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We would like to say a huge thanks to all our existing community for all the support and feedback over the years, and to those who are about to join in: Welcome to GROUND BRANCH. We hope you enjoy your stay!
This update’s main highlight is Chapter 1 of Operations mode, which brings you the new Persian Gulf hotspot with 3 new campaign missions playable in offline/solo mode and online co-op.
Version 1.1.0 also includes new gameplay abilities, animations, VFX, customization, inventory additions and more. Keep reading for the full scoop.
Save 20% on GROUND BRANCH until November 26!
To celebrate this release, we’ve set up a 20% discount on Steam. It will be live for 2 weeks (until November 26) so make sure you spread the word and don’t miss out!
V1.1.0 release notes
General
A 🏠 Ready Room button is now displayed in the top Esc menu during games — click it to abort the current engagement and return to the Ready Room. (You can still use F4 as a shortcut!)
Operations — Chapter 1
A new hotspot is available in Operations mode: the Persian Gulf. It features 3 new missions set in maps Docks, Rig and Tanker.
💡 The Persian Gulf hotspot becomes available upon completing Northwest Pakistan.
🎦 You may need to watch out for security cameras in some of these new missions (more on those in the "Enemy AI" section).
Both the Prologue’s Northwest Pakistan and the new Persian Gulf hotspots now have unique Ready Rooms. The former is a hideout in a local house, while the latter is set aboard an aircraft carrier.
Unavailable hotspots and missions are now displayed as “Classified” on the Operations Map and mission list respectively.
Intelligence Archive
A new menu is now available in Operations mode: the Intelligence Archive. To open it, simply click the INTELLIGENCE button in the bottom-right of the Operations Map.
As you complete missions, intel dossiers and images for factions, individuals and locations will be added to the archive.
Operations — new AI character archetypes
Two new AI character archetypes are present in the Persian Gulf missions:
Civilian — Civilians will wander the level until they notice a threat, at which point they attempt to trigger the nearest alarm panel and then run for cover.
💡 Alarm panels are a new actor that both AI and players can interact with. Raising the alarm fires a gameplay event, allowing missions and game modes to react to it.
HVT (High Value Target) — The HVT is a mission target who must be captured alive and extracted. They’re guarded by their own security detail. While guarded, the HVT hides like a civilian when they spot a threat. Once every guard is neutralized, the HVT will surrender and kneel. Players can then walk up and take them into custody, at which point they join that player’s team and will take squad orders (default K) — much like a rescued hostage.
💡 Escorted characters — hostages and HVTs — now mirror the stance and gait of the player escorting them. This fixes them mirroring every player's stance and failing to close the gap to their escort.
Gameplay
Alertness levels, alarm panels and security cameras are now a thing in the campaign’s Persian Gulf hotspot. This might be expanded to other game modes and campaign missions in the future.
Shoulder-tapping is now possible. To shoulder-tap a buddy, simply approach their back while you’re standing up and press Interact (default F) when the prompt appears. The other player will be notified of the tap via UI.
Camera shake was added to enhance the feel of weapon recoil. The shake is caliber-specific.
Enemies no longer use grenades in Rig and Tanker. (This is part of a new internal system that allows per-map grenade settings; see “Enemy AI” section below.)
The chance of muzzle flash being produced by enemy weapons is now tied to AI difficulty level: Untrained has the most muzzle flash, while Veteran has the least. This follows the same logic as bullet traces in aiding players to identify the source of incoming fire.
Enemy AI
Combat and aim
Fixed enemy AI shooting before they’d actually aimed (e.g. while turning). Every burst now waits until they’re on target
Enemies now take their reaction time every time they reacquire you, not just on first contact.
How well AI lead moving targets now depends on difficulty level (it was previously perfect at every level).
Trained/Experienced/Veteran enemies now have a little aim spread (they previously had none).
Detection and night visibility
Reworked AI light levels, or how easily AI can spot you: ensured it respects time of day and moon phases, counts nearby lights by real brightness, and updates 10 times per second (was previously updated every 0.4–1.3 second).
AI investigating a noise will walk to a random spot near the source instead of the exact position.
Campaign missions can set their own AI hearing/sight levels (e.g. Tanker hearing = 0.7 due to noisy environment).
Grenades
Added a system to allow AI grenades to be switched on/off per map, plus a map volume that can block the ability for AI to throw grenades. AI grenades are currently disabled for the entirety of Tanker and Rig.
