Pick up Squad for 60% off and load up some HEAT rounds!
“We've intercepted new transmissions. Ready to receive!”
[p]Listen up Squaddies. The Steam Summer Sale is here! From June 26th - 10 AM PT (GMT-7) until July 10th - 10 AM PT (GMT-7), save 60% off on Squad! Now is a great time to join Squad, as we are currently working towards our most significant update yet, moving Squad to Unreal Engine 5!
[img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/10141695/34c9618a2663f122fcd3a17d4185083dbbfaa9d5.png"][/p][p]Check out our upcoming UE5 Update Devblog HERE, and join the Squad Discord to discuss all things Squad. [/p]
[p] Today we are releasing a small Client side update to our Anti-cheat. This will not affect servers, but you will need to update your game in order to play. [/p][p][/p][p]That's all for today! Stay tuned for more news on the UE5 release in the coming weeks! [/p]
OFFWORLD OUT!
Letter From The Squad Leader - June 2025
Hello Squaddies,
[p][/p][p]Howtizer here. We released a few “Letter from the Squad Leader” posts last year but I haven’t done one in a while. It’s also something that I did for the newsletter, I will now make this its own blog post the whole community gets access to instead of it trickling out through the newsletter. It will be semi-regular (once a month or two) to keep you, the community, up to date with everything that’s going on on the Squad team. [/p][p]Usually I’d split things out into 2 segments, the "Sitrep," focusing on short-term plans, and the "Battlefield Briefing," focusing on medium to long-term plans, but for now I will skip the Battlefield Briefing to cover the Sitrep in more detail. [/p]
SQ-SITREP.
[p][/p][p]Where we are at…[/p][p]We’re still working on UE5. Surprise!! As most of you already know, we are hard at work upgrading Squad to Unreal Engine 5. A lot of the team have been working on this for a long time, some since the last engine upgrade (4.27) we did 2 years ago, but most of the team shifted focus toward the end of last year, which is why you haven’t seen an update in a while. All the sub teams on Squad have had their hands in this Engine upgrade, as well as many people outside the Squad team at Offworld. It’s been a whole company effort.[/p][p][/p][p]4 open playtests have taken place over the last 2 months, and countless other closed tests before then and we are reaching that point where we feel confident in releasing it soon to gather feedback from the entire playerbase and move onto other things we have in our plans (more information on that in a future post). We want to make sure we deliver a solid engine update that improves most peoples experiences, and sets up Squad for another 10 years of development and kick ass content. So in the next section, I’ll talk about what to expect over the next month or so.[/p][p] [img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/10141695/eabd9181cba5a1209ba0d6b49f1d407a8bc4ef00.png"][/p][p]What to expect in the next few months…[/p][p]There will be a few more public tests of Unreal 5 to help us test a few more improvements we’d like to make, as well as the release of the Mod SDK leaving modders some time to update their mods to Unreal 5. Some of this work includes more optimization efforts for PiP scopes, server performance improvements, and some serious testing of Unreal Engine 5.5 (5.5 has a lot of refinements from Epic that will help lower end PC Performance).[/p][p][/p][p]That’s all for now… In the next letter, we will cover a bit more about some of the challenges we have faced upgrading to Unreal 5 and talk about some future roadmap items… It’s been a long journey, but we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are aiming to release v9.0 Summer 2025. We will not be releasing before the Steam Summer Sale. So expect to see v9.0 at some point after that.[/p][p][/p][p]Thanks, Squaddies![/p][p][/p][p]- Howitzer[/p][p] [/p]
Unreal Engine 5 - Playtest #5
Listen up, Squaddies!
[p]Unreal Engine 5 Public Playtest #5 is coming this Friday, June 13, at 11:00 AM PDT! Here’s what to expect:
You will need to download a special Public Playtesting Branch of Squad (View -> Hidden Games -> Right-Click on Squad - Public Playtesting and Install), with access to Servers on Friday opening up at 11AM PDT. There will be multiple servers being hosted by Community names that you will know and recognize! Feel free to play wherever you like, but servers will open and close to accommodate the population needs. The general public will not be given access to the Server hosting branch for testing.
A special Squad Testing Discord that has now been opened to the public. Please be aware that all the normal Squad Community server rules also apply in this server. Please refer to the onboarding channels for help if you need it!
