Intel Report

What’s up, everyone?

It’s been a hot minute since our last Intel Update, and although we have been patching V1032 for a while now, work on upcoming release V1033 has been ongoing for several months behind the curtains. Before we start teasing the goods, however, we need to talk about a couple things:

🔥 Summer Sale: GROUND BRANCH is 40% OFF until July 7th!

That’s right! GROUND BRANCH is currently a whole 40% OFF, which we think is a pretty dang good deal and our highest discount yet.

You can grab your discount copy directly on Steam, or you can…

❤️ CONSIDER BUYING DIRECTLY FROM OUR STORE

Buying the game from our Store ensures that we get the full cut of the purchase, as opposed to Valve taking 30%.

💰 Use code  GBSUMMER  at the checkout to apply the 40% discount.

Please note the GB Store has no regional pricing — it can only use the base USD price tag!

You have exactly 2 weeks (until July 7th) to think about it or get that one friend (you know the one) to pull the trigger on this fantastic opportunity. Let’s get the word out and make sure to welcome the new players in!

We’re hiring: VFX Artist wanted for particle effects

This one is for any industry pros that might be lurking: BlackFoot Studios is looking for a VFX Artist to create awesome, realistic particle effects in GROUND BRANCH. For more details, click here.

Also, the Senior Gameplay Engineer/Developer position is still open. So if you know any Unreal Engine & C++ wizards out there (or happen to be one yourself), get in touch! Full job details right here.

So how’s V1033 coming along?

That’s what most of you are here for, so let’s move on to those sneak peeks we promised. Here are some of the exciting things currently under development.

New sky and weather system

GROUND BRANCH V1033 is being setup with a new system that allows for dynamic sky and weather effects, which means clouds, the moon and stars will be making a return.

We’re still assessing performance, but if it proves to work well, we may soon also be able to choose not just the time of day, but also whether the sky is clear, cloudy or overcast; whether there’s a moon out at night or not; and even if it’s rainy or foggy. The whole system is also being rigged up to inform the player of lighting and visibility conditions, as well as to allow a specific mission date to be set in order to emulate the real-life weather conditions of a certain area (where the map is set) at a given time.

This early prototype for the more advanced settings should give you an idea of the depth of the new system:

Although we are not yet sure how many of these options will be available to players (at least initially) nor exactly how it will all be displayed, the back-end to support it is already in place. Just keep in mind that it’s early days, and if the plugin’s performance hit during regular gameplay is too big, then we might need to pull it until we can make it all play nice.

Updated night vision effects + incoming GPNVG-18

One of the most requested items in GROUND BRANCH history — the famous (and sometimes infamous, particularly if you ask a GB dev) GPNVG-18 “quad NODs” panoramic night vision goggles — is finally making its way into the game, along with a number of enhancements to the overall night vision and IR laser effects.

Among the improvements, you may notice how the goggles take up a larger portion of the screen. Instead of simply expanding the NVG overlay mask, which would grant players an unrealistically wide field of view, this was done by switching the FOV (that is, by “zooming in”) in order to make the realistic field of view display at a larger size. This effect will likely be made optional as it might disorient some players.

Have a quick demo video (remember it’s all WIP!) from Fatmarrow to see it in action:

As you may be able to spot in the video: the noise speckle effect has being reworked; mask movement and lens shading have been added to give the camera a more natural feel; and the goggles now appear to bounce when running/sprinting (this will definitely be tweaked/toned down). The goggles are also using a white phosphor overlay, which will be available on the dual-tube NVG too (as will green be available on the GPNVG-18), and the IR laser has also received an update.

What do you think of these updates so far? Let us know in the comments!

Patches, but not the kind we had a bunch of for V1032

We’re talking velcro patches that you can place on your character’s shoulders, headgear and (eventually) vests. Like so:

Patches will be making a comeback from the pre-Early Access days, and they should not only make customization more fun and authentic, but also start making IFF a little easier.

Another cool feature of patches will be a tint selection: in addition to the full-color version of each patch, 3 types of subdued tints — tan, green and grayscale — will also be available for those who don’t want no flashy colors spoiling their drip. Or their camo, sure.

