Making it in Unreal: Hell Let Loose is a truly international WWII shooter

Black Matter CEO Maximilian Rea’s last project as a visual effects producer was Hacksaw Ridge - the harrowing real-life story of a US medic and conscientious objector who made a heroic contribution to battles in the Pacific Theatre, all while refusing to wield a rifle. His first project as a game developer is Hell Let Loose, a platoon-based WWII multiplayer shooter played on such scale that he hopes players will have space to entirely embody their roles, perhaps playing whole matches as helpers rather than hurters. The easy, obvious narrative is to say that one project led directly to the other, but that’s not true - Rea was unhappy in his work and, feeling creatively unfulfilled, decided to make more of a hobby. “Well, I play games in my spare time,” he recalls thinking at the time. “Maybe it might be more interesting to begin trying to understand them from a technical standpoint, as opposed to just playing them.” Hell Let Loose wasn’t the natural next step from the world of visual effects, then, but an escape from it. When Unreal Engine 4 became free, Rea started to tinker with its toolset and soon posted screenshots on the engine’s forums - appealing for artists and programmers in the same way bands used to find bassists and drummers in the classifieds. Before long, Rea had found two partners in the project who would eventually become studio co-founders.

from PCGamesN https://ift.tt/2zDttsl