Developer Insight: Behind the Design and History of Road to Hell

Hunters, we hope you are enjoying Road to Hell and Chapter 3! As part of our Developer Insight series, we like to show you a glimpse behind the curtain of Hunt design. This time, we sat down with our team of designers to look at how Road to Hell was researched, how the military Cargo Balloon was designed with scrutinizing historical accuracy, as well as some fun facts about hydrogen balloons!

What inspirations did you take for the story?

The Event name sums it up: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." We wanted to explore the idea of a well-trained force arriving, and how the Corruption might twist their good intentions. The 26th Regiment wanted to help the people of the area, but in the end, they had flaws just like everyone else does: in their case, overconfidence. Armies are made to fight people, not monsters. Especially not monsters like this!

What research did you do for the Event as a whole? Were there any stories from the 1800s that were recreated?

We researched the army's organization, structure, and weapons at that time. For example, in 1896 there were 25 U.S. infantry regiments. That's why ours called themselves the 26th.
We also spent some time trying to find the right ranks for Whitlaw and Riggins. Whitlaw commands a unit, but isn't so high-ranked that he's able to make big calls. He has superiors who denied his request to investigate the disappearances of his unit's scouts (Red Raven and One Who Flies, featured in the Devil's Trail update).
The fact that Whitlaw is considered a Commander underlines the ragtag nature of the 26th Regiment, as a proper army regiment would be led by a Colonel. Commander is a US Navy rank, is not used by other branches, and sits somewhat above a Lieutenant-Colonel. They usually commanded smaller vessels like frigates. At the same time, “Commander" is a catch-all term for the leader of a military force in more casual parlance, and easily understood by a modern audience. So in Whitlaw's case, Commander is not a rank, but an indicator of his position. His true rank in the U.S. Army might have been that of a Captain, Major, Lieutenant-Colonel or Colonel.
As for their clothing, those with knowledge of that era's military uniforms might notice that the 26th's have accurate individual details, but are not accurate when all combined. This was done to reflect the idea that they were mainly supplying themselves with what was spare or salvaged. This would have led to a patchwork appearance, since during that time, the U.S. Army was slowly replacing the old blue uniforms with khaki. The nature of such transformations is that they usually happen in batches, with newer styles only spreading slowly among the ranks, and usually not for full units at once.
Weapon-wise, there was a similar situation: The new Krag rifle was slowly replacing the aging 1873 rifles (or carbine offshoots like our new 1890 Cavalry, a later pattern of that same gun). The army was also still using mostly outdated support weapons like Gatling guns, where many other militaries of that time were slowly switching over to Maxim-based or other new machine guns that started appearing in the mid-eighties. A lot of militaries were conducting trials, and in our case, the Maxim M1895 is one such trial weapon (modified to fire the same round as the Krag). Whitlaw privately bought a bunch of modern machine guns for his Rough Riders' "expedition" to Cuba, while the rest of his unit was equipped with Gatling guns taken from US stockpiles.

The Cargo Balloon had a lot of research done for it—can you tell us more about it and what it's based on? Are there any fun facts you can share for the history buffs among us?

Our Cargo Balloon was based on hydrogen balloons from the 1800s, where hydrogen was generated on-site in special barrels to make the balloons fly. The balloons were used mainly in the Civil War for scouting the enemy, and had cables attached that could telegraph every movement directly to the President. This technology was way ahead of its time, as you can imagine. One design difference we made was that our Cargo Balloon design was smaller—it's made to transport supplies, not people, and we wanted to make it clear to players that it can extract rewards and a Bounty Token, but not your Hunter!
A fun historical fact is that these balloons were painted bright colors for intimidation! This is something we didn't copy in the game since we wanted it to fit into the world of Hunt and not clash too hard aesthetically, but it's still fun to think about.
Another fact for the history lovers is that the balloons all had names, similar to ships. We did name our balloon, but in art tests, the written names didn't look as good or as intimidating on the side as that big XXVI does!

Any cool characters we added that have a backstory you would like to highlight?

We became fond of Sgt. Riggins...if “fond" is the word you use for a character who's an absolute menace. With Riggins we wanted to explore the mentality of someone who's trapped in a merciless situation, has had all order and rationality ripped from them, and is desperately trying to make sense of the world they're now in. After his dead comrades get back up and fight against him in their tattered uniforms, Riggins turns to the occult for explanations. As he becomes gradually more unbalanced, he creates rituals based on the 26th's routines and materials, gathers followers, and eventually starts believing that an ideal soldier can fight even beyond death—like the Grunts do. He starts force-feeding his comrades Corrupted meat, hoping it will give them the strength to survive this conflict. On the one hand, he's perhaps the most dramatic example of Corruption this update, but on the other, he does a much better job at surviving than most of his regiment.
We hope you enjoyed reading all about the lore, research, and how things have been adapted from history for Hunt in Road to Hell! If you want to learn more things like this going forward, please feel free to let us know in the comments on social media.

Your Hunt: Showdown 1896 team