Warm Blood, Hot Mics

I sit through an hour-long digital briefing before actually going hands-on with Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, a parallel follow-up to the popular World War II shooter, Hell Let Loose. Developer Expression Games makes it very clear during this briefing that HLL: Vietnam is a highly cooperative shooter, meaning what you and your squad do affects the entire team, and that everyone must work together to achieve goals and win. Speakers like game director Paul ‘Rushy’ Rustchynsky emphasize that Vietnam, like its WWII predecessor, is not a game where a single player can be a hero or an army – you must work as a team.

But old habits die hard.

I start on the Thanh Hoa Bridge map, colored by a flowing river with sunlight-tinted vegetation exuding Vietnam’s summer heat and marked by floating shacks and makeshift military infrastructure. The first thing I do is run straight toward the first shot I hear. Seconds later, I am dead, killed by a bullet from I don’t know where. I spawn back in, continuing to play HLL: Vietnam like a Call of Duty or a Battlefield of my past… and I quickly die again. It takes a few more times for the whole “no single player can be a hero” message that was drilled into my brain to take effect, and then I reorient and attempt to play the game on its own terms. And surprise: that’s when I find the fun.