Weapons

You have probably already spotted the MK17 SCAR-H in one of the screenshots above, so that cat is out of the bag. Modeled by the talented Cody Cudmore (aka ParallaxGameStudios), the MK17 will initially come in two versions: “CQC” (with the shorter 13-inch barrel) and “DMR” (with the standard 16-inch barrel and Midwest Industries handguard rail extension).

Cody has modelled several extra parts, however, that will be available when the ability to swap stocks, handguards and barrels is implemented. You can see most of the parts (along with some beautiful renders of the new MK17) in his ArtStation page.

Other upcoming weapon updates

Several of Cody’s models are being continually upgraded, so expect remasters of various attachments (including the AN/PEQ-15 and optics like the PRO, RMR, AccuPower and more) to have made their way into the game by the time V1033 hits.

Another new asset you may have spotted earlier is the new M1911A1 by Bakr Asaad aka Raider3D:

This modernized M1911A1 features a Picatinny rail for lights and lasers and a threaded barrel for suppressors, as well as 8-round and 10-round magazines. Aesthetically, it combines elements of various iconic 1911-style pistols used by American SOF over the last couple decades, retaining much of its classic look.

The update will also include plenty of AK-74 and AK-105 platforms (both with and without Zenitco parts), new SVDs, a PMM pistol, the suppressor for the MK46 machine gun… But hang in there, we’ll be unveiling more of these in the future.

Characters

As those spoilery screenshots earlier showed, character assets will be getting some new additions as well. Namely, we’ll be adding a new character head, and beards will finally make their comeback. That’s not all, but since we’re not sure at this time just how much will make it to V1033, we kindly request that all readers exercise caution with their hype levels.

Let’s take a look:

Hair color selection may not make it to V1033, but the assets have all been created to allow it once we get the functionality in.

Lastly for the character art department, another commonly requested item since V1032 has been tucked-in tops. Pau Peñalver is making the adjustments, and we’ll see how they end up in the game as far as selection goes.

Audio and animations

Among other things that we’ll be discussing in a later update, Mikson and Mike have been busy getting the new weapons to sound and move nicely, respectively.

Mik has also been working on environment-specific “tails”, which refers to how the gunshot sounds reverberate differently depending on the type of environment. So in addition to sounding different depending on whether you’re outdoors, in a small room or a larger room, shots in V1033 will have distinctive tails for urban, marine and generic outdoors, with the possibility of a woodland-area tail in the future too. Here’s a little demo:

New unsuppressed gunshot SFX for the MPX, 5.45 mm AK platforms and other weapons will also be in the update.

Other developments

This is it for today’s Intel Update, but before we sign off: we are also working on AI features, modding, map updates, a new map and game modes for V1033 that we’ll be showcasing at a later date.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!

Alright, everyone, it’s time for another Intel Update!

These last few months have seen no shortage of setbacks — big and small, both inside the development and outside — but we’re chugging along like we always do. Humans are not built for waiting, and believe us when we say we absolutely hate how long this is taking, but we’re hoping this dev blog will give everyone another good taste of what’s coming.

➕ For those who missed it, our last blog post is available here: Intel Update #008: Reinforcements

Some will argue that the succulent previews you are about to see actually make the wait worse. To those, we say: scroll no further, for this shall be painful.

This is going to be media-heavy, so double-check you’re not on mobile data and let’s move on.

Optimization

In our last Intel Update, we introduced you to Bad Rhino Studios, a company that has been helping us with mostly under-the-hood development.

As part of our partnership, they have ran a thorough performance profiling on GROUND BRANCH and found that the biggest offender was indeed audio- and AI-related. More specifically, AI audio event calls causing big spikes in CPU usage.

Another performance issue we had was related to navmeshes (the areas of maps that bots are allowed to navigate on), and determined to be caused by how the AI interacts with doors within the navmeshes — hence maps Run Down and Tanker having the worst PvE performance, as they have the most doors.

Fixes have been applied to both issues, and appear to have yielded positive results in testing so far. Hell yeah, Bad Rhino Studios.

Further reinforcements

We cannot get into detail just yet, but we’ve recently gotten a tech artist on board. To put it simply, tech artists bridge the gap between programmers and artists (a job that Kris has so far been solely responsible for, on top of his regular coding duties), so we’re talking a very valuable acquisition for the team here.