We also want to mention that this is a WORK IN PROGRESS build of Unreal Engine 5, and is still in active development. That means you are likely to come up against bugs, or features that don’t work/feel the same way as the current 8.2 version of Squad. We have included some known issues in this post, but anything that you come up against can be reported in the previously mentioned Discord Server for testing.
Testing will run over the weekend from June 13 to June 16, and then the UE5 Servers will be taken down. [/p]
The Important Stuff
[p]This time the build will be based on Unreal 5.5 in combination with a large amount of bug fixes that was intended for the 9.0 UE5 release: [/p]
[p]Large amount of medium/high priority bugfixes and improvements.[/p]
[p]Unreal Engine version 5.5 upgrade.[/p]
[p]Crash fixes.[/p]
[p]How will this affect the game?[/p]
[p]Better and more stable performance for low end CPU/GPU hardware (and all other hardware).[/p]
[p]Improved stability for the game.[/p]
[p]Less bugs that would negatively affect how enjoyable the gameplay would be.[/p]
[p]Known issues:[/p]
[p]Double suppression effect when being shot at might still occur. A fix is being worked on but not ready for this weekend.[/p]
[p]"1 FPS" bug might still be present, causing extreme performance drop for an extended period of time in specific conditions (work has been made to prevent this).[/p]
[p]Sun glare in certain lighting conditions might become unrealistically bright.[/p]
[p]Certain UI issues relating to vehicle weapons might still be present.[/p]
[p]Possible performance issues using PIP Scopes while using FSR. We are aware of the issue and have a fix in place, but it did not make it into this playtest build.[/p]
[p]We hope you can all help spread the word about this playtest, especially to friends who have had issues with performance in previous playtests, as we are eager to receive feedback on how old and low-end hardware is performing on this updated engine version of the game.
Please join us this weekend on testing out UE5.5, and as always, we want to hear from you so please submit your feedback! [/p]
OFFWORLD OUT
THE WRENCH - Summer 2025
Welcome back to The Wrench! Here we show off the latest in Squad modding.
What follows are updates sent to us by the people behind the mods themselves: their words, images, and amazing work!
(some entries have been edited for length and clarity)
BAF (Brazilian Armed Forces) Mod by Smoking Snakes
The BAF mod team aims to bring the Brazilian Army to squad in form of multiple unique vehicles, weapons and playable maps. Been under development since 2021 it is set for release in late 2025.
A complete re-imagining of OPFL (Operation First Light) featuring new biomes, reworked POI's, expanded and improved terrain, enhanced realtime lighting and dynamic time of day support, set in Eastern Europe.
Rassvet has seen a lot of progress this year with large central POI's like the Lumber Yard being added as well as older POI's like Storage Depot and Nilrem Village getting additional detail passes to bring the up to parity with newer work on the map and art.
The playable area is now bigger than the original OPFL and has been playtested extensively. While still not complete, it's perfectly playable with a variety of layers, including SuperMod layers.
The Southeast Asian Rebels mod is a modest faction and map mod aiming to add an unconventional force to the East Asia theatre. This includes Sanxian Islands, but also the modded map Liareng Islands as well as other future projects. Originally a coalition of a number of different ethnic militias, popular defence forces and political groups, SEAR forces have now accrued decades of combat experience and grown into almost a pseudo-conventional force. Now, as great powers turn their gaze to the larger asia-pacific front, SEAR take up arms once more in defence of their homeland.
My experience is rather limited so I'm doing what I can with what I got :) If you would like help out in any manner feel free to reach out to me (Rookheim) on Discord!
Hrodna Border by rell0776
Located south of the strategic Suwalki Gap along the cross border route between Bialystok and Grodno/Hrodna, Hrodna Border features a fictionalized vision of the border crossing and its surroundings. This map brings new flavor to the Eastern European collection of maps in Squad, featuring many small villages, a large town, a rail line, a border crossing, a LNG terminal, dilapidated abandoned bunkers from the old Soviet WW2 era Molotov Line, and much much more.
Hrodna intends to be a throwback to what made Squad maps so great and is a love letter to my favorite game. The map strives to strike a balance between Armor and Infantry gameplay, balanced RAAS lanes that aren't predictable but still funnel the match into concise areas of the map, and in other iterations of Squad plenty of terrain to play around providing a balance between long and close range combat and facilitating larger scale maneuvers.
