There is a sudden whoosh of air and the game presents me with the choice to bleed out or “let go,” slipping back into the respawn menu. I stand staring at it, trying to reconstruct our skirmish in my head – I want to be certain that this is my kill and that the soldier is not still out there somewhere. It is strangely quiet again as I take a few tentative steps outside, then crouch walk towards where I think I last saw the soldier. After a few seconds I realize that no one may be coming. The bandage is applied my avatar now grips his rifle with bloodied hands. Every instant I imagine the other soldier running into the bunker and mowing me down while I helplessly wait for my field dressing to take effect. The moments it takes to complete the action seem to stretch for the duration of the 90-minute match. I turn to face the entrance, crouch, and begin to staunch the wound. There is a small closet, poorly lit and cluttered with equipment, ideal to hold off an ambush. I put the concrete mass of the bunker between us and run inside, casting about the space like a cornered animal.
His shots come before mine do, but I manage a couple of rounds before the controller rumbles and the screen blurs to indicate an injury. The soldier hasn’t opened fire on me, and although I have him in my iron sights, I hesitate: How does Hell Let Loose indicate friendlies? As I jump down, I catch a glimpse of a lone figure in the distance. I pass the mutilated body of a horse and find myself near a trench leading to a small bunker. It’s a different war, but there is something of the quiet menace seen in Sam Mendes’ 1917 in this accidental trek across the French countryside. I hear faint claps of gunfire in the distance and make my way towards them. In Hell Let Loose I imagine myself a lone rookie, barely able to use or carry my rifle. In another shooter this would mean I’m a tank, compensating for my lack of maneuverability with firepower. My running pace is only marginally faster than my walk. The recoil kicks the camera right up, and the reload takes several nerve-wracking seconds. My M1 Garand rifle feels heavy, its swing from side to side slow even with the control sensitivity turned up. I use the opportunity to get accustomed to the controls. I am a kilometer or more away from the bulk of the 50v50-player main forces. The Axis troops have retreated, pushed back by the Allies. The artillery craters and Czech hedgehogs are there, but the guns at the far end of the beach are silent. I am greeted instead by an eerie solitude. As a result, I deploy on Omaha Beach, expecting a D-Day landing scene similar to in Saving Private Ryan or Call of Duty: WWII – men crammed into landing boats, waiting for the ramp to drop, to rush onto sandy dunes pocked with machine gun fire, anti-tank obstacles, and barbed wire. I misread the ordnance map that’s displayed prior to spawning and indicates the current location of the game’s shifting frontline.
My first match in Hell Let Loose is a study in failure.
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