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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!

The Summer Sale is here, and GROUND BRANCH is 30% OFF until July 11 @10am Pacific:

But wait!

If you have a PayPal account and would like to support us further, please consider buying your key directly from our website — that way we receive the full cut of the sale. Use code SUMMER2024 at the checkout and you’ll get the same 30% discount:

👉 Save 30% on GROUND BRANCH with PayPal using code SUMMER2024

Upon purchasing, you’ll receive a key to redeem on Steam (if you’re unsure how to do that, click here).

Please note you’ll need a PayPal account, and that our store is limited to US dollar (USD) sales. If you’re in a different region, you may still prefer buying from Steam as it uses regional pricing.

Happy sale, everyone!

Another month, another Intel Report!

Have you been keeping up with our monthly Intel Reports, by the way? Make sure to check out the news and previews for the last few months:

• Intel Report #011 (August)
• Intel Report #012 (September)
• Intel Report #013 (October)

🚀 We're quickly approaching our release target for V1033 — the end of the year. As a result, this Intel Report (#014) will be the last one until the release, so that we can fully focus on the update itself.

Before we lock into release mode, let’s get on with the dev news and showcases for this month.

One welcome, one farewell

Yet another programmer has just been welcomed on board the GROUND BRANCH team: Callum Coombes, who has previously worked on Rising Storm 2: Vietnam alongside environmental artist Will Bullen, is now among the ranks of BlackFoot Studios.

That doubles the amount of code guys from what we had just a couple months ago to a total of four, which should allow us to tackle more areas of development more efficiently.

Happy to have you, Cal!

A bittersweet “goodbye” to Mikson

We’re sad to announce that long-time contributor Mikson is leaving our team this November, after a 4-year tenure. But his departure has a silver lining, as he’s leaving BlackFoot Studios to join none other than major studio Infinity Ward — a massive career move for Mikson, who became an intern for GROUND BRANCH while still in university.

In these 4 years, Mikson has personally recorded and processed dozens of firearm and foley sound effects, mixed countless library recordings, created and implemented soundscapes and ambient effects for all maps, directed voice acting, composed our main menu theme, and had an active voice in various areas of development. Hell, he even put together the V1032 launch trailer!

We couldn’t be happier about his work in GROUND BRANCH — some of you may remember the pre-Mikson days and how much his sounds added to the game — and we’re very proud to have had some kind of role in giving him a little exposure boost into the triple-A industry.

Thank you for all the passion and talent you put into the project, Mik. We wish you the best of luck out there!

👥 Audio goes on: Zack Regan, introduced in Intel Report #011, is taking up Mik's sound designer/engineer mantle.

Birds and blasts

Particles and other visual effects continue to get improved by Charles, with assistance from our programmers and the audio team.

A small but cool detail is the seagull/bird flock, which will add some more life to certain maps:

It’s a simple yet robust system that allows us to create bird flocks of various sizes and have them react to gunfire.

Speaking of gunfire, muzzle effects are also getting a lot of love. In this video, Charles showcases his system for muzzle flash to display different sets of sprites depending on the camera angle. Take a look:

What does that mean? Well, for those who don’t know: particle effects are typically composed of 2D textures — like flat pictures painted on a cardboard cutout — that are always facing the camera. By always facing the camera, you never get to see these flat textures from a different angle — which would give away the fact that they have no actual depth.

With the system showcased in the video, the side-facing muzzle flashes (that look longer) automatically transition to front-facing muzzle flashes (that look rounder) based on the camera angle to give the illusion of a real-world tridimensional effect.

💥 The muzzle flash effects are being created in various sizes and shapes to both offer visual diversity and fit the various weapons in the game.

Charles has also setup an initial implementation for muzzle blast effects — more specifically, the dust raised from certain surfaces when hit by the shockwave created by the proximity with a shooting gun:

Lastly for today’s VFX showcase, the old, funky-looking door chunks created after a door breach are being replaced with an updated particle-based effect. This effect is likely transitional — as in, it will make way for a better one later on — but quite a bit nicer than the silly door chunks currently in V1032:

Quality-of-life updates

We have already shown you some quality-of-life improvements on the server/online side (see Intel Report #013), but we’re eager to streamline and improve the player experience in other areas too.

🥒 This section is largely brought to you by the same guy making all of this cool stuff: Matt "Fatmarrow" Farrow. He would probably say "pretend the emoji is a marrow."

The handling of custom item builds in the Customize Operator screen has been given some love. We know you love your custom builds, but browsing them can quickly become quite unwieldy. So we made a change whereby when you open the item browser, custom builds are initially “stacked” under the default item. Click on the stack, and it will expand to display all your custom builds:

We are also aware of the number of times you get pop-up dialogs and are asked to fill in item build names when editing your loadout. We don’t want this to get in the way of your Tactical Barbie™ activities, so we put in a new feature using the new mutators system: your item builds are now given default names based on what you have put together.

