Here’s another little hotfix to continue our pass on performance and general bug-fixing: Rebalanced AI difficulty settings (Untrained through Veteran) to offer a better experience. Adjusted sway, recovery, and exhaustion systems to work together. Players should see a noticeable i
Here’s another little hotfix to continue our pass on performance and general bug-fixing:
Rebalanced AI difficulty settings (Untrained through Veteran) to offer a better experience.
Adjusted sway, recovery, and exhaustion systems to work together. Players should see a noticeable improvement in weapon sway when not jumping or sprinting.
Further optimizations for map Outpost.
Set default value for PIP Scope Resolution Scale (Settings › Video › Advanced › Textures) to 0.5.
Fixed Docter II and RMR sights not aligning properly on MK3 pistol.
Adjusted character mesh LOD levels to improve performance.
Tweaked differences between low, medium, and high shadow quality to improve performance at lower settings.
Disabled volumetric fog in all levels — this will return as a dedicated setting.
Fixed blocking volume in Compound‘s main house 1st floor kitchen preventing AI from behaving as expected.
Retooled the VOIP component for GROUND BRANCH’s in-game voice system.
Just a small patch to address some more issues: Reverted change to VOIP settings causing audio to cut out. Fixed IR lasers and illuminators being turned off for clients on listen servers ( Host Game ) when the host toggles NVG off. Fixed selector/magazine audio muting after looki
Just a small patch to address some more issues:
Reverted change to VOIP settings causing audio to cut out.
Fixed IR lasers and illuminators being turned off for clients on listen servers (Host Game) when the host toggles NVG off.
Fixed selector/magazine audio muting after looking at watch.
Changed blend times between Check Watch and Fire Mode (fire selector switch) animations.
💡 This patch does not include the tweaks to AI behaviors and settings mentioned in Hotfix 2 just yet.
Hey, everyone. We got another hotfix for ya — keep the feedback and reports coming! ✅ Some players have reported improved performance (particularly with PiP scopes) by verifying their game files . If you're unsure how to do that, follow these instructions . Patch notes Hooked up
Hey, everyone. We got another hotfix for ya — keep the feedback and reports coming!
✅ Some players have reported improved performance (particularly with PiP scopes) by verifying their game files. If you're unsure how to do that, follow these instructions.
Patch notes
Hooked up new volume control setting (Settings › Audio) — the Dialogue slider allows controlling the volume for radio calls from NPCs such as Hawk and Forge.
Increased size of target zone for door handle breaching (more generous area for shooting it out).
Updated soft armor (Body Armor and combos) to allow penetration by rifle rounds on first strike.
Following our temporary workaround last patch, light and laser attachments now remain ON when you swap to another item in your inventory. They can still be turned off afterwards.
Fixed reticle on the Docter II red dot sight sitting too high in the glass (just about touching the top of the enclosure).
AI can now hear each other's gunfire. AI will alert when other AI open fire now and they can be notified of the player's presence via proximity to each other.
Fixed Turn Rate for AI being overridden at the behavior tree level, preventing the settings per difficulty from being used.
Updated navmesh on Arena map stairs to help with AI getting stuck.
Cleaned up navmesh near the cave and streams on Creek.
Hospital rooms that were not playing the correct tails for gunshots have been updated.
Removed bomb from Rig (Defuse mode) that could not be reached for defusal.
Fixed Team Elimination counting teamkills towards overall score.
Updated how the server web banner renders the banner image.
First pass on the VOIP crash when using in-game voice in online matches.
Fixed numerous Kythera AI-related crashes in this build.
💡 We're already working on a new hotfix that will include tweaks to AI behaviors and settings to offer a more rounded experience for our 4 main difficulties.
We just released a hotfix patch to address some of the more urgent issues in the launch build. Patch notes General We've severely reduced the game's installed disk size from nearly 100 GB to 39.4 GB . Packaging settings were changed and some texture work was done to trim it down.
We just released a hotfix patch to address some of the more urgent issues in the launch build.
Patch notes
General
We've severely reduced the game's installed disk size from nearly 100 GB to 39.4 GB. Packaging settings were changed and some texture work was done to trim it down.
Temporarily removed the launch prompt where DX12 could be selected.*️⃣ This was done because DX12 mode was causing the game to crash.
Implemented new controller (gamepad) configuration.
Fixed crash related to Kythera AI plugin.
💡 The texture work may improve performance on some systems.
*️⃣ DX12 can still be used by right-clicking GROUND BRANCH > Properties… and adding the argument below to the text input box under "Launch Options": -dx12Please use DX12 at your own discretion as it can cause the game to crash.
Gameplay
Reduced maximum weapon sway by around 30%.
Fixed issue where lights and lasers could not be turned off if left on before switching items. (Lights and lasers will be turned off automatically during item switching.)
Tweaked damage values for all body parts to generally make shots to non-vital body parts and extremities less lethal (closer to extremity = less damage).
Fixed being unable to turn/look right when prone and unarmed.
Fixed buttons to adjust target distance in shooting ranges (The Farm and Ready Room) staying active if the player holds the button and backs away.
AI
Various adjustments to AI accuracy and reaction times.
Tweaked aiming bone for AI to more reliably hit the torso area, making body armor more likely to be effective.
Reworked how Hostage AI view dead bodies to reduce the chances of them getting stuck when navigating.
Maps and game modes
Fixed missing floor collision on Outpost.
Added missing breaching sockets to doors on Outpost.
Added generator (and hooked up lights and screens on the map to it) on Outpost.
Fixed breaker switch for the 747 aircraft on Airbase to also turn off the fuselage lights.
Removed faulty Defuse (Plane Only) game mode from Airbase.
Added missing blocking volumes on Hospital.
Added new breaker switch for lights on Hospital.
Fixed out-of-bounds insertion point on City (Defuse game mode).
Rotated bomb that could not be defused on City (Defuse).
Fixed missing collision and adjusted door meshlinks for navigation on Border.
Fixed issue with rounds not being properly recorded in PvE quick missions.
Visuals
Replaced texture for hanging US flag in Ready Room / The Farm's HQ with an accurate version.
First pass on cutscene clean up for Outpost: should now clear up bodies remaining on helipad and appropriately hide the Armor UI if enabled.
Fixed skin weighting issues for the captain and other civilian clothing to reduce character clipping.
Fixed arm clipping in Combat Shirt (males).
Fixed handle rotating into the light boxes of Border.
Fixed VFX trash particles blowing up on Border and Airbase.
Improved draw distance for decals.
Fixed Docter II red dot sight being offset and appearing to float above accessory rails.
Fixed wrong ammo mesh in Wz.88 assault rifle magazine.
F88A2 assault rifle now uses the correct reload animations.
Audio
Fixed sounds passing through walls on Hospital and Border.
Folks, GROUND BRANCH V1.0 is here. In addition to the campaign's Prologue chapter — featuring 2 new Operations — this release includes a substantial enemy AI rework, the new armor system, a door overhaul, an updated map selection (2 brand-new maps, 2 ground-up remakes, a map over
Folks,
GROUND BRANCH V1.0 is here.
In addition to the campaign's Prologue chapter — featuring 2 new Operations — this release includes a substantial enemy AI rework, the new armor system, a door overhaul, an updated map selection (2 brand-new maps, 2 ground-up remakes, a map overhaul and a few other map upgrades), the Extraction game mode, an update to character locomotion and other animations, a range of new weapons and gear, selectable moon phases, various upgrades to visuals and audio, a whole lot of bug and crash fixes, and more. All of which was built on a refactored foundation for increased stability and expandability.
As detailed in our last dev blog, this is the beginning of the post-launch road. Each subsequent release on the roadmap will keep building on this foundation with new campaign missions, features, upgrades and fixes.
💡 In addition to the planned releases, hotfixes and smaller patches between major releases are also possible. Keep the feedback coming!
Launch Sale: GROUND BRANCH is 20% OFF!
As a little gift to celebrate V1.0, GROUND BRANCH will be 20% off for a week. Grab a key or two while it's cheap!
🔥 If you're reading this that probably means you already own the game — time to make sure your non-GB-having friends hear about it so you have more people to team up with.
Without further ado, let's move on to the release notes. There's a lot of ground to cover.
V1.0 release notes
General
Some of the changes both big and small that you're likely to spot within the first minutes of launching V1.0:
We've updated the main menu with a new cinematic to set the mood for the campaign.
Various bits of music have been added or updated, including the main menu tracks, stingers for screen transitions, and briefing music for the new Northwest Pakistan hotspot.
An entirely new Ready Room has been created — it is now part of The Farm (aka Camp Peary, aka the training map). This new HQ is where you will be launching quick missions, online matches and the Prologue operations from.
Other than making your operator look much cooler, the new character pose in the Customize Operator screen ensures your primary weapon is fully visible.
Loading screens now have background images and a few other minor visual changes.
Operations mode
The highlight of this release and the very beginning of our campaign, Operations is once again available:
Access it from the main menu to enter the Operations Menu, where you can browse available hotspots (CIA areas of interest) directly on the map or via the bottom-left list. Once a hotspot is hovered, a news feed will pop up in the top-right with recent events.
New hotspot: Northwest Pakistan (Kill or Capture). This hotspot is home to our campaign's Prologue.
New operations: 01. Onyx Flame and 02. Gilded Arrow are playable in succession — complete the first to unlock the other in either offline (solo) or online (solo or online co-op) mode.
The briefings for both the hotspot and the individual missions are now fully voiced by characters John Hawk and team handler "Forge". Use the playback controls at the top of the text box to play/pause/rewind the audio.
We don't want to spoil too much, but a lot of care was put into certain special scripted events for the new operations. Be on the lookout!
Hotspot briefing menu: note the audio playback controls in the top-right of the text box for playing/pausing/restarting the voice-over.
💡 Friendly AI will be reintroduced in Chapter 1 (V1.1.0 release), along with a set of new operations.
Quick Missions and PvP
Lone Wolf and online games — whether co-op or PvP — have received some welcome upgrades for further immersion and replayability:
Several game modes have team handler "Forge" reaching out via comms during key events (e.g. to recap mission objectives at mission start).
The new Moon Phase mission parameter allows players to once again select their preferred level of darkness for night deployments, from a new moon all the way to a full moon. This can selected prior to launching the mission, or directly on the Ops Board right before deploying.
Moonlight now casts shadows, creating near-perfect concealment — just make sure enemy patrols can't hear you moving around.
Enemy AI
The enemy AI has received substantial updates to iron out frequent issues and ensure more reliable behavior and responsiveness:
Targeting — Default aim point is now the pelvis. If only the head is visible, AI will now target it instead of losing the target. Higher-skilled AI default to chest or head shots.
Perception and reaction — Maximum view distance increased from 100 m to 200 m. Alertness buildup rate adjusted to prevent AI from staring at players without reacting.
Suppression and damage response — AI now react to being shot while unaware. Hits apply suppression and location data, triggering flee behavior even without line of sight to the attacker. This makes missed lethal shots more punishing, as wounded AI will seek cover before you can finish them.
Defender AI — Enemies in guard mode are now tethered to their assigned guard points. They cannot leave a set radius but will turn toward sounds, allowing them to hear approaching players. On maps like Hospital (formerly RunDown), this keeps enemies holding rooms rather than funneling into fatal choke points.
Guard point logic — AI now claim only one guard point at a time. Unclaimed points leave remaining AI idle. Guard points are released upon state changes.
Morale and death awareness — AI now suffer suppression and morale loss when witnessing ally deaths. Combat actions now have a tangible impact on enemy decision-making.
Retreat behavior — Retreat and flee duration now scale with skill level. Higher-skilled AI hold cover longer before breaking contact, making them feel more resilient overall.
Performance — Behavior tree nodes migrated from Blueprint to C++ for improved performance and reliability.
Armor system and hit reactions
New to V1.0 is the armor system. Helmets, plate carriers and bulletproof vests can now withstand various levels of damage by firearms, with some important caveats.
Hard armor
Hard armor refers to armor inserts (made of ballistic ceramics and commonly referred to as plates) that can stop up to a few round of full-sized caliber rounds such as 7.62 NATO (fired by many of the battle and precision rifles in the game) before being depleted. How it works in GROUND BRANCH is fairly simple:
Armor inserts can now be carried in plate carrier-type Platforms such as the Plate Carrier (JPC) and Plate Carrier (MPC), which are now fitted with plates by default (note that if you have an old loadout for these items, it will not have plates).
If you wish to add or remove individual plates to/from a plate carrier, click the gear icon (⚙️) and check the left side of the screen for the Armor Inserts section.
Simply click the respective icon on the diagram to add or remove a specific plate.
Plate Carrier (MPC) equipped with front and back plates only (right and left side slots are empty).