There are a couple other positions that may be filled soon, but it’s a little too early to confirm. Bottom line is, we’re putting those sales to good use and will continue to build up the team.

Art assets

Character customization

One of V1032’s biggest attractions is, of course, the brand-new character assets. Even the heads are all getting replaced with much better ones, with more models to come later:

And here’s a little selection of loadouts you can make with the new gear, showcased with a new pose that Mike hooked us up with specifically for the Customize Operator screen:

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Although not 100% of the assets are new (we’re still missing a few items, like the Ball Cap and Headsets), they are all set to be updated within the next few releases.

In fact, here’s some upcoming eyewear — in various stages of development — that will be in V1032:

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And just as a little demo of how much complexity full customization adds to development, here’s a study sent to us by our trusty character asset artist Pau Peñalver as we try to figure out how to deal with goggle headbands vs. helmets vs. helmet accessories (e.g. ear pro/comms):

Decisions, decisions. Anyway, more shots to gawk at:

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Swatch system

As mentioned in a previous Intel Update many moons ago, most of the new character assets are setup to essentially take any color or pattern we want. As a result, the days of mismatched camos and inconsistent pouches will be over as soon as V1032 hits, and you’ll be able to MultiCam OCP the sh*t out of your kit:

In keeping with the authenticity that GROUND BRANCH is going for, we are for the most part creating skins that exist for the real-life counterparts of our assets. We may get more flexible as we go (OCP Black?!?!), but one thing we know for sure is that you’ll never see neon or brightly-colored skins in this game — not by us, anyway.

Y’all got any more of them new models?

New MK14 EBR (WIP)

We have a new MK14 EBR model under development by Cody Cudmore to replace our old Mod 2 variant currently in the game.

We know, you may not be exactly excited about a new EBR, but we figure these renders might help:

Here it is again, a little further along:

This new EBR is based on the US Navy’s Mod 1 variant (photo) — a better fit for the game overall, as it is fitted with a shorter 18″ barrel and an adjustable-length stock (which you will be able to switch out for other models in the future).

➕  Click here for a preview of another upcoming GROUND BRANCH weapon (that's for a later update, though!) at Cody's ArtStation page.

➕ For a list of all known upcoming weapons and more, see our Early Access Roadmap. Yes… a SCAR-H is coming. *sigh*

MK46 (WIP)

We’re also getting a MK46 Mod 1 light machine gun made to replace the old MK48, a model that is just as old as the current MK14 Mod 2 EBR. We aren’t 100% sure that it will make it to V1032, but here are some progress shots anyway:

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Much like the updated EBR, the MK46 is a better fit for the game for a few reasons: it is lighter, shorter, and more likely to be seen in a small, high-speed unit. The 5.56 mm caliber, however, means a firepower downgrade when compared to the MK48’s 7.62 mm round.

We’d like to get at least one additional stock made for this LMG, so drop your suggestion in the comments!

🔫 We have a new M1911 in the making, but that isn't far along enough to showcase just yet. It may or may not make it to V1032.

Updated accessories

The SpecterDR 1x/4x scope has been updated with a new, highly-detailed model by Cody:

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… and so has the EXPS3 holo sight, by the same author:

Other V1032 weapon accessory changes will include an updated AK suppressor, new/updated backup iron sights (BUIS), and a new MK4 3.5–10x scope to replace the old generic 12x.

Updated M4/MK18 assets

You have probably noticed by now that our M4/MK18 platforms have all been updated with entirely new models — including an FSP M4 Block II rail option — but here’s a close-up just to really get the point across:

The classic M4A1 SOPMOD is also being updated, but since the previous model wasn’t as old, the different isn’t quite as jarring. Still, it’s nice to have art consistency, the potential for cross-modability and, well, the correct barrel length:

Although these will be setup as standalone weapon platforms in V1032, we’ll eventually have a basic “gunsmith” feature where you’ll be able to (for example) select a base M4 platform and swap out the stock, handguard and possibly barrel; that will make customization more flexible and the UI cleaner.

Animations

New weapon positions and stance transitions

As teased a couple weeks ago on our Discord and Twitter, we have new animations and poses for the weapon positions. Although nothing is set in stone and this is all one big work in progress, we’ll be trying this style out and update as the feedback comes.