Security (Chapter 1)
For now, these changes apply to the Persian Gulf hotspot mission(s):
A guard opening fire raises the security level to “Heightened”.
A camera that spots you sends the nearest guard to check. Shot-out cameras get checked too.
Doors and movement
AI no longer stay stuck at doors (the door frees itself, and they give up after 30 seconds and find another way).
Fixed AI with a target waiting at a door forever.
Fixed AI walking through each other.
Fixed various navmesh issues on Tanker, Docks and Rig.
Miscellaneous
Added various other checks and restrictions to AI reactions to make combat feel more more realistic and fair.
Fixed an AI server crash and the stutter after killing an enemy.
One broken AI loadout no longer stops the rest from spawning.
Character animation and rigging
The character rig was updated with more bones, and various animations were cleaned up to reduce “snapping” and overall jankiness. This is an ongoing effort.
We’ve cleaned up instances where your point of aim (or the camera, more broadly) would “snap” to a different height when starting to move. Such transitions between stationary and moving animations are now smoothly interpolated.
Your weapon will no longer bounce right into the center of your view when walking while leaning.
Characters have received dedicated animations (and audio) for strafing left/right, with different animations for walking vs. running. This replaces the old logic that essentially rotated the lower body and played the same animations as forwards/backwards.
Guards and patrolling AI will now idle in place with various animations in between patrol routes.
💡 Vaulting and mantling animations had to be rolled back at the last moment due to technical issues. Those will be patched in as soon as possible.
Audio
Added audio portals to breakable windows in all mission maps. This ensures sound will travel through them once destroyed as if they were open.
The varying music tracks’ volumes were adjusted to a more uniform level in the mix: Ready Room music is timid and quiet, while main menu music stays louder than the rest.
Complete reconstruction of the soundscapes, as well as spatial volumes (for better diffraction and optimization), for maps Rig and Tanker.
Reduced the volume of first-person player movement SFX (i.e. players should hear their own movement a little quieter).
Under the hood: created dynamic music system for missions, Ready Rooms and cutscenes.
Fixed Galil rifles using incorrect reload audio.
VFX
Blood pools will now form underneath dead characters.
Prolonged fire will now create a lingering vapor/heat effect that emerges from the weapon’s barrel.
Created new water splash VFX (currently used in Persian Gulf hotspot).
Gamepad support
Gamepad support is now a lot more robust — it includes acceleration (response curve) settings for movement and aiming, axis-specific (X and Y) aim sensitivity, and other gamepad-specific settings that are now independent from their keyboard and mouse counterparts. You can find these in Settings › Controls › Input Options (under the GAMEPAD section).
Running no longer requires a separate controller button — when pushing the left analog stick beyond a certain threshold, your character will transition from walking to running. (Sprinting is still a separate button.)
You should now be able to fully browse the UI menus with just your gamepad. Use the ☰ button to pause/unpause the game (or open the Esc menu during online play), the left analog stick to control the cursor, the right analog stick to scroll boxes, the bottom face button (🅐/⮾/etc. depending on your gamepad) to confirm selections, and so on.
Customization and inventory
New character customization
AppearanceFace Paint — You can now apply various styles of face paint camouflage to your character. To select a face paint, click the new skin selection triangle in the right-hand corner of the Appearance menu (where you select your character’s head).
New weapons
Precision RifleSV-98 — The SV-98 is a Russian bolt-action, magazine-fed sniper rifle chambered in 7.62×54 mm. It is fitted with a top accessory rail for optics, plus a rail on the right side of the forearm for lasers and lights. The SV-98 has an optional suppressor and is fitted with the 1P69 3–10x scope (more on it below) by default.
Machine GunU100 MK3 — The U100 MK3 is a Singapore-made automatic rifle chambered in 5.56 NATO and firing in full-auto only. It uses a 100-round drum magazine, making it suitable for the squad automatic weapon (SAW) role. The U100 MK3 features a long top rail that can fit optics and LAMs, plus a bottom rail for grips and other attachments. Though it has built-in iron sights, they are nearly entirely obstructed by the top rail modification, so optics are strongly recommended.
SV-98 sniper rifle, seen here with 1P69 3–10x scope and suppressor.U100 MK3 equipped with G33 Magnifier, HWS 551, AN/PEQ-15 and Bipod Grip.
New attachments
Sights / AccessoryAN/PVS-14 — The PVS-14 is a simple night vision tube meant to be mounted at the rear of non-magnified optics such as red dot and holo sights, in the same fashion as the G33 Magnifier — except it makes your sight picture night vision-capable instead of zoomed in.
