Overview
Interface guide
The UI has grown into a full command, progression, and community toolkit.
Holdfast's interface covers more than health and ammo. Modern builds include redesigned Barracks, field orders, platform-aware menus, map voting, expanded spawn controls, naval overlays, music tools, and controller-friendly navigation.
Most-used panelsServer Browser, Spawn Menu, Scoreboard, P Menu, Settings.
Modern additionsField orders, UI scale, platform icons, overhead spawn map, midi song panel.
Spawn, Map & Objectives
The spawn menu and map view have become much more important as Holdfast added squad camps, artillery sections, naval spawns, and larger event maps.
Choose faction, class, and spawn section. Recent versions redesigned it around an overhead map view and fixed several class-count and modded-uniform issues.
Track terrain, objectives, friendly positions, camera facing direction, ship headings, and mode-specific spawn points.
Capture status, timers, tickets, contest state, and objective rules change depending on mode.
Frontlines and selected modes use squad spawns and camps; newer updates allow direct squad spawning instead of always spawning at HQ first.
Key things to watch before spawning:
- Class limits: The spawn menu shows available slots for limited roles. Version 5.x fixed class-count issues and wrong era class icons.
- Destroyed or invalid spawns: Some updates fixed hangs or broken menus when a selected spawn section was destroyed or invalid.
- Artillery sections: Dynamic artillery can have dedicated spawn sections for Artillerymen on supported maps.
- Ship sorting: Age of Sail updates sorted ships by ship class in the spawn menu.
HUD & Combat Feedback
The in-game HUD adapts to era, class, weapon, vehicle, and game mode. Keep it on while learning; many of the indicators explain why you can or cannot act.
| Element | What It Communicates | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Health, Reload & Ammo | Current survivability, reload state, loaded/unloaded status, and weapon feedback. | Health bar styles can be customized as Solid, Gradient, or Dynamic. |
| Melee Mode Indicator | Shows when you are in melee mode or have swapped weapon posture. | Later updates made this visible for keyboard and mouse and tied visibility to reload hint settings. |
| Crosshair & Reticle | Aim reference for firearms and some interactions. | The Nail and Fixate crosshairs were added in version 2.13. |
| Kill Feed & Score Log | Kills, deaths, weapon context, and round scoring. | Score log and related UI received optimisation work in earlier releases. |
| Scoreboard | Player scores, classes, ping, platform icons, and team layout. | The scoreboard was redesigned in 2.x and later received platform icons in 3.00. |
| Interaction Highlights | Usable doors, props, tools, buildables, and other interactable objects. | Interactable objects gained clearer highlighting in later 2.x updates. |
| Officer Lines & Orders | Formation lines, tooltips, order effects, cheers, buffs, and reinforcement pings. | 5.x and late 4.x updates fixed several order tooltip, ping, and cheer interactions. |
Communication & Player Menus
Communication is one of the most important parts of Holdfast's interface, especially in linebattles, naval crews, and public Frontlines matches.
Orders, cheers, taunts, shouts, naval callouts, and character voice lines.
Officer, Captain, Midshipman, and high command order systems.
The P menu / round players menu supports player lookup, reporting, server rules, platform icons, and controller navigation.
Use proximity voice, team chat, all chat, officer chat, and role-specific communication to coordinate.
Important communication details:
- P menu targeting: Opening the player menu can automatically highlight the player you are looking at.
- Reporting: Players can report others through the P menu.
- Officer chat: Officers listen to Officer chat by default.
- Voice clarity: Later updates improved master audio and voice chat legibility.
- Loudhailer: Frontlines 2.0 introduced the loudhailer for barking orders or hailing from afar.
Special roles expose extra interface elements. These are easy to miss because they only appear when using the relevant class, tool, ship, instrument, or event feature.
Ship tags, health bars, captain names, wind direction, cannon state UI, minimap camera facing, and ship spawn indicators.
Ship class selection, spawn sorting, capture state, resource flow, and ship-specific spawn behaviour.
Song lists, custom note systems, midi playback, band channel assignment, and the in-game midi panel.
Event hosts can use rules screens, custom servers, map rotations, and community event formats.
Recent release tidbits:
- Age of Sail: Ship UI tags now show ship health bars and captain names.
- Captain wheel camera: Captains can see ship cannon state UI and minimap camera-facing direction while steering.
- Orders panel: Age of Sail fixes updated old "Adept Sailor" wording to "Midshipman".
- Music panel: Updates added a midi song panel, custom music slider, drone key, and multi-instrument channel assignment.
- Rules screens: Event hosts regained the ability to show rules on-screen.
Settings & Platform Notes
Use the settings menu to make the interface readable and comfortable before joining serious events.
Controls, audio, graphics, UI scale, camera options, controller settings, and accessibility-related adjustments.
Holdfast supports controller navigation, on-screen keyboards, cancel buttons, deadzone visibility, aim assist options, and console-friendly prompts.
Later updates improved Steam Deck, Xbox, PS5, and keyboard-and-mouse navigation edge cases.
Localization updates added community translations and additional character support.
Useful settings and platform notes:
- UI scale: Added in version 2.21, useful for large monitors, handhelds, and couch play.
- Health bar style: Solid, Gradient, and Dynamic health bar styles were introduced in version 2.13.
- Controller camera options: Controller invert camera Y, deadzone visibility, melee aim assist, and aim assist tuning have all received updates.
- Low contrast navigation: A cursor was added to the in-game pause menu to improve low-contrast monitor usability.
- HUD toggle: Use the HUD toggle when taking screenshots, recording cinematic footage, or practicing with reduced interface clutter.
Recent Changes
Major UI and HUD changes:
| Version | UI / HUD Change |
|---|---|
| 1.18 | Added player map voting and made server rules viewable through the P menu. |
| 2.12 | Introduced the Fresh UI update with Barracks, Player Cards, Random Map Vote, seasonal leaderboards, and in-game store. |
| 2.13 | Added Nail and Fixate crosshairs plus customizable health bar styles. |
| 2.21 | Added full controller support, on-screen keyboard support, controller sail control, and UI scale. |
| 2.25 | Added Field Orders, daily missions, shilling rewards, feats, and a redesigned Barracks UI. |
| 3.00 | Added platform icons to the scoreboard and player menu, server platform icons, better controller hints, pause-menu cursor, and updated camera behaviour. |
| 3.0.x | Improved server browser reliability, event server icons, ping warnings, P menu highlighting, music UI, regiment registry navigation, and Steam Deck behaviour. |
| 4.00 | Added Age of Sail ship health/captain tags, captain wheel cannon-state UI, minimap camera direction, ship sorting, and Midshipman wording fixes. |
| 5.10-5.11 | Fixed spawn menu class counts, wrong era class icons, invalid modded spawn sections, modded uniforms breaking map rotation, and destroyed selected spawns causing hangs. |