Ballistic protection with hard armor is limited to the area equivalent to the plates only — all other areas on the upper body will remain fully vulnerable.
🛡️ The Plate Carrier (MPC) can carry 4 plates: one in the front, one in the back, and one on either side.
🛡️ The Plate Carrier (JPC) can carry 2 plates: one in the front, and one in the back.
⚖️ Each front/chest or back plate adds 2.85 kg to your loadout. Side plates add 1 kg each.
Soft armor
Soft armor refers to Kevlar-like materials, used in bulletproof vests and helmets. This type of armor is mostly effective only against pistol rounds (whether fired from a handgun or submachine gun), but unlike hard armor it offers protection on almost all of the item's area.
All helmets now offer limited protection against pistol rounds. Protection is relative to the coverage of each helmet's shell, meaning fuller helmets like the MICH offer a greater area of protection than high-cut helmets.
The Body Armor platform (formerly "Bulletproof Vest") can also absorb a limited number of pistol round impacts in all of its area of coverage, which is most of the torso. The Body Armor can now also be worn under either chest carrier model (see the Inventory section for more details).
Once any of the items above is equipped, soft armor is automatically "active" — there's no need to add or remove anything.
Armor HUD
The Armor HUD is shown next to the Stance Indicator (if enabled), which defaults to the bottom-right corner of the screen:
Hard armor shows status of individual plates; soft armor shows icon only (helmet and/or vest).
💡 You can hide the Armor HUD in Setting › HUD › Character Status › Show Armor.
Here's what the armor status icons on the HUD mean:
White means the piece of armor is intact.
Yellow + crack means the armor is damaged, but still functional.
Red + diagonal line means the armor has been depleted.
For hard armor, each icon has a letter corresponding to a plate: F (front/chest), B (back), L (left side) and R (right side).
Hit reactions
A related feature introduced in V1.0 is hit reactions. Being shot will now cause your character to flinch, possibly throwing off your aim — an extra reason to make sure you see the enemy first.
Door mechanics
The following door system updates have been implemented for V1.0, focusing on responsiveness, realism, and new breach mechanics:
Added locked-door support with breach options: explosive charges or shooting the handle.
Set up improved simulated physics for doors, allowing them to react when pushed by characters.
Added reach-out animation when interacting with doors.
Improved online reliability (responsiveness and replication across clients).
Frag grenades
The M67 Frag grenade has had its damage zone adjusted:
Characters caught within a radius of 5 meters from the explosion (with no obstruction) will be instantly killed.
Beyond 5 meters, lethality drops progressively.
The maximum effective radius is 15 m.
💥 Related: the M84 Flashbang no longer affects players/characters through walls.
Player locomotion and other animations
This build introduces a full overhaul of player movement and weapon handling, as detailed below:
Completely overhauled player movement set using new motion capture data. Replaced all standing and crouched movement animations, including walking, jogging, sprinting, and strafing.
Running (default Shift) now features a more stable stride animation for improved room clearing feel and visual quality.
Retuned movement speeds across all stances.
Reworked weapon handling with more natural movement wobble and aiming sway patterns, replacing the stiffer system present in V1035.
Countless animations for player interactions, cutscenes and menus were created or updated.
Extraction (PvE)
Extraction is a new PvE hostage rescue-esque game mode now available for solo and co-op play. Here are the rules:
Players assume the role of a rescue team (or solo rescuer), with enemy AI holding a friendly hostage.
Hostage is guarded by 2 captor AI units whose sole purpose is to monitor the prisoner.
Captors become agitated when witnessing or hearing combat, causing their morale meter to deplete (does not refill). Full depletion triggers execution!
Hostage interaction is handled via the Command Menu (default K): free and lead with "Follow Me" prompt. The hostage will mirror player speed and stance while following.
"Move To" commands cause the hostage to run to the designated position; "Take Cover" sends them to the nearest viable cover to crouch and hold.
In co-op, the hostage responds to the last player who interacted with them, allowing for quick handoffs during contact.
Enemy count per map is set to a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 30 for balancing and to allow headroom for future civilian and hostage AI expansions.
Future expansion planned: maximum number of hostages per map will be increased.
💡 Extraction is currently playable on Airbase, Compound, Hospital, Small Town and Tanker.
Audio
Sound updates focus on foley, dialogue, and footstep volume increases, plus general bug fixes and a new finalized audio mix:
New Audio Mix setting: Headphones (calmer mix, optimized for headphone users). This replaces the "Experimental" setting. Change it in Settings › Audio.
Set footsteps and foley higher in the mix to address player feedback regarding difficulty hearing enemy movements. Also increased attenuation for these sounds.
Adjusted weapon and character foley based on character gear weight.
Added quick mission-specific dialogue from team handler "Forge" (e.g. mission-start dialogue when playing Intel Retrieval, Defuse etc.).
Various general bug fixes across audio systems (majority of remaining work outside mission-specific dialogue).
Character customization
New customization options for your character's appearance are now available. Here are all the additions and changes:
New hairstyles (all female characters)
[NEW] Cornrows — Tight parallel braids along the scalp, tied up in a back bun.
New hairstyles (Male 01, 02, 04, 05 and 06)
[NEW] Long B — A mid-length cut with wavy texture.
[NEW] Side Part — A classic side-part cut with trim sides.
[NEW] Slick Back — Long hair slicked back at the top with skin-faded sides.
💡 Hairstyle "Long Cut" (Male 01, 02, 04, 05 and 06) was renamed to Long A.
💡 Hairstyle "Long Cut" (Male 03) was reassigned as Caesar Cut.
New facial hair
[NEW] Circle Beard — A trimmed beard where the mustache connects with the chin hair.
[NEW] Full Beard — A full, long beard the likes of which would make various fantasy characters jealous.
[NEW] Goatee — Hair on the chin only.
[NEW] Mustache — Just a 'stache. Is it classy? Is it creepy? Nobody knows.
💡 "Short Beard" was renamed to Stubble.
Inventory
The inventory has been updated with plenty of new firearms, weapon attachments, gear and outfit items. Man, customizing feels good.
New weapons
PRIMARY WEAPONS
[NEW Shotguns] M500 & M500 Tactical — Two configurations of the classic M500 pump-action shotgun. The "factory" M500 holds 5+1 rounds. The Tactical variant holds 7+1 rounds and is fitted with a top accessory rail for mounting optics, combat sights, and tactical furniture.
[NEW Assault Rifle] AK-74 — Very similar to (and an earlier version of) the AK-74M already in the game, but with "plum" polymer furniture and other small design differences.
[NEW Assault Rifles] AKS-74 & AKS-74 (Poly) — These AK-74 variants use a side-folding metal stock. The (Poly) variant is fitted with polymer furniture instead of wood.
[NEW Machine Guns] RPK & RPK-74 — These Soviet automatic rifles are essentially heavier, longer, and higher-capacity AK rifles chambered in 7.62×39 mm and 5.45×39 mm, respectively. They have slightly higher muzzle velocities than regular AK rifles. Magazine capacity is 40 (RPK) and 45 (RPK-74) rounds.
SECONDARY WEAPONS
[NEW Pistol] MK3 — This integrally suppressed handgun fires .22 LR rounds from a 10-round magazine. Though underpowered, it is the quietest weapon in the arsenal and a very efficient weapon for taking out sentries in controlled situations.
Attachments
[NEW Sight › Scope] AN/PVS-17C MNS — A standalone night vision scope that offers 4.5X magnification and a red dot aim point for quick target acquisition. MNS stands for Miniature Night Sight.
[NEW Magazine/Pouch] RPK 40rd [7.62×39MM] — The default RPK magazine holds 40 rounds and is also compatible with all 7.62 mm AK variants.
[NEW Magazine/Pouch] RPK-74 45rd [5.45×39MM] — The default RPK-74 magazine holds 45 rounds and is also compatible with all 5.45 mm AK variants.
[NEW Magazine/Pouch] AK-74 30rd [5.45×39MM] (Plum) — Similar to the AK-74 30rd [5.45×39MM] (Poly) in shape and material, this one is painted in a plum color and equipped by default on the AK-74. It is available for all 5.45×39 mm weapons.
[NEW Magazine/Pouch] MK3 10rd [.22 LR] — The default magazine for the new MK3 pistol. Hold 10 rounds of .22 LR ammunition.
[NEW Rails & Mounts] Rail Panel B — This panel comes in 3 sizes (Long/Medium/Short) and will cover accessory rails in a similar fashion as the old Rail Panel (now renamed "Rail Panel A"). Comes in Black and FDE skins.
[NEW Grips & Support] Vertical Grip A — The most ubiquitous vertical foregrips in US service is finally in GB and available in Black, FDE, Olive Drab and Tan. Its place of honor under the Vertical Grip A tag means we had to rearrange the names of the other two Vertical Grip (now B and C) attachments.
Rail Panel B and Vertical Grip A on the HK416 CQB.
Gear
You can now equip the chest rigs with soft armor underneath. These combos go by Chest Rig (JAC/Armor) and Chest Rig (MCR/Armor).
[NEW Holster] Leg Shroud — A single-strap + shroud solution for your holster, this "drop-leg" setup allows the sidearm to be worn lower on the hip.
💡 Platform "Bulletproof Vest" was renamed to Body Armor.
💡 The old "Holster" item was renamed to Belt Mount.
Outfit
[NEW Mask] Neck Gaiter — This item covers the operator from the neck to the nose. It is available in the same skins as the one-hole balaclavas.
[NEW Gloves] Fingerless Gloves — Just some cool-looking military gloves that only go up to the first knuckle of each finger. Available in Black, Coyote Brown, Olive Drab and OCP skins.
[NEW Tops] Rugby Shirt & Rugby Shirt (Tucked) — These breathable shirts were inspired by sportwears and adapted for military use; these have velcro on the shoulders to equip Patches. Available in OCP as well as various solid color skins including Navy and Red for the PvP-oriented.
[NEW Footwear] Running Shoes — These civilian sneakers are available in Blue and Gray skins.
All pants models have received a variant with external kneepads — look for Jeans (Pads), Tactical Pants (Pads) etc.
Rugby Shirt (Tucked), Fingerless Gloves, Leg Shroud, Combat Pants (Pads) and Running Shoes all displayed.
💡 The mesh (model geometry) for the female Jeans has been updated with a better fit.
Maps and environmental art
Several maps have been added, remade from scratch, overhauled and otherwise updated for both visuals (art) and gameplay (level design).
[NEW] Border — Set at (and around) a bridge checkpoint on the US–Mexico border, Border is a pure urban hellscape filled with alleys, derelict homes and commerce, a dirty canal, a small junkyard, a partially demolished road bridge, a deactivated multi-story public telecom building — which now serves as an outpost for the cartel that controls the severely impoverished Mexican town — and a lot of abandoned vehicles. As you might expect, Border will share a future hotspot with Ranch.
› Includes playable sub-map variants Bridge, Checkpoint, Construction and Telecom.
[NEW] Outpost — Set in the mountains of northwest Pakistan, Outpost is built around an old fort perched on a ridge right along the Afghan border. Inside the stone walls you’ll find interconnected buildings, plenty of vantage points and tight passageways. Outside them, rugged terrain and sparse shrubs are about all the cover you’ll get crossing a large, exposed perimeter. For now, Outpost is only playable in Operation Gilded Arrow (available in Operations mode after finishing Operation Onyx Flame).
[NEW/REMAKE] Airbase — Set in Libya and sharing a future hotspot with Power Station, Airbase is a full remake of John's classic 747 map. It still portrays a small airport in the desert, but has had its boundaries slightly expanded and a considerable amount of infrastructure added to fit with our campaign mission’s story. These include a control tower, hangars, hardened aircraft shelters (HAS) and several other points of interest.
[NEW/REMAKE] Hospital — A complete remake of Run Down, this update was all about improving the close-quarters battle experience while giving players a more organic and intuitive structure to fight through. Among many other changes, the exterior areas have been opened up a bit to create more space and angles from which players can approach the central building — which has itself been transformed from an abandoned school into a deactivated hospital.
› Includes playable sub-map variants Barracks, Clinic and Garage.
[OVERHAUL] Creek — Set in the American south, Creek is a fortified militia camp rebuilt for both PvP and quick PvE missions only. The rework raises the mine entrance to a level plateau, rearranges buildings for clearer footprints, improves pathways for navigation, and replaces the large ruins with European-style structures that better fit the abandoned-settlement aesthetic. Now located west of a road with patrol cars blocking the north and south ends, players will be free to come up with their own lore.
[LEVEL DESIGN] Tanker — A helipad is now located in the middle of the compressors area (popularly known as the "valley").
[LEVEL DESIGN] Small Town — Added cover on approach routes from spawn points and reworked some of the buildings' structures (particularly rooftops and canopies).