The AN/PVS-14 works very well in tandem with the HWS 551, but it won’t align perfectly with all sights and might completely obscure the reticle of a few.
💡 Unlike the AN/PVS-17C MNS night vision scope, the AN/PVS-14 does not feature an aiming point/reticle, and thus is not recommended as a standalone sight. Be sure to always mount it at the rear of a red dot-style sight and check the alignment before deploying!
IlluminationPerst-3 — This Russian LAM (Laser Aiming Module) emits a green visible laser instead of red, but is otherwise functionally identical to the AN/PEQ-15 with an infrared laser and illuminator (both visible only through NVG).
Sights / Scopes1P69 3–10x — The 1P69 is one of the standard-issue optics for the SV-98 rifle (which has it equipped by default). This scope has progressive magnification (from 3x to 10x) and an illuminated reticle that shows which magnification step you’re currently in. Armorers have not yet figured out what all the different markings represent.
Sights / Red Dot1P87 — A Russian red dot sight with a similar form factor as the HWS holo sights, the 1P87 has a small reticle with an approximate -:- shape, calibrated for 7.62×39 mm weapons with a 16″ barrel (e.g. AKM or AK-103 Alpha). When used with such rifles, the top dot in the reticle is zeroed for 100 meters, and should be fairly accurate at smaller distances as well; the bottom dot will be accurate for targets around 300 meters.
1P87 red dot sight and Perst-3 LAM mounted on the AK-103 Alpha.
💡 If you're using the 1P87 with different weapons, the top dot on the reticle should still be fairly accurate up to 100 meters for most rifle calibers, but you will have to figure out your own holdovers for 300 meters.
Sights / Scopes1PN93-2 4x and 1PN93-2 4x (Rail) — The 1PN93-2 is a night vision scope with 4x magnification. It comes in 2 versions: one for side-mounting on AK platforms, and one for accessory rails. The reticle is calibrated for 5.45×39 mm (used in most AKs in the armory) and is a bit of an oddball: the top chevron (˄) is zeroed at 400 meters, which you’ll be hard-pressed to find useful in most engagements. The next 3 chevrons from top to bottom are for 600, 800 and 1,000 meters, which are even less useful. Luckily, the reticle on these specimens appears to have been updated with a dot zeroed at 100 meters, which we think you’ll be using in the vast majority of scenarios.
💡 The vertical strokes (stadia) are intended to help estimate the range of targets. The height of each stroke should match a 1.5 meter-tall object (meant to represent the average height of a running man) at 400, 600, 800 and 1,000 meters — respectively, from left to right, or from right to left. We're not sure about the very short stadia.
This has been Build Update #069!
Thank you for keeping up with GROUND BRANCH! As usual, we’ll be on stand-by to start putting together a hotfix patch if enough issues have slipped past testing.
We hope you enjoy this update. Have a great weekend, everyone!
As you’re aware, we’re deep into developing V1.1.0, so this is just a quick report to fill you in on a couple of things. Firstly:
Version 1.1.0 (including Chapter 1) releases November 12
That’s two weeks from today!
We’re all working hard to wrap up the new V1.1.0 update nicely, but the bulk is in there: a new Operations hotspot (Persian Gulf) with 3 new missions, our first campaign-specific Ready Rooms, several updates for the AI (including idle animations, hostage and HVT behaviors etc.), shoulder-tapping, miscellaneous animation improvements, audio tweaks, new weapons and attachments, face paint and more.
🔗 See Intel Report #033 for details and previews if you haven't already.
So there you have it — November 12 is when you’ll be getting your hands on all of that.
Now, for possibly even bigger news…
GROUND BRANCH is making the move to UE5
That’s right: GROUND BRANCH is finally being migrated to Unreal Engine 5.8, the latest version of Epic’s UE5.
💡 GROUND BRANCH in UE5 is a near-future endeavor. Version 1.1.0 will still be released in UE4 on November 12.
UE4 has been visually showing its age for a while, and plugins have been dropping support for it. Newer versions are UE5-only, and UE5 natively supports many of the features we’ve been using plugins for — in some cases, we’ve even been backporting them to UE4. With all of that in mind, we decided it was time to finally make the jump. In addition to allowing us to work a little more efficiently, it should make the game more future-proof and do the art team’s work a little more justice.
