to move slowly, work with your team, and use cover. If you manage to kill one of the enemies, it feels like a huge accomplishment.

The DLC “Hell Let Loose Wacht am Rhein” was released in November with various new uniforms and units. At the same time, developer Team17 released update number 16, which included a new map, numerous quality of life and bug fixes as well as the much-awaited Freelook feature and a dynamic weather system.

Most recently, Hell Let Loose was available for free on the Epic Games Store. Combined with the shooter’s continued reputation (after more than 86,000 user reviews, it still has a “very positive” rating on Steam), Hell Let Loose has just reached a record number of players.

On Sunday, January 5, 20,338 people played Hell Let Loose simultaneously, the highest number of concurrent users in the game’s entire history. In the last 24 hours alone, the shooter has peaked at more than 17,000 concurrent players, more than competitors like Destiny 2, Battlefield 1 and Battlefield 2042. If you want to try Hell Let Loose for yourself, you can do it here.

Otherwise, try some of the other best World War II games or perhaps the best war games on PC.

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