(Author disclaimer: this mod was made by one of Squad’s developers, Carnage!)
King Of The Hill is the first ever persistent economy mod in Squad. In this game mode (inspired by ARMA 3) You fight as military contractors from around the world over a highly contested zone for $$$ and XP Rewards. Players can level up, purchase and unlock new weaponry, vehicles, skins, and perks, and your progress carries over between matches.
We have linked our mod with our KOTH servers to other communities, so your saves not only persist from match to match, but between Linked Economy Servers too!
The mod is very early but there is a bright vision ahead to bring seasonal content and events with our partnering communities. We are hoping to hear from more communities looking to play and run the mod!
A representation of Brazilian crime, police and criminal factions, with more than 6 new factions and 6 maps focused on Brazil and its favelas. In addition to dozens of new weapons and vehicles.
Steel Division is a Special Forces mod with reduced ICO with custom features like NVG's, Thermals, Cross VOIP, FPV Drones, Attack Helicopters, MANPADS, C-130 Para-drops and more. With 8 fully fledged custom factions the mod is jam packed with content.
The Swiss Armed Forces mod is not yet finished, but it will represent a wide range of elements from our alpine nation's army.
The Swiss army employs a militia system. Many men and women have fond memories of serving. Squad offers us the perfect canvas, rekindling the passion and comradery that make the Swiss Army great.
The Swiss army has changed a lot through the years, just like any other military. However, many aspects are rigid. Roughly 60% of Swiss territory is mountainous, placing infantry at a distinct advantage in conflict. On the other hand, it is clear that the other 40% of terrain is relatively flat, which means that heavier equipment like (*APCs, Tanks, IFVs, etc.*) has an increased workload in these areas. Switzerland is also known for its abundance of man-made bunkers, creating never-before-seen combat scenarios for Squad. Our membership stands at 4. We're making progress, but it's slow because we're developing this modification in our spare time. We know we piqued your interest in this mod. If you want to check out our progress or talk to us, join our Discord!
The team is focused on bringing the German Armed Forces "Bundeswehr" to Squad, including unique weapons, vehicles, character models, new game mechanics, custom-recorded weapons sounds, custom-made level props and the German Map "Fulda Gap". In addition to what you can see in their last Blog, you get to see a sneak peak into the new Puma IFV model and the also new "Auto Zeroing" mechanic for German combat vehicles, such as the Leopard 2A6M and the Boxer IFV. A new series of Blog updates is due to be published soon, as well another round of Beta playtests! (We say thank you to everyone who was part of our previous B1 Playtest event with over 5.000 downloads of our Beta phase mod in 6 days). The Bundeswehr Mod for SQUAD is currently looking for experienced UE4/UE5 level designers and level prop artists for their Fulda Gap project. Check out the recruitment channel in their Discord if you bring what they need!
Links: Blog: https://bwmod.com/2024/08/19/progress-update-no-9/ Discord Link https://discord.gg/y9pQvr7e
Thanks to everyone who submitted! What mod are you excited to try? Let us know in the comments!
Unreal Engine 5 - Playtest #4
Listen up, Squaddies!
Unreal Engine 5 Public Playtest #4 is coming this Friday, May 30, 2025 11:00 AM PDT! Here’s what to expect:
You will need to download a special Playtesting Branch of Squad, that will be released ASAP, with access to Servers on Friday around 11am PDT.
There will be multiple servers being hosted by Community names that you will know and recognize! Feel free to play wherever you like, but servers will open and close to accommodate the population needs! The general public will not be given access to the Server hosting branch for testing.
There is a special Squad Testing Discord that has now been opened to the public. Please be aware that all the normal Squad Community server rules apply in this server as well. Please refer to the onboarding channels for help if you need it!
We want to also mention that this is a WORK IN PROGRESS build of Unreal Engine 5, and is still in active development. That means you are likely to come up against bugs, or features that don’t work/feel the same way as the current 8.2 version of Squad. We have included some known issues in this post, but anything that you come up against can be reported in the previously mentioned Discord Server for testing.
Testing will run over the weekend from May 30th to June 2nd, and then the UE5 Servers will be taken down.
We are also hoping you can take the time to fill out a survey for us, answering some questions about your experience during testing. This will be available IN GAME, in the News Box on the main menu. We will send out a reminder of this later on as well.