We’ll get into more details in the future. For now, rest assured that we have a dedicated team working in parallel on the migration process, which does not conflict with our regular development in UE4.27.
Anyway, here are a few teasers for how things are shaping up inside UE5. Most of these previews are fairly low-resolution and low-FPS, but they should give you an idea of the upgrade in lighting and atmosphere, as well as the prospect of weather effects:
And that’s all we have time for today! We’ll see you on November 12.
After a period of hotfixes, we have since moved on to work on release V1.1.0 — which includes Chapter 1 of the Operations campaign, as well as several other updates to AI, animations, items and more that we’ll be discussing today.
📅 GROUND BRANCH V1.1.0 is slated to release by the end of October.
💡 All planned updates will, of course, be 100% free for GROUND BRANCH owners.
Read on and your curiosity shall be quenched. But first, a quick notice:
🍂 Steam Autumn Sale: 20% OFF
GROUND BRANCH will be 20% OFF on the Steam Autumn Sale, starting in just a few days on October 1st (Thursday). Take the opportunity to give the game a try if you haven’t yet, grab an extra copy to gift a friend, or convince your non-GB buddies to finally squad up.
Alright, on to the dev blog now!
New personnel to get animations up to spec
For V1.1.0, our characters will be receiving an upgrade to clean up a lot of the lingering animation issues, lay the foundation for bringing our characters to life a little further, and hook up new animations that require some technical expertise and dedicated personnel. To reach that goal, we have brought onboard two specialists:
Norberto Aguilera is a technical animator, 3D rigger and animator specializing in character rigging, motion capture cleanup, hand-keyed animation, and real-time simulation, with experience in titles from Six Days in Fallujah to Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2. In addition to hooking up a new character rig — with cleaner and improved deformation — Norberto has been focusing on hooking up facial rigging to add facial expressions and mouth movement to our characters, as well as cloth simulation (to have clothing react to the wind in certain maps and during vehicle insertions).
Giacomo “Jack” Della Corte is the self-taught creator of the Universal Locomotion plugin system for Unreal Engine, with plenty of experience hooking up and blending animations in-engine. He has been busy cleaning up animation transitions and mesh deformations, hooking up the vaulting and mantling system, implementing a procedural weapon rotation and horizontal tilt for weapon handling, enhancing IK (inverse kinematics) and control rig setups, and more. Jack will also be in charge of implementing cleaner strafing animations (that have already been captured by lead animator Mike) and polishing up the weapon collision system.
Below are some examples of what the boys have been up to. Here’s Norberto testing the newly implemented facial rig (often with disturbing results):
And here’s the new face rig in action, playing a sample animation using one of our characters — notice the eye blinking and other subtle facial movements:
Jack has been cleaning up a lot of animations, such as the arm “snapping” at the end of reloads:
He’s also hooking up vaulting and climbing for various heights of obstacles. It’s not quite perfect, but it’s getting there:
We hope to have most of their work in your game soon. Until then, let’s all welcome Norberto and Jack!
A new hotspot is coming to Operations
Operations mode — where you launch campaign missions from — will be receiving a new hotspot: the Persian Gulf.
The Persian Gulf hotspot includes 3 missions, set in maps Tanker, Rig and Docks, the latter of which is undergoing a small update for mission-specific purposes:
As mentioned in previous posts, each new hotspot from V1.1.0 onwards will have its own unique Ready Room. For the Northwest Pakistan hotspot (released in V1.0), you’ll be getting briefed and geared up in a temporary operations center set up inside a local residence:
For the upcoming Persian Gulf hotspot, you’ll be deploying from a section inside an aircraft carrier with most of the same amenities you’d expect from other Ready Rooms:
💡 We originally planned for friendly AI to be ready for Chapter 1 (V1.1.0), but it will need a little longer in the oven. Until then, Operations will remain playable as a solo operator (Offline Mode or Online Mode) or with other players in co-op (Online Mode).
AI developments: civilians, HVTs and enemies
Civilian AI
To support specific requirements of our new Persian Gulf hotspot, our programming and animation teams got to creating civilian AI with its own behavior trees and animations.
Civilians will wander the level until they notice a threat, at which point they break off, run for the nearest alarm panel and press it, then run for cover. Once alerted, they head for predetermined hiding spots and claim one, so several civilians don’t pile into the same spot.
Alarm panels are a new actor that both AI and players can interact with. Raising the alarm fires a proper gameplay event, allowing missions and game modes to react to it.
