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Hell Let Loose: Remagen Refresh
(2025)

Level Design Map Lead
Expression Games

I led the level design of the Remagen Refresh from researching and analysing the legacy map, blocking out approved changes, playtesting and final release. 

15+ person team - Mulitiplayer FPS - Shipped in Patch 19.1

Battle History

This map is set on the 12th of March 1945 where US forces battle fiercely against a the heavily defended Ludendorff bridge. This location served as a major crossing point across the Rhine. 

My Contribution

  • Researching legacy map​

    • Looking at community feedback for Remagen from various sources (Discord, Steam, Reddit etc)

    • Collating the feedback into action points for the map, bearing in mind the resources and time we had available 

  • Blocking out and implementing action points

    • Re designing the Ludendorff bridge from the ground up, both the top route and the walkway underneath

    • Blocking out two new routes across the river with one having a new island attached

    • Working with the code team to change game logic to make the central capture point always the bridge

  • Level to Shippable

    • Led daily map stand ups​

    • Analysed new ideas for the map and decided what to action and what not to

    • Worked closely with the Art, Audio and VFX teams to bring the map to Shippable quality

    • Ran playtests, collating and actioning the feedback appropriately​

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Researching the Map

With Remagen being a current map in the game this process was slightly different. What I did was I read through huge amounts of community posts about the map, these were found on Discord, Steam, Reddit and Youtube. Additionally I went and played numerous games of Remagen with the community and asked them what they thought about the map and how they would improve it. 
I then took all this information and collated it into a Map Refresh Proposal document. Here I detailed the majority of the community feedback and I outlined the steps I would take to tackle the issues that Remagen had.  ​​

This document also featured the development dependencies that this refresh would need. With this being a map refresh and not a totally new one not as many resources or time were available.

One thing I was conscious of with this refresh was that I did not want to stray too far from what made Remagen great. Players did love the fact that it was a hard map and that it was historically accurate and I still wanted to capture this feeling but at the same time introduce some new additions that would make the gameplay better. The phrase I kept using with the team was "We aren't making it easier we are just moving the needle slightly".

Design Decisions

Adding more routes across the river

The first thing I wanted to tackle was adding additional routes over the Rhine. This was one of the most asked for additions by the community because games were essentially decided by who got to the bridge first as it was almost impossible to push across. To do this I designed two new ways to cross the river, firstly a large island with a pontoon bridge on the West side and then a much larger pontoon bridge with a raised section on the East side. These were historically accurate and introducing these would alleviate the bottleneck of the central bridge and provide players with more flanking routes to try and break the stalemate.

Redesigning the Ludendorff Bridge

In addition to new crossings I also wanted to redesign the Ludendorff Bridge itself. I made the bridge wider and changed the cover placement to mostly the middle so that defenders didn't have a clear line of sight down the middle of the bridge. I also totally redesigned the walkways underneath the bridge. In the legacy version the stairs down were located far down the bridge. Instead I moved the entrances way closer to the ends of the bridge, I also added a way up to the walkways from the ground in the form of scaffolding. Finally I changed the design of the walkways from being mostly one lane to two lanes so that players had more options when pushing along the underside of the bridge

Creating more space for airheads

Another area I wanted to tackle was limited space for airheads. With the way the grid system works in Hell Let Loose there was only a sliver of places Commanders could put airheads along the river. This meant flanking was almost impossible. To combat this I added more land at the banks of the river. These came in the form of a large island on one side and then by extending the edge of the river on the other. In these areas I also added ample cover so that commanders had viable places to drop airheads. I did not want to change the width of the river drastically I just wanted to create some more opportunities for attackers.

Altering Capture Point logic

The final action point I wanted to tackle was making the central row Capture Point(CP) always the Lundendorff bridge. In a standard game of Hell Let Loose the CPs are randomised from a choice of three. In Remagen two of these CPs were on either side of the river, meaning that if a team got lucky and had the CP spawn on their side they almost always won. To change this I wanted to make it so the central CP was always the bridge, this would fix this issue and it would also be more thematic. No other Hell Let Loose map does this so I had to work with the code team to change the system so that I could decide which CP is chosen. Although I had to do very little in engine I believe this was the most important change I pushed for on this map refresh.

Wishlist Features

The changes I put forward and implemented in Remagen I believe have had a positive impact, not straying too much from what makes the map iconic and unique but just adding gameplay changes to make the map a little more balanced and enjoyable. 
Having said that I would of loved to tackle other areas of the map. For this refresh we only focused on the river but I would of liked to redesign some of the other areas, especially the top of the mountain that looms over the Rhine as this has great lines of sight over the whole map.
Another element I would of loved to add was buildable routes across the river. Instead of having pre placed pontoon bridges like we have now I think it would be more engaging to let players build these bridges themselves with help from their team-mates. It would still accomplish the goal of adding more flanking routes but would add a layer of player interaction ontop of it.

Some gameplay and community sentiment videos can be found here:​

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