[LEVEL DESIGN] Rig — Reworked the ballast interiors and added signage of various types to aid navigation.
[LEVEL DESIGN] The Farm — Now home to the new Ready Room and a living quarters area above it. These are located inside the large hangar east of the Shoothouse hangar. Exteriors have also been expanded slightly.
General environment art updates (visuals)
[ART] Compound — Improved lighting and vista visuals.
[ART] Storage Facility — Added foliage improvements, plus lighting and atmospherics updates.
[ART] Depot — Added foliage improvements, plus lighting and atmospherics updates.
[ART] Tanker — Exterior received a lighting pass.
[ART] Small Town — Updated lighting and atmospherics.
[ART] Docks — Enhanced lighting, atmospherics, and vista visuals; improved ocean rendering and particle effects.
Character art
The MENA and Western PMC enemy factions have received entirely new art assets to better match the visual quality of rest of the game, as well as to tie the factions together with the storylines.
💡 The names, motives and goals of each faction will be fully revealed in the campaign over the next few releases!
All playable characters have received tweaks to their gaze (to tone down the wide-eyed effect) and an upgrade to the rendering of skin and hair, with unique hair colors being attributed to each operator.
Player gear and outfit assets have all had their brightness levels adjusted (generally towards darker) to better match the environment and other assets. (Various weapons and attachments have received a similar treatment.)
General fixes
The following general bug fixes and stability improvements have been implemented:
We've updated the character collision capsule to prevent the camera from clipping into things.
Fixed flying ragdoll behavior when characters are killed. We do realize the John Woo enthusiasts among the community might consider this a downgrade.
Corrected replication scaling for VFX (gun smoke, spent casings) in PiP scopes, also resolving oversized 2D textures appearing in the sky.
Resolved VOIP crash that previously caused complete audio loss for players.
Cleaned up all invalid spawns — for both players and enemy units — across all missions following the migration to C++.
Fixed issues with rounds not successfully starting in online sessions.
Flashbangs no longer blind or deafen through walls.
The infamous weapon shake that would sometimes kick off after sprinting or crouching for extended periods has been addressed.
Credits
We've updated the game's credits to account for all current and past collaborators and their contributions to GROUND BRANCH. Thank you all!
Known bugs & issues
These are some issues that weren't identified in time for a fix. We'll be addressing them ASAP.
Players may hear the wrong voice line play for success/defeat per team.
The hostage on Extraction may have difficulty traveling in a few places on Tanker. We're working to address these nav path issues, but for now, if they ever get stuck you can re-route to a new pathway.
The hostage on Extraction may slow down when following the player. This is most prevalent when multiple players have interacted with the hostage. We're working on splitting out their behavior logic to account for every interaction.
There are some animation issues we're working on with the player weapon handling and locomotion.
We're working on fixing issues with the head collision capsule to prevent players from still being able to see through walls in some edge-case scenarios.
We are aware of an extremely rare bug where a player joins an Operation that is in progress through a friend's Steam list and it can cause an invalid player count status during the death sequence.
This has been Build Update #064!
… And that's a wrap on today's release notes!
Don't forget to check out Intel Report #032 (our most recent dev blog from a couple weeks ago) if you missed it or need a refresh — it details our currently planned releases and their tentative release date ranges, which are summarized here:
Dates are tentative, but we're on it.
We hope you enjoy V1.0 and are as excited about GROUND BRANCH's future as we are!
As always, we'd like to thank everyone in the GB community for their support and encouragement over the years — we wouldn't have made it this far without you.
Alright, we're off to play a little GROUND BRANCH now. See you in there!
Hey everyone, Welcome back to another Intel Report . We know it's been a minute, but the silence has been the sound of heads-down work. And this time we're not just pulling back the curtain on a few previews. We've got a lot to discuss about the future of GROUND BRANCH. After yea
Hey everyone,
Welcome back to another Intel Report. We know it's been a minute, but the silence has been the sound of heads-down work. And this time we're not just pulling back the curtain on a few previews. We've got a lot to discuss about the future of GROUND BRANCH.
After years of development, and a whole lot of invaluable feedback from you, we're proud to announce that GROUND BRANCH V1.0 launches on July 16, 2026.
Yes, you read that right. We have a date.
This is the most significant milestone in the game's history. V1.0 officially replaces the "V1036" label and brings improvements across AI, environments, visuals, animations, inventory, player interaction and overall immersion on the strongest foundation GROUND BRANCH has ever stood on.
So before we get into the roadmap and what comes next, let's go over what you'll actually be deploying with on day one.
What's in V1.0
V1.0 is the culmination of everything we've been teasing across our Intel Reports, brought together into one release and polished for both solo and co-op play. Here's the rundown on the latest developments since Intel Report #031, plus some important highlights.
The campaign returns: Operations and the Prologue
Many of you will remember Operations, the campaign structure we first demoed back in V1034. It was pulled temporarily for some much-needed retooling, and it's making its return for V1.0. This isn't a simple re-release of the "Silent Reach" demo, however. We're introducing the Prologue, set in the new Northwest Pakistan hotspot, where you'll play two new missions set two years before the main events of the campaign — a gentle on-ramp into the Operations gameplay loop.
The bigger shift: the story is now a central focus. Where the original vision had standalone hotspots with little connective tissue, we've put serious time into building a real narrative — a proper storyline with grounded characters and situations. We brought writer Scott Hamm aboard to set the stage and key characters, while our own Travis Rose continues to unfold the plot and develop the factions and operations.
💡 The Prologue also introduces a character who'll play a role in events further down the campaign.
💡 Expect the return of full briefings — this time with voice-overs — plus persistent progression.
For now, Operations will be available in lone-wolf and co-op only, with a proper friendly-AI system planned for Chapter 1 (more on chapters soon). As we keep refining the core mechanics, we'll circle back and bring these early missions up to their best.
Outpost joins the map selection
A brand-new environment is almost done, and it's the setting for the second mission of our Prologue: Outpost.
Set in the mountains of northwest Pakistan, Outpost is built around an old fort perched on a ridge right along the Afghan border. Inside the stone walls you'll find interconnected buildings, plenty of vantage points and tight passageways. Outside them, rugged terrain and sparse shrubs are about all the cover you'll get crossing a large, exposed perimeter.
Outpost joins Airbase (747 remake), Hospital (Rundown remake), Border and Creek (overhaul) as the additions for V1.0's map selection.
The mountain overlooks a town from an earlier mission — and you can spot recent events playing out in the distance.
💡 Expect high-wind audio ambience that can mask your footsteps — and very lethal, long sightlines if you get caught in the open.
💡 At launch, Outpost is tied to the second Prologue mission only. It won't be available in quick missions or other modes just yet, but broader access is of course planned for a post-launch update.
Smarter, deadlier enemy AI
Our enemies have had substantial work done to their logic, and we continue to work under the hood to improve their overall decision making in combat. We've got Chris and Zachary locked in a room with the behavior trees working on the following:
Aim point now depends on skill level and visibility: By default, AI aim for the pelvis bone. However, if the body is behind cover and only the head is visible, the AI will switch to targeting the head instead of losing the target entirely. Higher skilled AI will aim for the chest or head by default.
Perception range and reaction speed have been adjusted: Maximum view distance increased from 100 meters to 200 meters. The rate at which the AI's alertness builds has also been tweaked so that AI will avoid the old scenario of staring at a player and not reacting.
Suppression and damage response: The AI now react to being shot in an unaware state. Being hit sets a suppression value and location, causing flee behavior to trigger even when the AI cannot see or hear the attacker. This means if you miss that lethal shot the chances of the AI running to cover before you can finish the job.
Defender AI behavior added: Enemies in guard mode are now "defenders" tethered to their assigned guard point. They cannot move outside a set radius but will turn toward sounds, allowing them to hear you approaching and respond rather than standing frozen with their back turned. On maps like Hospital (formerly Rundown), this means enemies hold their rooms and avoid lining up like a train to their death.
Guard point logic improved: AI now claim only one guard point at a time. If all guard points in a group are taken, remaining AI idle gracefully. Guard points are released whenever the AI changes state.
Morale and death awareness systems added: When AI witness another enemy die, they experience suppression and a morale drop. This means your combat actions have more of an effect on the overall enemy's decision trees.
Retreat and flee behavior now depends on skill level: Higher-skilled AI stay in cover longer before breaking away from contact. Overall, enemies feel more resilient.
Under the hood: Behavior tree nodes are being moved from Blueprint to C++ for better performance and reliability.
Take a look at this quick demo on the overhauled Creek against enemies on "Trained" difficulty (hit reactions and the armor system are also visible):
💡 As mentioned in previous reports, all our enemy factions will also feature entirely new models and textures, as well as native-language voice lines.
Extrapolating on Extraction
In our last blog, we introduced the new quick mission Extraction, our PvE counterpart to the Hostage Rescue multiplayer mode. This week we'd like to go into more detail on how this mode plays, how it will be worked on in the future, and the underlying changes to AI to make some features also apply to HVTs (high-value targets) in our campaign.
In Extraction, players take on the role of the rescue team while the enemy AI hold onto a friendly hostage. The hostage is guarded by 2 captors — enemy AI whose sole purpose is to keep tabs on the prisoner. As the captor witnesses and hears combat, they will become agitated, depleting their morale meter as they go on. This meter does not refill and, if fully depleted, will result in an execution. (A demo of this behavior was previewed in Intel Report #031.)
💡 The maximum number of hostages per map will be expanded in the future.
Interacting with the hostage is currently handled through our command wheel: to free and begin leading them, simply follow the interaction prompt. While being led with the "Follow Me" command, the hostage will mirror the player's speed and stance. When ordered to "Move To" they will always run to the position, while ordering them to "Take Cover" will send them to the nearest viable cover to crouch and hold. In co-op scenarios, the hostage will respect the last player to interact with them, allowing players to quickly take control in a situation where you end up in contact with the enemy.
Extraction has some changes from our other quick missions that are important to note. For one, the amount of enemies on the map has to be a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 30. This is for balancing purposes and gives us headroom in the future for civilian and hostage AI expansions.
We hope you look forward to giving it a try and sharing your feedback come release!
A new door interaction system
CQB is the heart of GROUND BRANCH, and V1.0 brings a smoother, more responsive door system without giving up an ounce of the realism you expect.
As covered last report, doors are getting locked-door support and the ability to breach them open with explosive charges or shots to the handle. Since then we've worked out a better door handling animation and set up simulated physics with the doors which will react to being pushed by characters.
Mike has been busy. We're completely overhauling the player movement set with fresh motion capture. Standing and crouched movement — walking, jogging, sprinting, strafing — is all being replaced, and the difference in fluidity is night and day. Take a look at these previews:
💡 Running (default Shift) now uses a more stable stride animation, allowing for dynamic room clearing that looks and feels much better.
We've retuned the speeds across every stance and reworked weapon handling to use more natural movement wobble and aiming sway patterns in place of the stiffer movement currently in V1035.
Returning in v1.0 is the moon phase feature that used to be part of our Advanced Time Menu. We've made it easier than ever to understand and control this system.
In quick missions you can now choose the moon phase directly from the Mission Parameters menu, giving you granular control of how bright or dark you want your nights to be.
💡 The moon now appropriately casts a shadow. Hiding in the shadows cast by the moon further conceals your position, making you nearly invisible to the enemy.
With a full moon, most of the map is illuminated — you are more exposed to the enemy in this state:
With a waxing crescent (below) or darker moon phases, you will be more concealed to the enemy, but your NVG will require an IR illuminator (available on the AN/PEQ-15 or similar modded attachment) to help illuminate dark spaces.
💡 We are currently experimenting with lowering the overall visibility of the enemy at night compared to previous versions. We hope this helps you feel like an extra spooky operator.
Gameplay, inventory, visuals and quality-of-life upgrades
As previewed in our recent reports, lots of other updates are taking place in most areas of the game. To recap and add a few points:
Several maps have had art updates to clean them up in preparation for release. One such map — Rig — has had some work done by Will. These include material and texture improvements, updates to the ballast tanks/leg interior, an optimization pass, adding railing covers, lighting and atmospherics, and adjusting the color palette to try and aid navigation.
The new armor system will give players enhanced survivability at the expense of stamina and a further challenge in multiplayer encounters, while hit reactions add another layer of immersion and complexity to combat by making it more difficult to return fire if targeted first.
In the locker room, players will have access to new gear (rugby shirts, fingerless gloves, rig/armor combos, kneepads, drop-leg holster…), weapons (RPK, M500, MK3…), attachments (new rail panels, grips) and new character appearance options (new hair and beard styles) to add even more operator and loadout variety.
A large number of textures and models have also been reworked for better visuals and lighting in our character and inventory assets.