One thing we at BlackFoot Studios agree on is that they look and feel a lot better, especially with the smooth transitions.

⏳ More natural, full-body character movements will all come in due time.

We’re sure there will be justified concerns about flagging — and again, these are not final — but we’re looking into having collision act as the “safety trigger”, so to speak: if you get close enough to a friendly unit, your character will automatically point the muzzle lower (if you’re at Low Ready) or higher (if you’re at High Ready).

It’s also worth noting for these previews that things like animation timing and camera/head movement are TBD.

As we progress, Mike will also be creating variants of the new ready positions/transitions that account for weapon length and weight. As an example, bringing a machine gun to ADS will be slightly slower than a carbine, while longer weapons may use a more “tucked in” High Ready position to mitigate environment collision and clipping.

⏳ V1032 will be merely our first big animations update. It will lay the foundations for animations and features to be added and improved all the way to the v1.0 release.

IK foot placement

The magic of IK, or inverse kinematics, will allow character’s feet to conform to the inclination and height of the environment, as displayed by this silly screengrab from 3 weeks ago. We don’t have a more recent shot because something broke the IK since, but don’t let anybody tell you game development isn’t endless fun:

This initial implementation is guaranteed to create plenty of wonky moments, but that’s what iterations are for.

Reloads

All-new reload animations also mean all-new reload sounds. Sound designer Mikson has also been busy making sure the audio is in sync with the new motions, as well as improving effects all around as he went along.

Death animations

Another part of the animations update will be a first pass on death sequences. While the current method — a mix of ragdoll and hand-made animations — does not allow for the animations themselves to be as accurate as fully rendered ones, it lets the ragdoll physics maintain full effect, so bodies still react to falling against the environment or off platforms while the animation plays.

Here’s a little demo:

As the video hopefully conveys, enemies no longer drop like a sack of potatoes: they have animations for being hit in different parts of the body, and even the direction they’re shot from has an effect on how they drop.

There’s more to these animations than just that, but we’re not spoiling it all just yet. Not bad for a first pass, huh?

Maps

In addition to upcoming maps Compound (working title) and Rig, already showcased previously, Storage Facility is getting a revamp consisting of a considerable expansion of the outside play area, a new way into the tunnels, and a huge makeover of the tunnels themselves.

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If all goes well, the updated Storage Facility will have also received an extra art pass by the time you get to explore it.

Game modes

GROUND BRANCH V1031 brought us Lua-based game modes, which semi-officially opened up game mode modding to the community. Although development isn’t streamlined at this point, a few community-made modes have already been created:

Dynamic Take and Secure (DTAS)

Those who follow our Roadmap know about DTAS – Dynamic Take and Secure, a PvP game mode we added to the board a while ago. As it turns out, DTAS has been under development over the past several months by our friend and occasional collaborator fatmarrow, also known for his community maps (you can find his progress and tutorial videos here).

In DTAS, teams alternate as attackers and defenders. Once defenders set up the flag, attackers are free to start tracking it down. To win the round, attackers need to have more players inside the flag’s capture radius than defenders. If attackers are down to only one player or fail to capture within the time limit, defenders win. All parameters — time limit, capture radius, team balance — are customizable by admins.

It is currently in advanced testing, and will be available once the first V1032 CTE is released.

💡 DTAS was originally a game mode for Infiltration (aka INF), an old tactical realism mod for Unreal Tournament (1999).

Rendezvous

Fatmarrow has also helped create Rendezvous, a game mode by community regular V2. The description and rules for this scavenge/escape game mode can be found in this Discord link, and the download is right below:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/480702286943879168/858760420990648321/Rendezvous_20210628.zip

Kill Confirmed / Breakout

GB community member eelSkillz has created an additional 2 solo/co-op game modes, dubbed Kill Confirmed (a VIP assassination mode) and Break Out (another take on a scavenge/exfiltrate mode).

You can download the game modes from eelSkillz’s GitHub here and discuss them on the Steam thread here.

For a few demo runs of both modes (also featuring V2 and his Rendezvous mode), check out eel’s YouTube channel.

