Day: February 19, 2026

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!