Battlefield Vietnam is the best Battlefield ever, and you can’t tell me otherwise. Maybe it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, but BV was so successful because it did everything in its power to distinguish itself from other shooters. It wasn’t a world war. It felt like Vietnam: gritty violence the paint, and Jefferson Airplane the canvas. So when Expression Games and Team17 announced that Hell Let Loose was headed there next, I about passed out from excitement. If the devs behind one of the most authentic WWII games ever made were now pivoting to Vietnam, could this be the (spiritual) sequel to the best Battlefield ever? The one I’ve waited over two decades for? I’m sure that was the idea. The result? Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is a lousy game, and I have a broken heart.
I suppose I’ll start with what works. When its systems line up, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam does a good job of capturing that ‘chaotic but coordinated’ feeling of the previous game. Helicopters roar overhead. Patrol boats skid across the surface. Infantry pushes forward in a desperate attempt to gain ground. For brief stretches, HHLV delivers an experience that feels genuinely distinct from anything else available.
Shooting mechanics feel relatively solid, too. The weapons crack and boom with authenticity, while explosions shake the battlefield in ways that make those dense vegetation ambushes feel like the world is coming down on top of you. If you have a squad of competent teammates that work together, advance on an objective, and complete a goal, HHLV almost captures what made the first game so special. But these moments are fleeting, and things unravel at an almost mach speed.
To put it simply, HHLV is broken through and through; it’s a buggy, poorly optimized game. Audio will drop out entirely during firefights. Bullets can pierce 12-inch thick concrete, but a piece of plywood is too much. Teammates lock up while sprinting. I’m not kidding when I say I could go on and on and on describing bugs like these. And they aren’t problems that feel like minor launch issues that will disappear after a quick patch or two. Instead, HHLV often feels like an early-access build that hit the streets way, way before it was ready. To their credit, the developers have already outlined a roadmap of what they’re working on, but that doesn’t change the situation at launch. HHLV should have been functioning from day one. It’s certainly being marketed that way.
But, believe it or not, HHLV has a more inherent issue holding it back. Part of what defined the Vietnam War was the dichotomy between the US and Vietnamese, so it’s baffling how little of a distinction HHLV makes between the two.
The US Armed Forces and North Vietnamese Army had fundamentally different approaches to combat. The US leaned heavily into air combat and overwhelming firepower, while the NVA focused on ambushes, concealment, and terrain familiarity. HHLV couldn’t care less about this. Both sides essentially feel the same. I think that undermines one of the biggest reasons to set a game amidst the Vietnam War in the first place. The conflict provides an opportunity for engaging, asymmetric gameplay, and HHLV does nothing to capitalize on it.
Even if you put aside the issues with a lack of historical accuracy, there simply isn’t enough content here to keep me around for long. Six maps don’t cut it for a multiplayer shooter built around long-term progression. The weapon selection also falls short of what the original offered at launch, while character customization amounts to little more than a few uniform variations.
The visual presentation is equally inconsistent. When it all comes together, Vietnam can look fantastic. Sunlight punching through the jungle canopy and fog drifting across rice paddies create some impressive moments, and several of the larger map vistas stand alongside the best-looking environments the series has produced. Then the illusion falls apart. I’ll turn a corner, and textures will take a couple of seconds to load, or I’ll be peppered with muzzle flashes that look like they belong to a PS2 game. And forget about the performance. Frame-rate drops are all too routine during the exact moments when stable performance matters most: intense firefights.
Audio fares no better. Radio communications randomly drop. Footsteps vanish completely. Explosions will suddenly become whisper-quiet. Once again, I’m only scratching the surface. Audio issues permeate the entire HHLV experience, and they’re particularly damaging in a game where determining enemy locations is so often done by sound.
Hell Let Loose: Vietnam needed to do one thing. Give the Vietnam War the same kind of treatment the series gave Normandy: a large-scale, immersive shooter built around the unique character of the real-life conflict. Instead, we got a game that repeatedly fails to come together in nearly every facet. I’ll give the developers the benefit of the doubt, though. The previous game was stellar. Maybe they can give this one the redemption story it so desperately needs. Hell Let Loose: Vietnam isn’t ready for deployment. Hell, as it stands right now, it’s about as ready as Gomer Pyle was on his way to basic training.
***A PS5 code was provided for this review***