Nvidia DLSS & GeForce NOW

Just to make it official: GROUND BRANCH will support both GeForce NOW and Nvidia DLSS in the near-future!

GeForce NOW is the better-known Nvidia subscription-based cloud gaming platform where, instead of running on the player’s PC, games are run on powerful PCs somewhere else in the world and streamed to the player.

Nvidia DLSS (Deep Learning Super-Sampling) takes advantage of GeForce RTX technology to generate high-resolution, sharp, detailed images from low-resolution native samples via AI. This video offers a good demonstration of how it all works and looks:

This has been Intel Update #009!

We’ve just started internal testing, and although a lot of the game still needs to be put back together, dev builds have been stable and performing well. When we’re done with the major fixes, we’ll start rolling builds out to the CTE so you can all have a look and help us make sure we have a solid release.

As a final reminder, V1032 won’t be the ultimate animations update, but it will help us get there in a lot of ways. It’s all about paving the way for new features and a game that looks and feels better as development progresses.

Lastly, the only reason GROUND BRANCH has made it this far is our community’s continued support over the years, months, days or however long you’ve known about our game and talked about it with your friends, bought a copy, started a discussion thread, streamed it, hung around the Discord or even just followed us on social media.

And so as always, thank you for keeping us going, and we’ll see you on the next update!

As underscored by last month’s publisher announcement, development for upcoming release V1032 is still chugging along, and as we work on putting the game back together with the new character rig, assets and animations, another Intel Update is coming at you with everything that’s happening behind the scenes.

Reinforcements are here

It is no secret that the development of GROUND BRANCH has been rocky, and in many ways too ambitious for its own good. Nevertheless, it has endured, and thanks in no small part to our community’s continued trust and support, we have finally reached a point where we can more comfortably go after professionals that can help us stay on track and take this project where it needs to be.

Tech backup

One such example is Bad Rhino Studios, an independent studio from Kansas City that we just partnered with as a means to get more eyes and hands on the game’s overall performance, code, online networking (netcode), and general implementation. As we progress, the studio will also be helping us fix major lingering issues and improve other areas of development.

The fine developers at Bad Rhino have previously lent their expertise to the likes of Epic Games (Unreal Engine, Fortnite), Bohemia Interactive (Arma, DayZ standalone) and even Facebook, so they are more than capable of helping us take GROUND BRANCH to the next level from a more technical standpoint.

It goes without saying that we’re very excited for this partnership’s future, and we’ll hopefully be seeing its repercussions soon enough!

For anyone interested, you can learn more about Bad Rhino Studios and what they do in their website right here.

Art backup

We have also gotten dedicated vegetation artist Paul Brousse on board in a contractor capacity. For starters, Mr. Brousse will be building assets for 4 different biomes (i.e. trees, bushes and ground cover): Eastern Europe, Horn of Africa, Middle East, and Mexico–US border.

In addition to granting environments an extra layer of authenticity, these new custom biomes will generally make maps look better and more consistent. If we’re lucky, they might even improve performance too.

Further backup

We are also looking for a dedicated VFX artist and a producer/project manager type, in addition to a few other roles we may disclose later. At this time, we are only considering close recommendations, but we’ll be sure to let everyone know if we end up expanding our search.

Other areas of assistance

GPU manufacturers

In order to improve performance in the future, we have submitted GROUND BRANCH builds to Nvidia and AMD for profiling. This may lead to potential assistance in optimizing the game, as well as GPU driver enhancements for better compatibility with it.

Localization

Our new publishing partner MicroProse has been helping us localize (that is, translate) the content of our Steam store page to several languages, so that non-English speakers can make better informed purchases and potentially have a minor positive impact on the player base.

Localization of the game itself will also begin as soon as we have a large enough portion of the UI locked down.

Some V1032 sneak peeks

Now for what you’re actually here for—taking a look at how V1032 is coming along and getting eyes on some sweet sneak peeks. We get it, and we got you covered.

Here’s some media, starting with this quick audio and animation preview:

In addition to all these new reloads, our animator Mike has also put together this satisfying recoil animation that adds a lot of immersion to shooting:

On the modeling front, trusty contractor and 3D artist extraordinaire Pau Peñalver continues to bang out amazing models to get our character art up to date, and to make sure we don’t have brand-new assets mixed up with really old ones.