We've raised the overall volume and increased the attenuation of footsteps and player foley. We've set them to be higher in the mix for now to address player feedback that they find it too hard to hear the enemy's movements.
As amusing as the flying ragdolls were, they've sadly been fixed. It was fun while it lasted.
Replication of certain VFX like gun smoke and spent casings in PiP scopes will no longer render at a blown up scale on the maps. If you've ever seen a large 2D texture pop up in the sky and wondered "what was that?"… wonder no more!
The VOIP crash which used to cause player's audio to complete disappear is resolved.
We have gone through all our missions and cleaned up invalid enemy spawns from the great migration to C++.
Some of the map art updates displayed on Rig
The new (or rather very old) AN/PVS-7 night vision system
What V1.0 actually means
Hitting V1.0 does not mean the end of development.
V1.0 is the milestone that says GROUND BRANCH has fulfilled its core promise — a fully functional, stable, content-rich tactical shooter with a campaign framework and mod support. Hitting that mark doesn't close the book; it opens the next chapter. A great deal of what's coming next is already mapped out — and that's a roadmap of planned additions, not a list of things we're scrambling to finish.
The road beyond V1.0
GROUND BRANCH V1.0 is the start of a process that runs all the way through the rest of 2026 and into 2027. Here's where we're headed.
💡 Though we're working extra hard to meet this schedule, please note that these dates are tentative.
July 2026: V1.0.0
Launch. Everything above, plus the base for multiplayer.
Summer 2026 → Winter 2026/2027: the campaign chapters
Following launch, we'll roll out three new campaign chapters across updates V1.1.0, V1.1.1 and V1.1.2. Each chapter adds a new hotspot with 3–4 new missions, and every release keeps bringing new features, improvements and fixes alongside the story content.
💡 Every new hotspot also gets its own dedicated Ready Room, themed after the area.
V1.2.0: the Multiplayer Update
After Chapter 3 lands with V1.1.2, we're planning a dedicated Multiplayer Update (V1.2.0) with a set of improvements, shipping alongside the new Mod Kit (SDK) updates for maps and missions.
💡 The Mod Kit will not be receiving updates until then.
That's the shape of it: continued, planned expansion of our gameplay, campaign chapters, the multiplayer update and Mod Kit, ongoing AI work, more maps, weapons and gear, and steady quality-of-life passes. We'll have more detail to share on each of these in the months ahead.
Thank you
GROUND BRANCH wouldn't be where it is without the dedication, feedback and support of this community. Every report, every discussion, every suggestion, every play session has helped shape the game into what it's about to become.
On behalf of the entire team — thank you for being on this journey with us.
We look forward to deploying with you on July 16. See you on the ground.
This has been Intel Report #032!
As always, thanks for keeping up with GROUND BRANCH. Stay safe, and have a great rest of your week!
Hey there! As the release draws nearer, we're bringing you our final Intel Report for V1036. Historically, we've always released one build version at a time with a public test prior to pushing it to the main branch. However, this time we'd like to do things a bit differently: fir
Hey there!
As the release draws nearer, we're bringing you our final Intel Report for V1036. Historically, we've always released one build version at a time with a public test prior to pushing it to the main branch. However, this time we'd like to do things a bit differently: first off, we are internally past the V1036 build, completing our roadmap back in the beginning of this month. While we continue to polish the build internally, we began work on V1037 on the road to GROUND BRANCH V1.0.
Today we'll be taking a closer look at more recent developments on the door lock and armor systems, the new Extraction mode, a couple of environmental overhauls, and miscellaneous visual upgrades for our characters. We'll also be checking out the new MK3 pistol — a specialized handgun for stealth operations.
It's been longer than usual since our last post, so we've made sure this one was a little meatier. Let's get to it, shall we?
Armor system now functional
We gave you a quick peek at the early days of development for the armor system in Intel Report #029, explaining how we're planning on having both "soft armor" (used in helmets and conventional body armor like our Bulletproof Vest) and "hard armor" (ballistic plates that go inside plate carriers such as the JPC or MPC) represented in the game.
We've also explained how armor will be able to take a certain amount of damage — depending on caliber, angle, location and number of shots etc. — before it is rendered useless.
With all of that in mind, we had to put it all together as a functional system in-game, and also come up with some type of user interface (UI) to display this information to players. Though the UI for displaying and adding armor in the customization screen is still being worked on, the in-game HUD is already in and working, as is the armor functionality itself for the most part.
The armor HUD is located right next to the Stance Indicator, in the bottom-right corner of the screen, and is comprised of a helmet icon (if a helmet is equipped), a body armor icon (if a bulletproof vest is equipped), and a group of plate icons (if a plate carrier with armor inserts is equipped):
Some plate carriers — such as the JPC — can only carry front and back plates, in which case the 'L' and 'R' side plate icons are hidden from the HUD.
💡 Minimal HUD enthusiasts will be able to hide the armor HUD in Settings › HUD › Show Armor.
Each icon has 3 possible statuses: intact (white), damaged (yellow and cracked), and broken (red and slashed across). Here they are in action:
Example #1: The player is being shot in the helmet with a pistol at close range. (In most cases, helmets can only stop a few pistol rounds at most.) Notice how the HUD icon for the helmet turns red and is slashed out — meaning it is now no longer effective and any new shots will pass through.
Example #2: The player is shot in the torso with a rifle while wearing a plate carrier. The front plate (represented by the plate icon with a 'F' on it) first becomes damaged (with the icon turning yellow and cracked) and is eventually broken (red/slashed out icon) by subsequent pistol shots. The next shot then hits the player, going through the torso and hitting the back plate (B).
And that's what we have for you so far on the armor system! We hope to get the customization interface and other details rounded out in the upcoming weeks.
Also operational: door lock system
New to our upcoming release is the door lock system.
In our last post we told you about how regular doors will be breachable by destroying the door handle, while reinforced doors will require a breaching charge of some kind.
The logic for randomizing locked doors was done, but the door interactions were still in development. In this little demo below, we're showcasing the actual interactions — shooting out the handle of a regular door vs. planting a breaching charge on a reinforced door — including the first version of the door interaction animation (currently using a generic "pick-up" animation), and even a sneak peek of the new locomotion and sway:
It's a work in progress and we're still figuring some things out but it's all coming together, folks.
Extraction mode: creating AI captor and hostage logic
A new game mode coming to our next version, Extraction is what we're dubbing the PvE version of Hostage Rescue.
Developing this mode has been a challenge due to the fact that an AI-controlled hostage requires a considerate amount of new logic and content to be created, from the hostage himself to the AI captor behavior. Chris has been tasked with these systems, with Mike providing new animations for the scenario.
Here's one example of the current version in action:
So what is going on here? A hidden threat level for the captors raises in a similar way to alertness/detection: making noise, showing oneself and killing enemies in sight of the captors will increase the threat level.
As you probably guessed, once the threat level reaches the maximum threshold, captors will attempt to execute the hostage. Currently, there's a 1-second grace period. Here's how it goes down if you're not fast enough:
Once freed, hostages can be controlled in the same fashion as the friendly AI in V1034, following orders such as "Fall In", "Move To", "Hold" and so on.
💡 The work done for Extraction amounts to more than just a standalone game mode — it will also be used for any campaign missions featuring hostages or prisoners that players can rescue or take into custody.
A peek into the new Ready Room
As part of a broader upgrade to training map The Farm, we have remade the Ready Room from the ground up. This facelift is part of our attempt to bring the overall visual identity and quality together.
The Ready Room is now cannonically located inside one of Camp Peary's warehouses, and though the general layout remains similar, pretty much everything is brand-new. Here are the locker areas for the new Blue and Red sides:
💡 We wanted to make sure the new Blue and Red rooms feel unique and make it easier for players to tell which room they are in, hence the different styles.
Shooting ranges have now been set up with proper firing lanes, which also allow players to change the target's distance:
The room flow has also been simplified to allow players to quickly see both room entrances from the spawn — we don't wanna spoil that bit just yet, however.
Here's a bonus shot of the Ops Room on Blue side:
Creek overhaul
As mentioned previously, wilderness map Creek has undergone a small overhaul.
In addition to generally polishing the map's visuals (terrain, textures, assets etc.), Will established several goals for the rework: (1) raise the mine entrance area to a more level plateau in order to create a more defined area, (2) re-arrange buildings and landmark structures in a more inviting way while also better outlining their footprint, (3) make pathways a bit more obvious to improve navigation, and (4) replace the large ruins with European architecture with a more fitting structure, as well as making the surrounding area feel more like an abandoned settlement.
The map remains a fortified militia camp — just with nicer visuals and a more cohesive theme throughout.
💡 Set somewhere in the American south, Creek was originally devised as a PvP map by John but was later also set up for quick missions (PvE).
Now set west of a road with patrol cars blocking the north and south ends, players will be free to come up with their own lore for this map.
💡 Creek will not be part of the campaign, hence the less significant rework.
We hope you'll enjoy this overhaul as much as we are!
MK3 integrally suppressed pistol
One interesting new piece of equipment coming to V1037 is the MK3 — an integrally suppressed pistol.
Chambered in .22 LR, the MK3 is considerably underpowered compared to 9 mm or .45 handguns. And with its single-file magazine, the capacity isn't great either: only 10+1 rounds. So what's the point of this gun? Well, its integrated suppressor is built to fire those underpowered rounds extremely quietly, making it an excellent tool for taking out sentries and doing other clandestine stuff without alerting every enemy in the area.
💡 With its top-mounted rail, the MK3 is also one of the few pistols in the game that can attach a red dot sight. Neat!
Character visual upgrades and more
As part of a general cleanup of various materials for V1036, Will has taken a little time to enable and tweak subsurface scattering for our characters' skins, as well as adding specular highlights to the eyeballs. Take a look at these comparisons:
He has also dialed in other values to make skin less reflective overall, while vastly improving how hair (and facial hair) is rendered:
Notice how the facial hair actually reflects the light now, appearing to have color and depth:
Another small tweak — this one courtesy of Pau — involved giving the player characters a slightly more determined/focused eye expression, toning down the wide-eyed effect. Some characters required a more noticeable adjustment than others, as this GIF shows:
Pau has also set new hair colors for each specific character, giving them some more personality and variety. Take a look at the new shades — and peep some of the new styles while you're at it:
This has been Intel Report #031!
As always, thank you for keeping up with GROUND BRANCH's development! We hope the scale of news and previews in this one makes up for the longer wait time.
This is a small patch to address various issues introduced in V1035. Fixed T-posing after picking up a shotgun shell from the ground Fixes for AI hearing , smoke , and flee logic Their hearing has been restored, which fixes an issue with them not reacting to gunshots in some scen
This is a small patch to address various issues introduced in V1035.
Fixed T-posing after picking up a shotgun shell from the ground
Fixes for AI hearing, smoke, and flee logic
Their hearing has been restored, which fixes an issue with them not reacting to gunshots in some scenarios
AI will no longer freeze on the smoke logic tree which can cause an issue where they get stuck with a grenade out
Their morale meter has been tweaked to properly flee again when the morale is depleted
Updated navmesh for Creek and Tanker maps
Updated AI grenade cooldown period to be longer between grenades
Updated AI grenade logic to improve visibility trace prior to throw
Added DedicatedServer.bat back in, so new dedicated server installs should work
Skylight override has had a first pass to help restore the darkness underground in Storage Facility (further revisions will take place in the next major update)
Updated interaction radius of dropped firearms
Dropped sidearms (pistols) are no longer extremely difficult to pick up
Also fixes the extremely generous pick-up prompts for most primary weapons
Fixed issue with replication of doors on The Farm's shoothouse (online)
Fixed logic with Vote Kick command failing
Updated UI color widgets for teams to be more readable
Hello! We're back with another Intel Report filled with dev news and sneak peeks for our upcoming release GROUND BRANCH V1036 . Today we'll go over some details on new game systems and mechanics — including AI — as well as another map reveal, some brand-new character art for a ne
Hello!
We're back with another Intel Report filled with dev news and sneak peeks for our upcoming release GROUND BRANCH V1036.
Today we'll go over some details on new game systems and mechanics — including AI — as well as another map reveal, some brand-new character art for a new enemy faction, and finally some more player customization options. Let's get to it.
Upcoming systems and mechanics
Though we aren't able to do a proper visual showcase of these updates just yet, we thought it would be nice to take the time to talk about some of the changes and additions currently being worked on by our programmers for game systems and mechanics.
Here are some recent developments on the coding front:
AI
In V1036, we'll be bringing significant improvements to enemy AI beyond new art assets.
💡 New dev team member Zachary Ledbetter is working on our enemy AI while Chris pivots over to focus on the friendly AI and Extraction (aka PvE Hostage Rescue — more on that soon!).
