Do not carry Warfare capture logic into Offensive. In Warfare, a player in the Soft Cap adds one unit of capture power and a player inside the Hard Cap adds three; in Offensive, only players physically inside the Hard Cap contribute. That single rules change explains why a wide flank can win one mode and accomplish nothing in the other.
Hell Let Loose: Vietnam launched on August 13, 2026 with four modes: Warfare, Offensive, Conquest, and Domination. This guide uses the official launch rules. Server configuration and later live-service updates can change availability or balance, so the current HUD and official patch notes take priority.
Three map terms decide whether your position counts
- Hard Cap
- The circle drawn directly around a capture point.
- Soft Cap
- The four grid squares forming a 2-by-2 area around the objective.
- Sector
- A 2-by-8 strip of the map containing one of the five capture points in the frontline modes.
The circle is not automatically the only place that matters. Warfare and Domination count the wider Soft Cap, but triple the contribution of each player inside the Hard Cap. Offensive discards the Soft Cap for capture power. Conquest replaces the linear frontline with several freely contestable points and adds a team Morale economy.
| Mode | Primary pressure | Key clock | Win route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warfare | One contested frontline sector | Up to 90 minutes | Take the enemy HQ sector, or hold the majority when time expires |
| Offensive | One active Hard Cap at a time | 30 minutes per sector | Attackers take all five; defenders stop any one timer |
| Conquest | Multiple points plus finite Morale | Up to 90 minutes | Hold the majority when the opposing Morale reaches zero |
| Domination | Three central points, then an unlocked HQ | Up to 90 minutes | Capture the enemy HQ, or hold the majority at time |
Warfare: earn local weight without losing the other half of the line
Each team begins with its own half of the map and the middle sector neutral. Only the contested sector changes hands, so the battle has a visible frontline even when tunnels, helicopters, boats, and Recon create threats behind it. A clean, uncontested capture takes three minutes.
The position math is explicit:
- a player in the Soft Cap contributes one unit of capture power;
- a player inside the Hard Cap contributes three units;
- the team can win immediately by reaching the enemy HQ sector;
- otherwise the team holding more sectors at the 90-minute limit wins.
This creates three simultaneous player tasks. A Hard Cap group supplies concentrated weight. A wider Soft Cap screen prevents the enemy from walking to the circle unobserved. A defensive reserve protects the previous sector and the spawns that keep the entire push alive. If everyone crowds the circle, the capture number may look strong while the enemy removes every route into it. If everyone takes a scenic flank, the opponent can win the actual count before that flank arrives.
Use the sector indicator as a decision trigger:
- Your side is gaining cleanly: protect entrances and spawns; do not leave the counted area to chase retreating players.
- The sector is contested: move additional bodies into the Hard Cap only if the route is covered; each surviving player there has greater weight.
- Your previous sector is threatened: one squad must turn early. Waiting for the current attack to fail can lose both positions.
- The enemy owns the approach: rebuild the spawn angle and apply pressure from another side instead of repeating the shortest path.
The final ten minutes change the objective. If your team already owns the majority, protecting that count is a valid win route; an unnecessary all-team attack can expose the deciding sector. If your team trails, kills outside the active sector do not fix the result. Preserve enough time for the capture itself, not merely for the run to the circle.
Offensive: the circle is the entire capture problem
Offensive assigns one team to attack and the other to defend. The attackers see one active objective and receive 30 minutes to capture it. The defenders can see all five from the start, allowing later positions to be prepared before the frontline reaches them.
When attackers take a sector, three things happen:
- the defenders fall back to the next objective;
- the timer resets to 30 minutes;
- the lost sector cannot be recaptured by the defenders.
Only the Hard Cap contributes to capture. A flanking squad remains useful when it destroys a defender spawn, cuts reinforcements, or opens a covered entry, but standing in the surrounding Soft Cap adds no capture weight. The flank must finish by placing living attackers in the circle.
Attackers should sequence the assault instead of trickling. Establish a protected approach, identify the defender’s reinforcing route, build smoke and suppression around a common entry window, then put multiple squads into the Hard Cap together. If the entry fails, preserve the spawn and rotate the angle; a new 30-minute window does not exist until the current sector falls.
Defenders win by letting any one active timer expire. Use an outer screen to discover the attack, but keep a route back to the circle. A squad fighting far beyond the objective can produce kills while the attackers quietly establish three-to-one capture weight inside it. After losing a point, do not counterattack into a sector the rules will not return. Fall back immediately and use the remaining setup that the team prepared earlier.