Below are some of Pau’s latest creations:

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Keep in mind that although these previews are already of the game-ready models (yep, no joke), they are generated from rendering tools that have lighting capabilities far beyond UE4’s real-time lighting. You know we like being transparent, so here’s what we really mean by that: they will not look necessarily this amazing in-game, but they will still look pretty good and certainly better than the assets they will be replacing.

In the level design department, Will has put some work on the night lighting and skybox for the still untitled compound map:

In case you missed it, there are a bunch of pretty previews of the upcoming compound map on MicroProse’s GROUND BRANCH product page (click). We know what you’re thinking and yes, it’s gonna be totally sick, lit and dare we say, based.

And that’s it for today’s Intel Update!

We know—waiting for V1032 sucks. But hopefully this helps ease the wait a little, and reassures everyone that we’re still here, working hard, and expanding the team so that we’re able to improve GROUND BRANCH’s experience at a faster pace.

We’ll have more details and previews for you in a few weeks, so stay tuned and don’t forget to let us know what your thoughts are on today’s intel.

See you on the next one!

As this year comes to an end—and what a bastard of a year this has been—comes also the time for our final report of 2020. Intel Update #007 brings you all the major development details and behind-the-scenes of the last couple of months as we move towards GROUND BRANCH V1031.

So what’s been going on in BlackFoot Studios country?

Development has had its ups and downs since our last release, but we’re hanging in here and doing our best, as always. Here are some recent highlights:

Kris was out of action for a while

Having the only programmer and UE4 wizard in your team mostly out of commission for about three weeks as engine- and logic-related tasks pile up on the checklist is never fun. Kris was on meds that left him drowzy and unable to focus (he’s feeling better now and no, not Covid-related!), but since going off of them around a week ago, he has been catching up and pumping out fixes and under-the-hood work.

This has definitely set things back considerably, but on the flip side…

Reinforcements have arrived

As some might be aware, we were recently looking for an assistant UE4 developer/programmer to share Kris’ significant workload—and are happy to announce that we now have that person on board! Ethan Wade (aka WaderTheGamer) is a long-time GROUND BRANCH supporter and solo UE4 indie developer for his personal project. As a guy with UE4 skills and many years of closely following the game, Wader has been able to quickly tackle a lot of minor and not-so-minor tasks (which we’ll cover in a bit), and has been immensely helpful in implementing quality-of-life improvements as well as helping the rest of the team get their work into the game.

Mikson made a blanket hut to record foley

[RECORDING FOLEY]

AAA devs: *tens of thousands of dollars on studio time, engineers and overblown 4-minute promo video on sound design alone*

Indie devs: pic.twitter.com/OVGt9SxH6B

— GROUND BRANCH (@GroundBranch) November 26, 2020

Yes, our sound designer Mikson has been very busy, as we will also show in a bit. In the above pictures, you can see the legend’s setup for recording crunchy, clean magazine drop sounds. More on his work after the fold…

How’s 1031 coming along?

Normally, we’d fill this section up with written details and screenshots, but since it’s the holidays and the update isn’t here yet, we thought we’d make it up to you with something a little nicer:

That’s right—animations and character assets may have been delayed to V1032, but we’re still making GROUND BRANCH look (and sound) a little better in V1031 with a lot of new visual effects and audio improvements, from entirely new sounds all the way to directional audio.

Attachments

As shown, attachment controls are getting a much needed upgrade: you will soon be able to bind lights and lasers to your preferred keys, and those will offer both a “hold” and a “toggle” functionality: hold the key to keep it on for as long as it’s pressed, or double-tap to leave it on (until you double-tap it again to turn it off).

In making attachment usage easier, we have also moved the Magnifier from the Attachments Wheel to the same keybinds used for zooming in and out with a variable power scope; the result is a much more intuitive and accessible control scheme.

Lastly, we are adding the IR Illuminator function to the AN/PEQ-15—a useful tool for nighttime ops, especially in low-contrast areas where the invisible light can help outline targets. The illuminator will offer two settings, accessible via the Reticle Brightness Up/Down commands: LOW outputs a broader-angle, dimmer IR light; whereas HIGH produces a more focused and brighter one.