Grenades
In addition to AI grenade usage being reined in — no more spam, with better judgment on when and where to throw — enemies will also have a dedicated "flee" state when overwhelmed or suppressed, taking cover intelligently both indoors and outdoors. Smoke grenades are being more fluidly integrated into AI behavior, ensuring they're thrown as enemies move into cover rather than awkwardly interrupting fleeing or other actions.
Awareness
The enemy AI is also being programmed to more contextually and accurately react to player presence, refraining from all rushing to the source of shots and instead holding position more often. This will allow their hearing detection range to be increased considerably, mitigating the now-common situation where enemies remain oblivious to firefights that are happening at pistol-shooting ranges.
Enemies will also react to being shot by suppressed weapons when far enough away for the shot itself to not be heard. Even if they don't hear the shot, they will still run to cover and begin their cautious-and-alert logic trees, further improving our stealth gameplay to be more rewarding and less fish-in-the-barrel hunting.
A cartel member on upcoming map Border — new faction assets to be revealed in the future!
Coordination
Coordination between bots is also being improved in a few ways.
Dead bodies will no longer be repeatedly searched when discovered — once a fallen AI's body is inspected, it is marked as "discovered" to all enemies. No more conga lines of first responders.
New to V1036 AI is also the ability to detect when lights have been disabled or shot out. An AI patrol will come out to inspect the breaker and turn it back on. If it's been shot out, the patrol will alert and notify their allies as well.
Hit reactions
We'll also be introducing hit reactions, i.e. flinching animations for when characters are shot but not killed — during which most actions (such as returning fire) will be interrupted.
In this first implementation, hit reactions will be 4-directional for upper body hits, with an additional animation for lower body hits. They will also be contextual, not necessarily happening with every shot, and depending on ballistics aspects such as caliber (larger rounds will be more likely to generate hit reactions than smaller ones).
Door locks and types
The long-awaited door lock system is finally making an appearance in our next release. How they work is simple: when a player goes to interact with the door, they will be given feedback if the door is locked. Regular doors will be breachable by destroying the door handle, while reinforced doors will require a larger breaching charge.
A key consideration in the design of our locked doors was to avoid players getting completely stuck on a map. Even if a player runs out of breaching tools, they can still shoot at the handle of regular doors with a regular firearm to break through, and buildings with reinforced doors will always allow at least one unlocked door to enter/exit from if no breaching charges or other explosives are available.
Our door system will allow mission designers to either set locked doors manually, or use a system to randomly lock a specified number of doors. Here's a quick visualization in which the system is being told to lock 5 doors of a total of 10:
💡 We will continue to test and prototype the door system with our AI and tester feedback to the find the optimal amount of doors locked for our missions.
Remaking Rundown
Those of you following GROUND BRANCH for a while know that we've been overhauling John's original maps over the years to update visuals, improve or expand layouts, and thematically integrate them with the campaign stories that are being worked on behind the scenes.
In our last Intel Report we showcased Airbase, a full remake of the 747 map, now set in Libya. This week we're revealing Hospital, a complete rework of CQB favorite Rundown that is being helmed by level artist Elliot.
📋 A derelict Soviet-era hospital just over the Russian border now serves as a command center for PMCs.
The design philosophy behind the Rundown update was all about improving the close-quarters battle experience, while giving players a more organic and intuitive structure to fight through. To achieve that, we’ve opened up the exterior a bit to create more space and angles from which players can approach the central building — which has itself been transformed from an abandoned school into a deactivated hospital.
The first step in that transformation was moving away from the overused asset pack that so many games rely on for Soviet-style structures, so we built our own from the ground up. The surroundings now better reflect the campaign’s location and tie into the story far more cohesively than before.
The basement has been expanded into a fully fleshed-out play space, complete with multiple entry and exit points. Up top, the roof has been reworked into a viable defensive position, giving teams a solid foothold to hold and fight from. To help players keep their bearings, each floor now features a consistent wall paint scheme that makes it easier to tell what level you're on. Elliot also introduced a clear visual distinction between the front and back of the building, making callouts and communication much more effective.
We’ve also given the garage some love — it now includes a playable second and third level, complete with windows that offer firing angles to defend the structure or provide overwatch for teammates pushing toward the hospital.
💡 Creek is also receiving an overhaul that we'll showcase in a future Intel Report (there's a small sneak peek further below!).
New enemy character assets
Another set of character assets that Pau has been working on more recently is a Western PMC faction, which will be known in the story as Citadel Research Group.
📋 Citadel Research Group is a risk management company that specializes in maritime security in and around the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. We will learn more about them in Operations mode.
As explained in Intel Report #029, Pau has been creating character assets for the enemy mobs over the last year (see the full post here for more details and previews). Much like the MENA faction from our last report, these assets can be mixed-and-matched to create more variety.
For these assets, we have also created a number of accessories that can be used to add visual interest to loadouts, like the carabiner, radio PTT and knife seen above.
💡 One idea we have for the future (post-V1036) is allowing players to add these types of small accessories as cosmetics to customize their platforms (helmets and vests).
Since a handful of these assets are unspecific (as in unmarked with the "Citadel" logo), they are also being used to compose a more generic militia faction that will be replacing the old "Riot" assets in non-campaign maps like City, Creek and Small Town. Here's an example on the overhauled Creek map:
More customization
Though our next release is far from focused on cosmetics, character customization is always welcome in GROUND BRANCH and V1036 will be sure to deliver quite a few new items to the menu, ranging from character appearance to outfit variants.
Without getting into specifics too much (we like to keep a healthy level of suspense), we'll be adding new hair and facial hair styles, kneepad variants for most pants, a new shirt type, a drop-leg holster, running shoes, fingerless gloves, and the neck gaiter, among other things. These conceptual shots by Rangda showcase some of the new cosmetics (and a few additions that aren't purely cosmetic) in a sensual — but still classy — fashion:
💡 GROUND BRANCH V1036 will feature more than enough new weapons and attachments to keep the armory interesting as well. Stay tuned!
This has been Intel Report #030!
As always, thanks for making it to the end of the post and keeping up with GROUND BRANCH. We hope you enjoyed this dev blog, and we'll have another one for you soon enough.
We'll go back to getting this thing done now. Until next time!
Hello, everyone! We're back with our Intel Reports , this time as we make our way to GROUND BRANCH V1036 . On the road to our next major release we'll be trying to do these dev blogs more often, as our schedules permit. We don't want to take too much time away from development, a
Hello, everyone!
We're back with our Intel Reports, this time as we make our way to GROUND BRANCH V1036.
On the road to our next major release we'll be trying to do these dev blogs more often, as our schedules permit. We don't want to take too much time away from development, and these posts can be a lot of work. So, in order for them to happen more frequently, we'll have to keep them a little shorter (which we assume is okay with most of you anyway).
With that out of the way, let's get right into it.
Pau Peñalver officially joins the team
We're happy to finally announce that artist Pau Peñalver, who has been blessing our Intel Reports for years with his amazing character art, has been officially integrated into the GB dev team!
What started as a freelance contract to build our clothing, equipment, and model skins has evolved into a full-time role. He is now focused on updating our campaign and enemy assets and polishing new player content.
Pau has spent the best part of last year creating dozens of character assets for an in-game faction we're dubbing MENA (Middle East and North Africa) for now. Though these assets were primarily created with our future Libya hotspot in mind, they will likely be used for multiple different factions in GROUND BRANCH's campaigns as they're versatile militia-themed assets.
🛑 WARNING: Pau renders
Keep in mind these renders by Pau use some very nice processing and far better lighting than our engine and systems can handle in real-time.
💡 Some of the MENA character assets have also been adapted for player use in V1036. These include the Fingerless Gloves (a couple images below) and Running Shoes (second image, bottom-right).
Though not as modular as player characters — both to simplify our workflow and maintain performance (more parts = more textures to load) — these new enemy assets are still very modular, allowing us to easily set different colors to different areas, as well as mix-and-match parts (heads, upper bodies and lower bodies, plus optional accessories like headgear and vests) to create a good degree of mob variety.
💡 Pau has since moved on to the US PMC faction, which we'll showcase in a future report.
New maps incoming
As the first developers on the team to start working exclusively on V1036, our trusty environment artists Will Bullen and Elliot Burgess have been very busy with a handful of maps: some new, some remakes. We'll be showcasing one of each kind today.
Airbase: a 747 remake
The 747 map, originally created by John (who created the classic 747 map in Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear for those of you ancient enough to remember it), has received a remake by Will and is now known as Airbase.
💡 With the exception of the airliner, this is a complete remake of the map.
Like Power Station, much of the general layout has been preserved, with landmarks being roughly in the areas you would expect. Though not technically much larger, the new map feels like a bigger environment — likely due to the more numerous and fleshed out buildings, as well as other environmental details.
Now officially set in Libya — sharing a mission hotspot with Power Station — Airbase still portrays a small airport in the desert, but has had its boundaries slightly expanded and a considerable amount of infrastructure added to fit with our campaign mission's story. These include a control tower, hangars, hardened aircraft shelters (HAS) and several other points of interest.
📋 Originally serving as an airbase for a former regime in a resource-rich part of southwestern Libya, this facility was subsequently converted into a small civilian airport by the UN. Following a recent breakdown of martial order, locals have since retaken control of the airfield with support from a network of insurgents.
The terminal has of course also been remade and expanded. Here's a quick look at the ground floor:
And here are some of the new MENA characters on Airbase:
New map reveal: Border
The bulk of Elliot's time over the last year has been dedicated to a new map called Border (formerly "Checkpoint"), teased briefly in Intel Report #028.
Set at (and around) a bridge checkpoint on the US–Mexico border, this new map is a pure urban hellscape filled with alleys, derelict homes and commerce, a dirty canal, a small junkyard, a partially demolished road bridge, a deactivated multi-story public telecom building — which now serves as an outpost for the cartel that controls the severely impoverished Mexican town — and a lot of abandoned vehicles.
The bridge crossing, along with a small section of the checkpoint on the US side, is part of the playable area. Most of the action will take place on the Mexican side, however, where the majority of the play area resides.
💡 As you may have guessed, the Border campaign mission will share a hotspot with Ranch.
💡 We're not ready to showcase it just yet, but V1036 will also include an update for The Farm training map, a Creek overhaul, and a remake of Rundown. Soon enough we'll have all old maps remade or updated.
Armor system
GROUND BRANCH V1036 will be introducing the much-anticipated armor system.
We'll start with 2 tiers of armor: soft armor (such as Kevlar, the most common material in "bulletproof" vests) and ballistic plates (typically thick ceramic plates that are inserted into plate carriers, such as the JPC and MPC in-game).
🛡️ Soft armor is lighter and provides more coverage as it is the predominant material of ballistic vests, but is mostly effective against pistol calibers only.
🛡️ Ballistic plates are heavier and generally only cover vital organs, but they offer good protection against rifle rounds.
Here is a quick visualization of the ballistic plates on the MPC Plate Carrier (straight from Kris' editor), which holds a front and a back plate, as well as side plates:
The armor system is fairly straightforward:
The damage and relative location of each shot is tracked, and radiates out like a dartboard
The point of impact is where most of the damage will be assigned; the further away from the point of impact, the less damage is assigned
Each subsequent shot is compared against the previous ones to determine the remaining effectiveness of the armor
Once a certain damage threshold is reached, the armor will fail and the bullet will pass through, wounding the target character
To sum it up: more shots that are closer together are more likely to defeat armor.
💡 Needless to say, caliber and ballistics will all play a role in how easily the armor is defeated as well.
🪖 Helmets will work similarly to body armor, with some added tracing to check for bullet trajectory. Helmets don't hold very well against much, however.
And if you're a fan of chest rigs but don't want to miss out on having some armor protection, we have good news — in V1036 you will be able to equip them on top of the Ballistic Vest, as seen here:
And that's what we have for you today, folks.
This has been Intel Report #029!
Thanks for keeping up with GROUND BRANCH! We appreciate each and every one of you who take the time to read through our comms here.
As mentioned, we'll try to get these rolling more often, so stay tuned — we'll have more sneak peeks and news for you soon. See you then!
Last week's patch V1035.2 released with more than a few issues, so we're addressing as many as possible in this hotfix. UI/UX Restored accessibility settings for Color Blindness Mode and Replace Key Reds With (Settings › Video › Advanced › Accessibility). Fixed front-left rails o
Last week's patch V1035.2 released with more than a few issues, so we're addressing as many as possible in this hotfix.
UI/UX
Restored accessibility settings for Color Blindness Mode and Replace Key Reds With (Settings › Video › Advanced › Accessibility).
Fixed front-left rails on the M110K1's handguard having their slots flipped, causing attachments to mount inwards.
Restored ability to edit callsign in Lone Wolf.
Removed logic for "Use Standard" callsign, which used Team Elements as reference — feature was rarely unused and used Lua logic, so we opted to scrap it (at least for now).
