Intel Report

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.

💡  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, previously 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.

New player locomotion

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.

Bark at the moon

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++.

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: 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):

💡 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:

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.

Pretty cool, huh?

💡 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.

See you on the next one!

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!).

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, 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!

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.

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!