Wristwatch

The wristwatch is a standard piece of gear which displays the current time and a compass ring that rotates according to the direction the player is facing.

It should greatly improve teamwork and navigation, as players will be able to quickly figure out which way they are going, which wall is the “north wall” one of your teammates just mentioned, at which direction enemies have been spotted, and so on. We plan on adding more functionalities to the watch app in the future, such as a heartbeat counter to help estimate player stamina status and maybe more.

Audio

New movement sounds that vary according to how much gear is being carried have also been implemented, and although we were not able to record previews at this time, this genuine graph makes it all look very official:

In addition to all the new audio we have already mentioned, Mikson has been working on the pending map soundscapes for 747 and Power Station. And speaking of map soundscapes, he is currently getting some done for these…

Upcoming maps

We don’t want to give too much away, but John has been creating a pure CQB level and we got ahold of a couple of sneak peek shots for you here:

Promising, right? It’s a nice change of mood from the current map selection, and it’s sure to captivate the old R6 crowd. Needless to say, it’s all a work in progress.

The new training complex is also scheduled to hit with V1031 and replace all the old training areas with a single big map. If you haven’t checked it out yet, here are some previews:

As mentioned a while ago, you can run around this map by typing travel training_base into the console (~ or Num *) and hitting Enter↵.

Menu work

We’ve also been updating the UI to be more intuitive, consistent and nicer-looking. Here’s how the Settings screens and key icons are coming along:

So these are some of the things that are on their way for our next main release.

In addition to the stuff we have just gone over, you can definitely expect a couple of updated models here and there, a new functionality or two, and general quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes all around. For one thing, game modes are having their foundation worked on by Kris, though we don’t have a lot to showcase from that department just yet.

V1032 work continues in the background

In case you missed Build Update #027, animation and character work had to be pushed to V1032.

We haven’t shared progress on those fronts in a while, so let’s take the time to do so in this post, shall we?

Character assets

Some of you may recall that entirely new character assets by freelance artist Pau Peñalver are just waiting for the new character rig and animations to be fully setup and working in the game.

Although we have posted a lot of previews of these new assets before, Pau has since uploaded a handful of albums showcasing his GROUND BRANCH models in an even better light, so be sure to check out the eye candy right here. Here are some teasers:

Pau has a few other GB albums up that you scroll through in his ArtStation page: artstation.com/pawered

Animations

🚧 WORK IN PROGRESS
Keep in mind that animations are all WIP and will likely receive multiple passes before their final iterations.

These previews are captured straight from the editor and therefore use simplified lighting, texturing and overall rendering. Camera placement and rigging are also subject to change.

Reloads

Having up to four types of reload per weapon means a lot of work for Mike.

For communication and clarity purposes, we are categorizing them internally as proactive vs. reactive (whether you are reloading as precaution between engagements or because your weapon has run out of rounds, respectively) and retention vs. no retention (whether you keep the used ammo container or not). See if you can figure out which of these are which:

Prone

Not much to talk about here, other than prone is seeing some work again. Due to all of the possible issues that may arise with such a big feature (considering all the very complex implementations we have in GROUND BRANCH), we cannot 100% confirm prone will be ready for V1032—but we sure as hell will try our best.

Below are some previews for crawling in various directions. Again, all WIP:

Prone/Crawl (Forward)

Prone/Crawl (Backward)

Prone/Crawl (Left)

Prone/Crawl (Right)

 

Oil Rig

Level artist Will continues to build Oil Rig—one behemoth of a map—for V1032. Take a look at these:

And that is all we have for you right now.

Thanks for sticking with us through another year!

We’re incredibly grateful for all the faith, loyalty and support that GROUND BRANCH keeps getting from so many of you in the community, in spite of what can be, at times, a frustratingly slow and difficult development.

This year may have been tough, and it certainly was for a whole lot of people all over the world. We can’t complain much ourselves: significant development strides were made, word of the game keeps spreading, people are playing and looking for sessions, new players keep arriving in our Discord and broader community every day, and the list goes on.

We hope that you’ve had as good a year—and holidays—as the circumstances allowed, and that you’re able to end it in as a positive a note as we were so fortunate to.

Please stay safe, and we’ll see you on the next cycle of increasingly tactical invention.