Hooked up the F8 key shortcut to the Admin Panel again.
Updated the logic for the Hide HUD function while spectating (H key) to take into account whether the player was alive or dead and avoid an issue where the H key fails to hide HUD due to being tied to hand signals.
Various small changes to UI text, formatting and styles in Admin Panel elements (particularly Kit Restrictions and dialogs) to improve consistency and usability.
Fixed missing tooltip to Game Stats button (top Esc menu).
Added mention and tooltip for Check Watch ability in keybinds list (Settings › Controls) next to Freelook.
Gameplay and controls
Fixed issue where the Steady Aim (ADS) ability was tied to Focus Zoom (ADS). Now you can use these abilities separately again.
Fixed invalid state when picking up a shotgun shell or round that was ejected intentionally during a reload.
AI and enemies
Tweaked AI frag grenade ability: increased minimum throw range, which should reduce the frequency of grenades. (NOTE: A more complete solution is already in the works for V1036.)
Updated the smoke grenade ability to fix AI getting stuck due to an issue with the logic tree.
Updated the distance threshold for detection on bots to help with them running into players or not seeing them when they should.
Updated the US PMC voice lines to not use the radio filter.
Missions, game modes and multiplayer
Fixed issue where players would leave a match in progress on a server and it would fail to end the round if no one was playing it.
Updated all Intel Retrieval missions to ensure AI will not spawn near the player spawn points.
Updated Extraction Point to always show regardless of distance.
Updated the Ops Board (Ready Room) to allow players to click to spectate again.
Changes to Hostage Rescue requirements: now you only need 2 players on Red team and 1 player on Blue team to start the round. This should reduce the headache of starting a Hostage Rescue match if the teams suddenly change balance during a countdown or during the round start.
Removed bad spawns on City (Subway) and fixed issue with missing doors on that map.
Fixed issue where the voting timeout logic was being interpreted incorrectly, leading to timeouts upwards of an hour.
After a major refactoring that required rebuilding a massive portion of GROUND BRANCH's systems and interfaces, patch V1035.2 is finally here! The big refactoring Though this update doesn't bring in a whole lot of shiny new features (the bulk of the work involved migrating existi
After a major refactoring that required rebuilding a massive portion of GROUND BRANCH's systems and interfaces, patch V1035.2 is finally here!
The big refactoring
Though this update doesn't bring in a whole lot of shiny new features (the bulk of the work involved migrating existing features from Lua language to C++ and UE4 Blueprint) it gets us one step closer to our final goal on a more solid foundation.
💡 For a more in-depth look into the Lua refactoring, check out Intel Report #027.
Though the main advantage of the refactoring is future iteration, you might notice improved stability and performance here and there in this version.
We'll go over the main impacts, pros and cons in the following subsections.
What does this mean for modding?
Non-Lua mods will not be affected
Once updated to V1035.2, most mods (e.g. item mods) should continue to work as before.
Lua-based game modes and missions will need to be converted to Blueprint-based ones
With rounds, settings and other game mode-related classes being far more modular now, it'll be easier than how we had it setup. The Blueprint-based games modes we've included can be used as a base/example.
💡 What about custom maps?
While you can convert older custom maps using the mission actor conversion tool, we’re also developing a proper map editor for future content.
For best results — and full compatibility going forward — we recommend building new maps with proper actors and assets once the new Map SDK is available.
Streamlining mods
Modding has been simplified in V1035.2.
Gone are the days of moving and dragging mods from your available list into your loaded server mods in order to make them appear. Now, if you have a mod, it will be hosted on your listen server and your players will be able to see it.
Dedicated servers have been simplified as well. For now, you will simply load the Mod IDs into the mods.txt file for the server.
💡 We are also working on a UI solution that will replace the old setup for admins who prefer to load them via the in-game menu.
Operations mode temporarily disabled
Though the "Silent Reach" campaign mission demo (accessible via the Operations menu) succeeded in giving players an idea of what a full-fledged GROUND BRANCH mission will look like, it was put together with considerable haste using a mix of Lua and hard-coding; this meant that the Lua logic would require migrating, while the hard-coded portion needed to be redone as part of a more expandable system.
In order to avoid delaying patch V1035.2 even further, we have made the difficult decision to temporarily disable the Operations mode while we create an expandable system for future campaign missions. Rest assured that the overall concept and much of the UI will be maintained — we hope to have an improved demo mission available again soon!
No more rubberbanding — online stability has been restored!
A massive achievement in this version has been online stability: the networking feels solid once again, with the widespread rubberbanding issue (that was present for the past few releases) having been fixed. Even with high pings (+300 ms), we've encountered no online issues after about 6 weeks of testing.
💡 Dedicated servers no longer need to be restarted after a few hours to recover online performance — huge relief!
We're hopeful this win will be getting online numbers back up a bit, since the rubberbanding was a massive source of frustration.
Speaking of online problems…
Removed physics from doors
Doors have been a long-standing issue when playing online, due to how difficult it is to ensure that their position/status correctly replicates across clients. Physics simulation in games is (in)famously unreliable, and when the online component is added the issue becomes even worse.
After some debate, we decided to replace the physics-based implementation with an intermediate solution that is akin to the old Rainbow Six: Raven Shield mechanic. It is more rigid, but it fixes the problem of doors desyncing while playing online.
Doors no longer have a fluid-looking opening and closing motion — this will be addressed in the future with animations.
Doors will no longer desync: an open door will stay open and a closed door will stay closed. No more guesswork when approaching a door online.
In addition, doors now have a weight we can assign per door type. While we haven't gone through and updated every door, you will notice the gate on Compound "feels" heavier than before. This will also be updated throughout the next few patches to better represent our doors materials.
Lastly, AI have had a pass on how they navigate doors. Initial tests with squads of 4 AI going through a door are good, and we will use this same logic to improve navigation through double doors, as well as for friendly AI in the future.
🐞 If you "lose" the door prompt while gradually opening/closing a door, you have to release and hold your Interact key again before resuming the action.
Return of the AI grenades (with an upgrade)
The enemy AI can throw frag grenades again, so be on the lookout!
AI grenades now have a more calculated frag grenade logic in place: they will check if the player is in cover before throwing a grenade to flush them out. They also make checks to verify that the arc of the grenade won't hit any ceilings or blockers in its trajectory.
💡 We'll of course continue to improve the grenade ability as we go, but in the meantime this added logic makes it a more interesting mechanic to deal with in firefights.
Hostage Rescue (PvP) is back!
After being temporarily pulled due to logic issues we did not have the resources to fix at the time, the Hostage Rescue PvP game mode returns to GROUND BRANCH!
💡 We had to rebuild Hostage Rescue from the ground up for V1035.2. This means some of the systems may be a bit different than before. Please have a try and give us your feedback.
Here are the rules:
To start the mode, there must be at minimum 5 players on a server and at least 1 more player on the RED than the BLUE side. (Currently, BLUE team are always the defenders and RED team are always the attackers. This will be updated and improved in V1036.)
A random player of the attacking RED team has been taken hostage in one of the map’s buildings. The hostage player is hooded and cuffed, limiting their vision and movement — they are unable to interact with map objects such as doors or items, and are restricted to walking (no running/sprinting).
The target building is selected by the defenders BLUE team by choosing where to spawn, and defenders are restricted to within that building unless the hostage escapes it.
Defenders can lead the hostage around the building or simply hold them in place by holding the Interact key (default F). While being led, the hostage will be intimidated and unable to speak. (This represents a simplification of the previous iteration, where intimidation was a separate action done by pointing a weapon at the hostage.) Note that it takes about 1 second for the leading/freeing to begin. This is a change from the immediate grab mechanics from before.
Attackers can select any insertion point (including multiple if they decide to split the team) and will have to find the building where the hostage is being held — possibly with the assistance of the hostage making some noise with the Talk (VOIP) key (default V). Attackers must then successfully breach the building and rescue the hostage. If the hostage has their cuffs released by the attackers, they will regain a full range of movement and team communication (i.e. radio and text chat).
If a hostage picks up a weapon once released, they become a valid target for defenders, who can then win the round by killing the armed hostage.
Win conditions
ATTACKERS — To win the round, at least one attacker must escort the hostage to any of the available extraction points. Alternatively, attackers will win if the defending team is eliminated.
DEFENDERS — To win the round, the defending team must eliminate all attackers, survive the assault until the time runs out, or kill a hostage that has picked up a weapon.
💡 With the rare exception of a released and armed hostage (mentioned above), any team that kills the hostage will instantly lose the match. Careful with those frags!
Fox Hunt is now a standalone mode
Fox Hunt was a sub-game mode for DTAS (Dynamic Take and Secure) that was previously playable when not enough players were present for a DTAS round to begin (although it could also be forced on). With the refactoring, it made sense to make it its own separate mode.
💡 Building Assault (a sub-game mode of Hostage Rescue) is gone temporarily — it will return in the future as a whole new standalone mode with unique mechanics.
Kit Restrictions are available again
Although the refactoring didn't allow us to rebuild kit restrictions the way we wanted them just yet, you can once again apply skin restrictions per team (Red and Blue) by going into Admin Panel › Kit Restrictions.
The system is pretty straightforward:
Drag a skin from the Available Skins list onto either team to allow that skin to be used.
To remove it, simply drag it off the team.
Click Apply in the bottom-right to accept the changes.
Click Clear to revert to default restrictions.
💡 Please note that the map needs to be reloaded or changed for the new restrictions to take effect.
🐞 When first enabling or disabling skin restrictions, lighting will change to a bright, blue-ish hue. Simply changing the map in the server Admin Panel fixes the issue. This will be addressed shortly in a hotfix.
💡 Kit restrictions will be far more versatile in the future, allowing categories and specific items to be restricted rather than only skins.
Miscellaneous UI changes
Due to much of the UI being rebuilt thanks to the big refactoring, we've taken the opportunity to give a few areas a small update.
Updated Ops Board visuals
The Ops Board in the Ready Room remains largely the same, but you may notice changes to the color scheme, iconography and container layout, among other things.
https://youtu.be/Da2GafWRuh4 Here are the changes, as seen in the video:
The new colors should help visually group up related elements: red is used for objective-related elements, green for insertion/extraction points, and yellow is reserved for mission parameters.
Mission parameters are more tidily laid out in boxes, and we've added a big clock icon to the insertion time (TOD) to make that military time format a little clearer without losing the flavor.
Search locations (Intel Retrieval) will now display the name of the location when hovered. The list of locations on the left-hand side is now also a separate color from objectives, uses a separate font (the same used for the hover text on the map), and adds a little looking glass icon to each item.
The extraction point icon uses a slightly different animation and color, and now also displays text ("EXTRACTION") when hovered.
The button to refresh locations now has a dynamic description label next to it, which updates when clicked.
Time-of-day (TOD) selection
When setting up a game you will notice a change in time-of-day (time of insertion) parameter.
Whereas previously you would pick a time from a drop-down menu with preset times (e.g. Pre-Dawn, Midday etc.), you can now alternate between that method or manually setting the time (e.g. 0000, 0600, 1200 etc.) by clicking the button next to it, as shown in the GIF above. The button's icon alternates between showing a watch face (for manual time) or a day/night cycle (for preset times).
💡 The preset times are useful because our sky system accounts for latitude and time of the year. Since the sun angle at a given time vares considerably depending on a map's location and time of the year, the preset labels help players spawn in with the desired lighting conditions (rather than, for example, assuming 1830 is already dark in a given map).
🐞 Speaking of which, advanced time settings were also temporarily disabled due to the refactoring. This means the moon phase will be temporarily random.
Updated kill notifications (Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch)
Deathmatch-style game modes have a new kill notification that now includes an icon of the weapon and a headshot indicator.
Kill notifications have also been moved to the top-right corner of the screen.
💡 The logic to account for grenade kills has not yet been implemented. Grenade kills are currently displayed as self-kills or forfeits (withdrawal from play area), e.g.: [💀] fatmarrow
Easier-to-click checkboxes
This one is pretty minor, but we've updated all checkboxes to have a much more generous clickable area (which includes the text next to it, so you no longer have to click the box itself).
Other UI/UX changes
The map selection screen (Lone Wolf and Host Game) has been updated slightly: the map entries have received some font formatting changes, as well as a nicer and clearer hover effect.
Ranch and Power Station have also received new map descriptions in the aforementioned screen.
Some of the copy/wording — particularly in Mission Settings/Parameters — has been updated for better clarity or to fit the layout.
You may find other minor differences in various parts of the user interface; not all of it is intentional, so let us know if you catch anything odd!
Inventory
New weapons
The following primary weapons have been added under the Assault Rifle category:
G36K
The original ("stock") G36K joins its aftermarket version in the armory. Instead of the top accessory rail, this carbine comes with the original 3x scope built into the carry handle.