So your MK17 CQC with a suppressor and a Specter DR scope is now given a default build name of, say, “MK17CQC SD SpctrDR” (see some examples of automatic build names in the GIF above). If you change the build enough that it gets a new name, it gets saved with that new name. If you don’t change the build that much, it just silently overwrites the old build when you click SAVE.

If you want to use your own name, you can still do that, and you can use the new SAVE AS NEW… button if you want to pick a name. If you want to have more granular item build definitions, you can choose one from a drop-down menu. There are currently 5 options for default build naming, all subject to change:

• Disabled — Does not provide a default save name for your build (requires manual text input from the player).
• Just item name — Suggests only the base item as build name.
• Item name + key features — For weapons, this includes the name of the base item, sights, and whether it has a suppressor. For vest platforms, it lists all pouch types.
• More verbose — For weapons, this lists all of the above + lights and lasers. For vest platforms, this specifies the amount of each pouch carried (e.g. “JPC 3xPri 2xFrag”).
• Unique build name for all changes — Adds a unique build designator at the end of the “more verbose” suggestion in case you prefer every change to be saved as its own build.

Okay, there’s quite a lot of stuff to unpack there, but overall this should streamline the process of putting together a loadout, as well as give the lazier of us a better set of custom build names to work with.

🔣 Don't like the build names or abbreviations the game gives you? Write your own mutator to provide your own naming scheme!

Longer mission timer and new Intel Retrieval feature

If you want your quality of life to be arguably reduced, then we also have that covered for you.

Congratulations to the person who asked for this: you spoke, and we listened. Now you can have your two-hour mission timer (up from the previous maximum of one hour). No, we will not raise that higher, because you are already about as hardcore a GROUND BRANCH player as we can frankly handle.

And if you liked the new Terrorist Hunt “bum rush” feature, you will love the new Intel Retrieval “extraction mayhem” feature (final name TBD). Mindful that the extraction phase of Intel Retrieval missions can sometimes be an anti-climax (usually due to eradicating all traces of tangos in your path), you will now have to be careful what you wished for.

Upon successfully hacking the laptop, you will trigger a security alert that will send the enemy AI to either hunt you down, or to boost the presence at the extraction. We may have to tweak this a bit to be more sane, but in the meantime: prepare for EXTRACTION MAYHEM.

Match system

As part of our server quality-of-life update, we have now implemented a match system, where specific criteria can be defined for the end of a match, such as “Best of 3” for PvP, or “Play until win 2 rounds” for PvE. This can be set on servers in the usual sort of way, and also selected in the Host Game menu for your listen server.

When the match criteria are met, the server will automatically advance to the next map in the map list. Match type and round/time limits can be specified in map lists per mission, so you can have custom match setups for different missions in the map list. Otherwise, servers have predefined settings for PvE/Co-Op modes, PvP modes, and the new game mode type of PvP FFA (free-for-all), which now includes the Deathmatch mode.

But there’s more! The match details can be viewed in the Ready Room on a new screen, along with an interface for all players to vote on what the next map is going to be. Here’s a prototype:

Voting takes place during the round, whenever you want, so there’s no delay at the end of a round to hold a vote. The runner-up map will be offered one more time in the next vote. If no one votes, the maps just advanced one by one as before.

Depot overhaul nears completion

Will’s overhaul of Depot is nearly done, with interiors being now almost complete.

Audio and game modes continue to be tweaked for the new structures, and we’re very excited about getting this one out there for you all to playtest.

AI

As mentioned a few reports ago, AI is being hooked up with a new light detection system that should make night operations a lot more satisfying.

Things were not far along to showcase back then, but they are now — so here’s a short clip to demo some level of sneaking in the dark (with the new white phosphor GPNVG-18 on, as well as the AN/PEQ-15’s IR Illuminator), and then quickly flashing a visible white light at the patrolling AI to showcase the light detection:

And while we’re talking AI, here’s a quick little door breach test that our new programmer Chris put together:

To make it perfectly clear: the video above is not V1033 material, nor is any of it necessarily representative of final features. We just want to show that friendly AI is indeed being actively prototyped and worked on.

🧭 Kris has also been at work with V1033 AI to improve door and ladder navigation, to prevent (or at least reduce) instances of bots grouping up and getting stuck in them.

Ongoing asset updates

In parallel with the more technical and player experience-oriented improvements, older 3D assets continue to be updated to conform to newer models. One such example is the MPX, which is receiving a full remake and currently sits at the low-poly stage, right before texturing:

And that is a wrap for today’s Intel Report!

As always, thanks for staying in touch with development for GROUND BRANCH!

Don’t forget this is the last Intel Report before V1033 — don’t expect more dev blogs until we get the update out of the door.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you soon!