Here’s to a much better 2021,

—The BlackFoot Studios Team

Alright, everyone—we got some expectation management to do.

As laid out in Intel Update #005, we’ve been struggling to get the new character rig (the skeleton) worked out and ready for the new animations and character assets, which were the core of upcoming update 1030.

So, earlier this month, we brought on board experienced freelance animator Mike Munk (a former Tripwire developer with Red Orchestra, Rising Storm and the Killing Floor series under his belt) to have a look at the new rig and help us make sure things were being done correctly and as future-proof as possible. The diagnosis wasn’t great: upon inspection, it was determined that getting the skeleton in shape—so that it won’t be a source of headaches down the road—would take several weeks; possibly a couple months.

Well, 1030 has been in the works for a long time now, and we don’t want to leave you all without a new major update for that much longer.

The silver lining

So we made a difficult decision which, in retrospect, seems kinda like a no-brainer: let’s release everything else. If it’s not dependent on the new skeleton, why not put it out there and give everyone some new stuff to start trying out? Postponing the animation and character work sucks and we’re beyond frustrated about being forced to delay the main attraction in the update, but as the old adage goes… it is what it is. Might as well make the best out of the situation, so that’s what we’re gonna do.

If we cut the animation and character work from 1030, you get a smaller update, yes, but you get it a lot earlier and have something to play with while we get the rest of the package sorted out. It also means less potential for new bugs, as well as getting older bugs (such as the VOIP randomly not working) fixed ahead of time.

What will remain in 1030?

Although we’ve been forced to push the new animations and character assets back, update 1030 will be far from underwhelming. Here’s where it currently stands (for detailed descriptions and media, see Intel Update #005):

Remaining features

Everything we’ve announced for 1030 that is not related to the character and animation rework will still be in the update:

• [SCHEDULED] First pass on the Encumbrance System (weight and stamina).
• [SCHEDULED] Interactive lights (shootable/switchable) – will be present in all maps instead of the announced few (Depot and training maps).
• [SCHEDULED] 2 new multiplayer maps.
• [SCHEDULED] Map soundscapes and updated acoustics.
• [SCHEDULED] Tactical FAL and G3A3.

Delayed features

All character and animation-related work will be pushed back to a later update:

• [DELAYED] New and updated character assets. They were made for the new skeleton’s specs, and therefore will have to wait.
• [DELAYED] New and reworked animations.
• [DELAYED] M24 SWS, due to the bolt-action poses and animations.
• [DELAYED] Prone.
• [DELAYED] Hit feedback.

To-be-confirmed features

These may or may not make their way into 1030:

• [TBC] Visible gunshot wounds.
• [TBC] Wristwatch. Relies on the new clothes (with the cuffs pulled up) to show properly with long-sleeve tops, but we may be able to try a workaround.
• [TBC] Listen servers, a.k.a. hosting your own games without having to setup a dedicated server. (This was not a planned feature for 1030, but might be ready for it.)

We’ve also updated the Early Access roadmap to reflect these changes and other minor ones.

Some sneak peeks to make up for it (not in 1030!)

As previously shown, 3D artists Dan Conroy and Pau Peñalver have been working diligently on some new assets for GROUND BRANCH. Here is a little update on their progress:

M110K1

Mr. Conroy got the gas block, gas tube, dimpled barrel and flash hider/suppressor mount done for this upcoming battle rifle/DMR. It might not seem like a whole lot of progress, but that’s because he paused work on it for a while to work on the…

Rangefinder

More info on this later, but expect night vision and, well, rangefinding capabilities.

Belts

Pau has been working on more character assets. Here’s the new Battle Belt:

And here’s the upcoming Gun Belt (with the new, fully textured chest rigs in the back):

Magazine pouches

Lastly, here are some initial (high-poly) pouch renders:

Whelp, that’s all!

These weren’t easy news to break out, but we’re done.

We hope to have a working test build for 1030 (along with more news) soon. Rest assured we’ll keep you all posted and, as always: thank you so much for all your support and patience.

Also, remember you can always join the community and reach out via Discord, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook and the Steam® Community Hub.

Hang in there, and we’ll see you on the next update!

—The BlackFoot Studios Team