💡 The G36K's handle includes working backup iron sights for very close range engagements, which can be switched to by scrolling your Mouse Wheel while aiming down the sights.
AUG A1
The OG AUG A1 also joins its modernized variant (AUG A3) with its original 20-inch barrel and built-in 1.5x scope.
💡 The AUG A1 also includes working backup iron sights atop its scope. Scroll your Mouse Wheel while aiming down the sights to switch to them.
F88 SA2
Another AUG variant being added to the armory is the Australian F88 SA2. This is a more modernized version, with a top accessory rail and an interesting dual-tone (tan and green) color scheme.
Galil AR
The Galil AR is essentially a stripped-down Galil ARM, thus making it a little lighter.
Galil SAR
The Galil SAR is a shorter and lighter Galil AR, replacing the wooden handguard with polymer.
New weapon attachments
A few new attachments are now available for weapon customization:
HWS 551
One of the first holo sights adopted by SOCOM in the early GWOT years, the HWS 551 holographic sight is similar in size to the more modern EXPS3.
HWS 552
Though longer, this model superseded many 551s in service due to its use of the more readily available AA batteries.
AS/VSS 30rd [9×39MM]
A 30-round magazine for the AS/VSS family of suppressed rifles, this new capacity was introduced alongside the ASM Val.
Updated models
These models have been revised, replaced or otherwise updated:
HWS 553
The HWS 553 has received a new and far more authentic model. It is still available in both black and FDE skins, with the FDE version now keeping the rear panel and inner optic housing in black — just like the real deal.
CTRW (formerly ASR)
The previously labeled ASR reflex sight has received a much needed model replacement and is now listed as CTRW under your Red Dot sight category.
AN/PVS-22 UNS
Another full model update, the new AN/PVS-22 UNS should better match the highly detailed assets it might be sitting next to during night operations.
IR Strobe (MS2000)
Our old MS2000 strobe was a holdover from the distant past and has now been replaced with a more accurate and detailed model.
The partial pouch is gone, but we've found that it was usually velcro'd or taped to helmets.
M110 and M110K1 revised
Both M110 series models have been revised to fix issues with receiver and magazine width (we realized they were slimmer than those of AR-15s), as well as inaccuracies in the handguards (such as making sure the rails' recoil grooves were all aligned and accounted for).
💡 In particular, the M110K1's handguard has received some further design tweaks to better match our reference for adopted SOCOM specimens. As a result, there have been changes to attachment points in-game.
Cleaned up tan skins (and a handful of other skin tweaks)
All vest platforms, belts and pouches in tan skin have been updated to better match their real-life counterparts.
Because most of the real-life items are in fact coyote brown rather than tan, the overwhelming majority of the old tan skins are now listed as Coyote Brown.
💡 The previous skins were for the most part using a generic tan look that was neither Tan 499 (one of the more common US military tan colors) nor Coyote Brown (another very common but more red-heavy tan shade).
Other skin changes
An actual Tan skin has been added for the Plate Carrier (MPC).
Tweaked the colors of buckles, MOLLE, straps, loops, buttons, stitching and other details for various platform skins to better match the reference items.
Updated various skins to correct the direction of the camo pattern and/or to break up the camo pattern where it shouldn't be continuous (e.g. between the main body of an item and a MOLLE strap).
A few other miscellaneous tweaks (e.g. reduced saturation on Coyote Brown Tactical Pants).
💡 The current "main mix" is now "Experimental". Please give it a try and share your feedback!
We have added the American PMC enemy voice lines for our PMCs on maps Docks, Rig and Tanker.
Fixed hearing sounds from the play area while in the Customize Operator screen.
Updated attenuation on all weapons for better spatialization.
Created audio system for optimization to allow more audio on levels.
Fixed various bugs across all levels (e.g. missing audio portals).
Replaced the old concrete footsteps sound effects with a better, more natural-sounding iteration.
Changed diffraction and occlusion curves to better represent positional audio and geo impact with sounds (e.g. standing behind a tree while being shot at).
Added audio to new animations, such as the chemlight deployment.
Fix missing audio from various animations (e.g. the SpecterDR 1x/4x's lever throw when changing magnification).
Removed middleware components from lights for optimization — this was part of the issue with a common audio crash that was resolved.
Updated Power Station's audio with new room tones and sounds for the underground areas.
And that's it for Build Update #061!
Thanks for reading these patch notes and keeping up with GROUND BRANCH’s development.
This update took real work to get across the line, and releasing it with a few temporary downgrades wasn’t a call we made lightly. Even so, we’re confident it’s a meaningful step forward: the refactor strengthens the foundation, and that stability is what lets us move faster and build bigger from here. Our team is still lean, but it’s grown considerably (see our latest dev blog for details), and that added bandwidth is already paying off.
Most importantly, this is the kind of progress that moves us closer to V1.0; not just by adding features, but by solidifying the core systems we need to take the game across the finish line. There’s still work ahead, but the direction is clear, and the runway is getting shorter.
Thank you once again, and we’ll see you next time!
Hello everyone, thank you for joining us for another Intel Report ! Today’s topic is a bit different than usual. As you may have seen here , GROUND BRANCH has moved ownership from BlackFoot Studios to MicroProse. The team behind GB fully moved over alongside John — BlackFoot Stud
Hello everyone, thank you for joining us for another Intel Report!
Today’s topic is a bit different than usual. As you may have seen here, GROUND BRANCH has moved ownership from BlackFoot Studios to MicroProse. The team behind GB fully moved over alongside John — BlackFoot Studios owner and GROUND BRANCH creator — who took an advisory role and helped us finish V1035.
This transition involved many moving parts, including changing over hardware infrastructure, licensing, and software ownership to MicroProse. During this time, our heads have been down, with the team focused with onboarding new developers and preparing our base code for a greater expansion of GROUND BRANCH’s future.
Recent developments
When we last spoke, we mentioned that we’ve been working on the transition from Lua to C++ and Blueprint. The decision came from the desire to increase the scope of our game’s campaign and to add features that we felt were now possible with the additional support under new ownership. Creating this foundation has provided us a springboard to create new features for our upcoming game modes and abilities, as well as the campaign logic we will need to finish the Operations mode (for which we provided a mission demo in V1035).
Each of our developers has been dedicated to retooling all of our core systems (yes, even the Tablet), to be prepared for this expansion. It’s been a large undertaking, but the light is at the end of the tunnel and we're currently in the testing phase for most of our multiplayer modes. Doors have been updated to no longer desync online, fan-favorite Hostage Rescue is in the final testing phases, and the "Silent Reach" mission objectives are being broken out (along with the infil/exfil logic) to be used in future Operations missions so we can finally start putting those missions together. From there, we'll be updating the GROUND BRANCH Mod Kit (SDK) in preparation for map modding and mission modding, before moving full steam ahead with finishing our next dev cycle for V1036.
Upcoming map "Checkpoint"
New team members and a couple of farewells
As for the team, you may have recognized a few new faces on the Discord.
The first addition to our team was long-time contributor Pau, now our in-house character artist. Previously contracted on a freelance basis to create our clothing, equipment, and model skins, he is now with us full-time as he updates our campaign and enemy character assets, as well as touches up new player assets as required. We’ve also added a writer, Scott, who has been instrumental in bringing to life the story that we envisioned for our campaign. We also have a composer duo (Aleksi and Jonathan) who has recently completed our soundtrack, and 4 new programmers to assist us in bringing the game to life: Brian, Jonathan, Jesse, and Zachary. In addition, we are currently working with a voice actor crew to bring our briefings and characters to life for the campaign. We have also just (this week!) brought aboard tech artist Santeri to get more hands on the animation and rigging deck. Lastly, our 3D art team has been unofficially expanded for a few years by MicroProse artists Ian, Bogdan and Ivan (all under Mike's management).
As not everything can be good news, we're also sad to formally announce that Matt, a.k.a. Fatmarrow, has decided to move on from GROUND BRANCH and on to different projects. Matt was instrumental in expanding and refining many of GROUND BRANCH's features: from game modes Hostage Rescue and DTAS all the way to the Mod Kit implementation, it's almost impossible to think of a department that Matt wasn't involved in at some point. As an early member of the team, he also had a big role in helping shape the game's vision and building the GROUND BRANCH community — regulars will remember the deadpan jokes and the bright orange profile picture as much as all of his amazing additions to the game.
We're extremely thankful for Matt's time on the project and wish him the best of luck!
💡 Matt is currently working on a prototype for a unique modern spin on old-school text parser adventure games. Hit him up on The Magic Hours Discord server if you want to stay in touch!
💡 Ol' Fatmarrow isn't going anywhere though as he also has a backlog of mod maps to get into GROUND BRANCH someday.
Finally, none of us would be here today without John’s vision and incredible determination as he painstakingly built a team and kept the dream alive over the years. From the germ of an idea to where it stands now, his name is inseparable from GROUND BRANCH and his legacy will be carried on going forward in development. Over the course of V1035 — our last update with John — he provided us valuable feedback and direction to ensure we had a path forward for development. We are all grateful for the opportunity we have to carry the torch and ensure GROUND BRANCH is a success for years to come.
Let's all show John our appreciation and wish him good luck in his future projects under the BlackFoot Studios seal as well!
This has been Intel Report #028!
As always, thank you all for your patience and support. We'll get right back to working on Patch V1035.2, and we'll see you on the next one!
Hey, everyone. Our last contact has been a while ago, in Build Update #060 , when we released Patch V1035.1. Although we usually reserve our Intel Reports for longer periods of quiet between major releases, Patch V1035.2 is taking a lot longer than initially anticipated, and we t
Hey, everyone.
Our last contact has been a while ago, in Build Update #060, when we released Patch V1035.1.
Although we usually reserve our Intel Reports for longer periods of quiet between major releases, Patch V1035.2 is taking a lot longer than initially anticipated, and we thought it was important to give everyone a quick heads-up on what’s going on behind the scenes.
🙌 Before we get into more detail, rest assured that GROUND BRANCH continues to be developed normally by the same folks you already know and love/hate, plus a few new faces! We're simply having to do some more refactoring to ensure longevity and consistency in our systems.
With that out of the way, let’s get into it.
A necessary shift: from Lua to C++ and UE4 Blueprint
As we continue development, we’ve made another difficult but crucial decision to refactor the game’s core logic—including all game modes/missions as well as much of the UI, the Mod Kit and more—away from Lua and into native C++ and UE4 Blueprint. This foundational change is the main source behind this delay, but we are confident it’s the right long-term path for GROUND BRANCH.
Our initial Lua-based systems ultimately proved unfit for purpose: over time, more and more critical logic was pushed into C++ and Blueprint to meet performance and complexity demands, which ironically negated Lua’s main benefit: rapid iteration. The system became redundant, and we simply lack the resources to properly develop and maintain two separate scripting environments.
💡 Though mods will also be affected and that is of course unfortunate, we have assessed that the vast majority of Lua-tagged mods are actually maps created in the Mission Editor, with only a tiny fraction being true Lua-based projects.
A proper map editor will ultimately provide more power and flexibility than the current Mission Editor + Lua combo could offer. The possibilities exposed by robust Blueprint support far outweigh what our current Lua systems can achieve, and it aligns with modern development practices. Also, new programmers joining the project are already familiar with UE4’s native C++ and Blueprint workflow, allowing them to become productive much faster.
While this transition means a much longer wait than we’d like, it paves the way for a more stable, performant, and moddable GROUND BRANCH for years to come. We appreciate your patience as we work to get this right!
Other updates and changes One of the more popular PvP game modes in the game, Hostage Rescue, will finally return in Patch V1035.2 as all game modes are rebuilt with C++/Blueprint logic.
The update will also introduce a new Kit Restrictions system for server-side customization, a complete door rework to (among other things) hopefully resolve long-standing replication issues alongside new VFX and the return of frag and smoke grenade abilities for enemy AI.
On the gear front, you can expect new weapons like a stock (factory) G36K carbine, the AUG A1 and F88SA2 assault rifles, new Galil variants, as well as updated models for the HWS 553 (and a couple of new holo sights!), a remade ASR, revised M110 and M110K1 models to fix proportions, a new MS2000 IR strobe, and a cleanup of the Tan/Coyote Brown platforms and pouches, among other updates.
HWS 551 holo sight
Updated platforms and pouches in Coyote Brown (formerly Tan), as well as the new MS2000 strobe model and the HWS 552 holo sight on the M16A4 rifle
Galil SAR
We hope to have Patch V1035.2 ready in a few weeks.
We're back with another Build Update — this time for our first point release: patch V1035.1 ! This patch introduces a few new features (such as a Check Watch function, hand signals and modded skins), as well as various bug fixes and even some small visual upgrades. Keep reading f
We're back with another Build Update — this time for our first point release: patch V1035.1!