💡 More basic civilian AI (without the alarm mechanic) may be added to choice maps and game modes in the future.
New HVT archetype (capture mechanic)
We have implemented an unarmed high-value target (HVT) that spawns guarded by its own AI squad. Once every guard in that squad is down, the HVT surrenders and kneels. A player can then walk up and take them into custody, at which point it joins that player’s team and takes squad commands (Fall In, Move To, Take Cover, Hold) similarly to a freed hostage.
While still guarded, the HVT hides like a civilian when it spots a threat, and gives up its hiding spot the moment it surrenders — so it surrenders wherever it happened to be hiding rather than snapping back to a fixed position. A new stand-to-kneel transition blends into the looping surrender pose instead of popping straight into the kneel.
💡 Captured HVTs are also flagged as no-target, so enemy AI target selection ignores them once they have joined the players' team.
💡 Escorted characters in V1.1.0 wil also mirror the stance and speed of the player actually escorting them. This fixes them mirroring every player's stance and failing to close the gap to their escort.
AI grenades, idling and visibility
Whether AI can throw grenades is being made a world setting, so it can be tuned or disabled per map. It is currently disabled on Rig and Tanker, where grenade use was dominating close-quarters fights and common-sense would dictate explosions are a no-no because of all the flammables everywhere.
Guards and patrolling AI now idle in place with animation instead of standing frozen at the end of a route, driven by a new looping idle ability and behavior tree node. All of Mike’s mocap for idle animations will finally be in the limelight and add a little more naturalness to our AI — at least until the first bullet is fired.
The per-skill-level muzzle flash setting existed previously but nothing ever read it, so AI weapons always flashed. It is now hooked up and applied, meaning how visible AI fire is can be tuned by AI skill level.
Under the hood
We have reworked how AI processes incoming sound signals internally (Kythera audio signal rework), which is groundwork for more consistent reactions to gunfire and other noise. We have also removed a batch of AI settings that were dead code and no longer driving anything.
New faction reveal: Pájaro Negro Cartel
Pau has once again supplied us with brand-new custom models to replace our older marketplace enemy assets.
Today we’re showcasing our latest faction overhaul — Mexican cartel Pájaro Negro (Spanish for black bird). PJN are the largest cartel in the state of Chihuahua, holding several seats of power in the local government. While we won’t go into too much detail just yet on their significance in Operations, we think these visual teasers should be enough to drum up interest.
💡 As is the case for all new enemy assets, these were created to allow a good degree of mixing and matching parts — heads, upper and lower bodies — in addition to head and face accessories.
Here are some in-game examples using some of the upcoming enemy idle poses:
Letting sounds pass through broken windows
Quick one from the sound department: audio portals are being added to all breakable windows, meaning they will no longer isolate sounds once shot out. Instead, they will correctly let SFX “travel through” as if the window were open. This is an incredibly tedious task given the number of windows on a whole bunch of maps, but Zack is on the job.
Face paint on the way
In V1.1.0 you’ll be able to add face paint to your characters.
Pau has gone full-spectrum artist for this task, first creating smears and smudges on actual paper with his fingers. He then digitalized the results and turned them into Photoshop brushes:
Using these brushes, Pau started developing the look of each face paint style and eventually created fully tileable swatches that John got to hook up in the UE4 editor.
To select a face paint style, you’ll simply have to click the new skin selection button in the corner of the Appearance tab and pick one from the menu:
💡 The face paint selection includes skins Jungle, Sand, Solid, Urban and Woodland.
New hardware coming to the armory
A custom U100 MK3 will be available under the Light Machine Gun category in V1.1.0.
Firing 5.56 NATO rounds from a 100-round drum magazine, the U100 MK3 is technically a heavy-barrel automatic rifle designed for the SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) role.
It is fitted with a long accessory rail on top — with plenty of room for optics, plus a LAM or light — as well as a bottom rail for grips and other attachments you might want to add.
💡 Other weapons and accessories are also inbound in V1.1.0, including several new optics, a new LAM (Laser Aiming Module), and a certain bolt-action rifle — all Russian-made. Leave your guesses in the comments!
This has been Intel Report #033!
As always, thanks for keeping up with GROUND BRANCH — your support and interest in the game is what keeps us going.
A final reminder that we’re planning on getting V1.1.0 out by the end of October, so stay tuned. We’re unsure whether we’ll manage another dev blog before the release, but it’s not off the cards.
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.
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