Scopey

Hey, folks!

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.

Hello!

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.

Whatever happens, we’ll see you on the next one!