This patch introduces a few new features (such as a Check Watch function, hand signals and modded skins), as well as various bug fixes and even some small visual upgrades. Keep reading for the full scoop, and don't forget to let us know what you think!
💡 Patch V1035.2 is also planned for the near future.
Patch notes
Performance and stability
We have identified and fixed a number of memory leak issues which would create an increasing impact on performance (and possibly online replication) over time:
Fixed memory leaks related to inventory items that were not being unloaded on level change Fixed some vehicle blueprints that were leaking memory after level change (they were set to replicate unnecessarily)
Fixed leak caused by regenerating navmeshes with our door-swinging logic in Kythera AI
🚧 These should hopefully improve performance degradation over time — including some of the server rubberbanding issues — but the problem is still being monitored, and we'll continue to work towards a definitive fix. Be sure to let us know how your server is handling these changes!
Gameplay
Check Watch
Gone are the days of free-looking down to your left wrist or picking a foregrip that makes it easy to see it at a glance.
You can still do those things, but now you can also simply use the new Check Watch ability to have your character raise their wristwatch in clear view of the camera while keeping your firearm (if you have one equipped) at ready.
💡 To check your watch, double-tap Freelook (default [Tab]).
The new Check Watch ability can be triggered in any stance, and it stays on while walking and running (but not while sprinting or crawling). Most other actions will cancel it out automatically.
🐞 When prone, the watch face may not be within the frame depending on what item you have equipped, even with a vertical FOV of 58 (default) or wider. We're looking into it.
🐞 You may have issues checking your watch after using it several times while moving around, changing stances or in combination with Freelook. To restore the ability to check your watch, simply use Freelook momentarily.
First pass on hand signals
Players can now use hand signals to silently communicate with teammates.
"Go There" hand signal
To bring up the Hand Signals menu, use default [H].
💡 If a default key is not set in your game, manually bind it under Settings › Controls › Keybinds (look under the "Communication" header).
Available signals so far are:
Cover Me — Issued to request covering fire or overwatch from a teammate
Rally Up — Issued to tell teammates to regroup on your position
Go There — Issued to order teammates to move up to a location in front of you
Need Breacher — Issued to request a teammate to breach a door (currently limited to the water Breaching Charge)
Halt — Issued to tell teammates to stop and hold a position until told otherwise
Look There — Issued to tell teammates to visually check a position in front of you
🚧 As ever, please keep in mind this is an initial implementation — the UI and animations will be iterated on, and more hand signals will be added.
💡 Hand signals are issued via the same radial menu style as squad orders — press the key to bring up the Hand Signals menu, move your mouse to the desired option, and left-click to issue.
🐞 KNOWN ISSUE: Once used, the Hand Signals menu may require a second press of your assigned key to come up again.
Other gameplay updates
Collecting the laptop in Intel Retrieval no longer triggers enemies to rush towards the player ("extraction mayhem"), allowing players to e.g. sneak in and out with the intel
Increased the area of extraction zones to better support larger teams
Light and laser attachments now behave more naturally:
No longer automatically turned on when re-equipped
Still turn off when the item is dropped, but with a slight delay — allowing you to potentially mislead enemies with dropped weapons
Updated reload-related gameplay ability to correctly detect when a round is chambered during a mag check
This ensures the appropriate animation plays depending on bolt status (e.g. AR-15 with no bolt lock)
Updated the grenade throw ability to no longer allow sprinting or item switching to interrupt it, as well as correctly re-equip the previous item (if the option is checked in Settings › Gameplay) after the throw
AI/animation
Dead body inspection
Enemies now perform a proper body check animation upon finding a fallen comrade, kneeling at the location of the dead character's head, reaching out and scanning around before standing back up.
Other AI changes
Updated "bum rush" AI behavior (Terrorist Hunt):
AI now runs toward distant targets and walks when nearby
AI will now draw their weapon upon entering "bum rush" mode, rather than leaving it slung until enemy contact
New in V1035.1 is the ability to create proper skin mods for items, with new colors and patterns no longer required to be "baked" directly into the meshes. Here's the first contribution by modder ModernLancer:
💡 If you are interested in creating skin mods, see this page from our Modding Wiki for more information (though please bear in mind that it still needs to be updated).
Bolt-action and belt-fed weapon modding
The Mod Kit now provides example mods for bolt-action and belt-fed weapons.
💡 For instructions on how to create new asset mods (such as weapon mods), see this page.
Other modding changes
Improved mod filtering behavior in the Server Browser to more reliably display modded servers
Optimized mod mounting performance and reliability by skipping redundant blueprint-generated classes and using safer methods to identify primary assets
Visual updates
Upgraded first-person character textures
With the new Check Watch action, we wanted to make sure the most visible character textures in first-person (arms, gloves, sleeves) looked as good as they can, so we bumped up the resolution for their albedo (base color) and normal maps.
The difference can be subtle — especially with the gloves — but here's a before/after with the Tactical Gloves and Softshell Jacket:
Notice the sharper textures — especially around the jacket's shoulder pockets and seams.
Other visual fixes
Fixed lighting channel and cull distance issues in Ready Room
Potential fix for blurry textures when switching appearances with a balaclava
Kit restrictions
The Kit Restrictions system and menus are being overhauled to use the new tag system and offer more options. As a result, it will be unavailable from this version until we have the new iteration done in patch V1035.2.
💡 The new kit restrictions system is expected to return alongside the Hostage Rescue PvP mode.
Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your patience, everyone.
Miscellaneous changes
Updated VOIP settings in Wwise to improve Radio and Proximity Voice audio dropouts (unfortunately, crashes still occur — we are looking into redoing the VOIP system)
Fixed issue where the wrong sound was playing for the LVAW assault rifle
Fixed Ready Room no longer playing ambient music after closing menus
Updated Power Station audio mix and adjusted audio for powered equipment (e.g. radios) (WIP)
Updated and cleaned up various gameplay abilities (GAS) for more reliability
Removed excessive networking logs to improve performance and clarity
This has been Build Update #060!
Thank you for reading these release notes and keeping up with the development of GROUND BRANCH.
Stay tuned for patch V1035.2, and don't forget to let us know how this version is running and playing for you — whether via our Discord, Steam forums or social media.
Just a quick update to fix up the in-game bug reporter and a handful of other minor issues. Patch notes Fixed in-game bug reporter ( Report Bug screen) failing to submit This was caused by a domain change in our bug tracker, which required the URL to be updated accordingly. Sorry
Just a quick update to fix up the in-game bug reporter and a handful of other minor issues.
Patch notes
Fixed in-game bug reporter (Report Bug screen) failing to submit
This was caused by a domain change in our bug tracker, which required the URL to be updated accordingly. Sorry, folks!
Added network logging to investigate potential server performance issues
Updated bomb location in northern container on Depot to be accessible in Defuse game mode
Fixed DLSS Super Resolution drop-down menu being duplicated when returning to the Settings menu
Updated UMP45's model and animation assets to fix iron sights
Hey, everyone! We have another V1035 hotfix for you, including fixes for City crashes and sound issues, Intel Retrieval bugs, and the "bum rush" feature (where the last remaining enemy AI rush the player in Terrorist Hunt ) not working. We have also added a new SVD variant, hooke
Hey, everyone!
We have another V1035 hotfix for you, including fixes for City crashes and sound issues, Intel Retrieval bugs, and the "bum rush" feature (where the last remaining enemy AI rush the player in Terrorist Hunt) not working.
We have also added a new SVD variant, hooked up the AOR-2 pouches and more. Keep reading for the full scoop.
Patch notes
Gameplay
Put in a temporary workaround in Intel Retrieval to make laptops pick-upable without hacking (may have some alignment issues causing the laptop to appear in odd places near the expected placement, such as under a box instead of on it); other modes such as Uplink may still have issues (work in progress)
Improved equipment-switching logic relating to restoring the correct previously equipped left/right item when re-equipping (work in progress)
Fixed issues with Tablet raise ability sometimes not working
Improved controller-to-mouse input remapping for UI navigation
AI
Fixed up AI behavior for "bum rush" in Terrorist Hunt (TH) and "extraction mayhem" in Intel Retrieval (IR): after getting down to the last few terrorists in TH, and after taking the laptop in IR, all remaining enemy AI will once again swarm towards the players and/or extraction point (if applicable); the behavior remains a work in progress
Adjusted AI grenade usage: reduced frequency, increased verification distance, rebalanced smoke grenade usage, and added checks to avoid friendly fire
Tweaked AI logic to reduce passive behaviors and increase frontal engagement
Improved AI responsiveness and reduced hesitation when closing distance with enemies
Fixed AI sprinting sideways when engaging targets
Sound
Fixed crashing and other audio issues in City
Adjusted voice handling for AI room tones and Spatial Audio Volumes (SAVs)
Fixed HRTF channel configuration to restore expected audio playback
Improved volume behavior for grenade explosions
Fixed voice starvation and room tone playback inconsistencies
Inventory
Added SVD-90 sniper rifle: a variant of the classic SVD with black polymer furniture (the original SVD was renamed SVD-63)
Tweaked weight value for SVD-63 from 5.3 kg to 4.3 kg (the new SVD-90 variant is a little lighter: 4.0 kg)
Added AOR-2 skin to pouches
Radio pouch skins are now restricted to Black, Tan, Ranger Green and OCP to reflect real-life counterpart and highlight the pouch in most situations (this logic may be applied to other pouches in the future)
UI
Refined controller modifier tooltip messaging
Fixed interaction bugs relating to controller navigation and button modifier presentation
Extra validation added to Modding menus, and new prompts to suggest saving of server mod list if user navigates away
Updated SVD-63 icon with more consistent version created from more recent asset
Visuals
Improved support for matching pouches when changing platform skins
Updated Plate Carrier (MPC) skins:
All MOLLE sections now have the secondary skin color applied to them (where applicable, as some skins have camo applied to the MOLLE)
OCP now has the camo pattern also applied to MOLLE (instead of tan)
M81 now uses a more accurate color scheme, with olive drab as the secondary color (instead of tan) and camo no longer being applied to certain parts of the vest
MOLLE applied at an angle near armpit area now has the camo pattern follow that angle
Tweaked color of the stitching, bungee cord and snap fastener of some skins
Corrected visuals and collision on Box Truck asset
Eye material fix on dead SWAT characters
Modding
Fixed issue where listen server host (Host Game option) would not sync mods unless local mod list was enabled
Listen server hosts (Host Game) no longer send Inactive mods to clients, causing unnecessary mod subscriptions
Mutators menu now displays expected content on opening (rather than broken mutators)
We have another hotfix for you — and yes, this fixes suppressors in addition to a lot of other things. As always, thank you all for your reports and patience! Patch notes General Fixed issue with player characters (and sometimes AI) not ragdolling properly after death, and instea
We have another hotfix for you — and yes, this fixes suppressors in addition to a lot of other things. As always, thank you all for your reports and patience!
Patch notes
General
Fixed issue with player characters (and sometimes AI) not ragdolling properly after death, and instead freezing in place when killed
Fixed destructing doors to only destroy attached actors that take damage or which are decal actors
Rejigged internal stuff relating to Breaching Charge, M67 Frag, MK13 Flashbang, smoke grenades and the big bomb (Defuse game mode), so that the effects replicate properly to all clients on a server
Fixed broken debug camera (Ctrl + Home)
Fixed crash relating to audio occlusion
Gameplay
Fixed Default Post-ADS Weapon Position setting (Settings › Gameplay › Combat) not applying correctly
Campaign mission now tells you when AI teammates are killed
Updated input action bindings for controller modifiers to set the consume input property to false (this allows the key bound to modifier to be bound to an action not bound to the player controller, while still being used as a modifier)
Inventory
Fixed suppressor socket bug — all appropriate weapons should again be able to equip suppressors (sorry)
Audio
Fixed Breaching Charge audio not playing (was only playing tail)
Adjusted attenuations of multiple objects
Switched spatialized sounds to audio objects to get better spatialization
Removed superfluous random spatial sound from City audio
Replaced spatial sound actor system with spatial audio volume tag system
Fixed a few external volumes’ room tone not playing
UI
Added proper icon for NVG Counterweight (formerly "Counterweight", which used the Headset icon)
Updated GB skin for the T-Shirt: changed display name from "Ground Branch" to "GB Logo", and updated skin icon
Reduced space between consecutive game messages (the ones that pop up centered at the lower half of the screen)
Visuals
Server and client random animations synced properly
Modding
Added GBBarrelComponent::SetVelocityModifier() to enable changing velocity modifier at runtime in barrel component blueprints; a value of 0.0 or less resets it
Custom gameplay tags should now be packaged "in the clear" rather than in mod paks