The failure signal for both sides is a mismatch between firefight and circle. Attackers who never reach the Hard Cap are not applying capture pressure. Defenders who cannot re-enter the circle before the count finishes have already lost the decisive position, even if they dominate the surrounding grid.
Conquest: every redeployment spends a shared resource
Conquest arranges multiple capture points in a cross-shaped layout and allows them to be taken in any order. There is no single linear sector that every squad must enter. Instead, each team begins with finite Morale.
Morale changes the cost of a life:
- redeploying onto the battlefield reduces the team’s Morale;
- Morale also bleeds over time for the side that does not control the majority of capture points;
- when one side reaches zero while the opponent holds the majority, the opponent wins.
This is not a kill-count mode. A team can lose Morale through repeated deployments and through minority map control at the same time. Before redeploying across the map, ask whether the move will change a point soon enough to justify its cost. A surviving squad that disengages and walks to the neighbouring point may preserve more team value than a faster death-and-respawn cycle.
Divide the map into three jobs. The anchor keeps one owned point and its spawn usable. The swing group moves between the two points whose ownership will create a majority. The disruption group attacks enemy routes and forces the opponent to spend Morale responding. These are temporary jobs, not permanent squad labels; change them when the majority changes.
When your team owns the majority, do not scatter across every enemy point. Make the opponent spend time and deployments to reverse one defended position. When your team is in the minority, a third simultaneous attack can be less valuable than concentrating enough players to flip one point immediately.
Conquest overtime: identify which side must move
Overtime begins only in the special case where the team that currently controls the majority runs out of Morale first. The other team still has Morale but does not own the majority, so it receives a final task: take the majority before exhausting its remaining Morale.
The majority holder should defend and deny quick flips. The Morale holder must attack, but careless redeployments shorten its own opportunity. Keep surviving players on pressure, choose the nearest point that changes the majority, and do not spend the remaining pool on unrelated fights.
If the Morale holder fails to gain the majority before its own pool is exhausted, the team that entered overtime with map control wins. The top bar is therefore not a simple “more points is always safer” display; map majority and remaining Morale must be read together.
Domination: win the centre to open the real target
Domination begins with both Headquarters locked and three capture points available in the central sectors. The points can be captured in any order. Owning two of the three unlocks the opponent’s HQ, creating a second phase.
The HQ does not remain permanently open. If your team loses the central majority while attacking it, the enemy HQ locks again. This prevents a token centre capture from turning into an independent back-cap race.
Run Domination as a two-layer operation:
- Secure two central points. Defend the easier anchor and concentrate enough players to win the swing point.
- Open the enemy HQ. Move an assault group forward, but leave enough strength and spawn coverage to keep two central points.
- Watch the lock state. If the centre majority is breaking, reinforce it before committing more players to an HQ that may become immune.
- Exploit the immediate win. A successful enemy HQ capture ends the match; otherwise, the team with the point majority at the 90-minute limit wins.
Warfare and Domination share the one-to-three Soft Cap/Hard Cap weighting, but their strategic shape is different. Warfare advances one frontline. Domination lets the centre unlock a distant end condition. Do not abandon the two points that make the HQ attack legal.
Reset these assumptions when the server changes mode
| Habit from the last mode | Why it fails now | Correct reset |
|---|---|---|
| Standing in the Soft Cap during Offensive | It adds no capture power | Use the flank to open an entry, then put players inside the Hard Cap. |
| Instantly redeploying across Conquest | Each deployment reduces team Morale | Compare the walking route and point value before spending a life. |
| Pushing the enemy HQ in Domination after losing a centre point | The HQ locks when central majority is lost | Recover two of three centre points first. |
| Sending the entire team into the Warfare Hard Cap | The approach and previous sector lose protection | Balance concentrated capture weight with a Soft Cap screen and reserve. |
| Counterattacking a lost Offensive sector | Defenders cannot recapture it | Use the next prepared objective and its new 30-minute hold. |
The match HUD is the final authority. Before the first spawn, read the mode name, objective state, clock, and any Morale bar. After every sector change, read them again. Most mode mistakes happen when a player executes a good tactic for a rule set that is no longer active.
Rule source and version boundary
These rules reflect the August 13 launch build. Check the official Hell Let Loose: Vietnam Steam page and the in-match HUD after balance updates.