The Important Stuff
In place of a change log this week, I would simply like to let you know what exactly we are looking for in our test results!
There is currently an issue where a massive freeze happens during a match, that can seem to affect just one person, or multiple people at the same time. We are calling it the 1FPS issue. We have created a build that has better tracking specifically for this issue, so that we can try to pin down the problem and resolve it.
We have added more Server performance optimizations that we would like to test, including an interesting tool for Server Hosters that should allow them to Multi-Thread Vehicle animations, significantly reducing the impact that vehicles have on server side performance.
We have implemented an introductory option for replacing Picture in Picture (PiP) scopes for players with lower end computers, or anyone that feels the significant drop in FPS when using a PiP scope. This setting will be available for anyone to enable in the settings menu.
We did add a bunch of fixes that came in since the last playtest, but the above information is what we would love to focus on for this weekend. So if you have time, please come join us and submit your feedback! We will have a working Feedback Form (confirmed working this time, sorry about last week), and the Testing Discord is still active for those of you wanting to join the discussion over there!
OFFWORLD OUT
Unreal Engine 5 - Playtest #3
Listen up, Squaddies!
Unreal Engine 5 Public Playtest 3 is coming this Friday, May 23, 2025 11:00 AM! Here’s what to expect:
The build for this playtest is AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD NOW!
There will be multiple servers being hosted by Community names that you will know and recognize! Feel free to play wherever you like, but servers will open and close to accommodate the population needs! The general public will not be given access to the Server hosting branch for testing.
We want to also mention that this is a WORK IN PROGRESS build of Unreal Engine 5, and is still in active development. That means you are likely to come up against bugs, or features that don’t work/feel the same way as the current 8.2 version of Squad. We have included some known issues in this post, but anything that you come up against can be reported in the previously mentioned Discord Server for testing.
Testing will run over the weekend from May 23rd to May 26th, and then the UE5 Servers will be taken down.
We are also hoping you can take the time to fill out a survey for us, answering some questions about your experience during testing. This will be available IN GAME, in the News Box on the main menu. We will send out a reminder of this later on as well.
CHANGELOG
New southern Basrah mainbase level artbox pass (will benefit from this test).
Various maps landscapes reworked to resolve nanite landscape visibility issues.
Scalability
Added DLSS Preset K for all quality levels except UltraPerformance.
This should improve the visual clarity for everyone using DLSS.
Separated Frame Generation options so that you can run your preferred Upscaling solution without needing to use the same provider for frame generation.
Factions
Bolt action rifles do damage again (as long as you hit your shots).
Ironsights and optics on RPK and PKM work correctly again when bipodded.
Deploying bipods should work correctly again.
Smoke grenades no longer send vehicles flying.
BMP2 no longer invisible when tracks are destroyed.
PLA ATGM's are guided again.
Known issues:
Loach still randomly loses its tail rotor sometimes, still being investigated.
Some USMC desert vehicles have bugged textures. (Or state-of-the-art dynamic camouflage, depending on how you look at it),
OFFWORLD OUT
Unreal Engine 5 - Playtest #2
Listen up, Squaddies!
Unreal Engine 5 Public Playtest 2 is coming this Friday, May 02, 2025 11:00 AM PDT! Here’s what to expect:
You will need to download a special Playtesting Branch of Squad, that will be released later this week, with access on Friday.
There will be multiple servers being hosted by Community names that you will know and recognize! Feel free to play wherever you like, but servers will open and close to accommodate the population needs! The general public will not be given access to the Server hosting branch for testing.
There is a special Squad Testing Discord that has now been opened to the public. Please be aware that all the normal Squad Community server rules apply in this server as well. Please refer to the onboarding channels for help if you need it! Join the Discord HERE!
We want to also mention that this is a WORK IN PROGRESS build of Unreal Engine 5, and is still in active development. That means you are likely to come up against bugs, or features that don’t work/feel the same way as the current 8.2 version of Squad. We have included some known issues in this post, but anything that you come up against can be reported in the previously mentioned Discord Server for testing.
Testing will run over the weekend from May 2nd to May 5th, and then the UE5 Servers will be taken down.
We are also hoping you can take the time to fill out a survey for us, answering some questions about your experience during testing. This will be available IN GAME, in the News Box on the main menu. We will send out a reminder of this later on as well.
Here is the changelog from last playtest!
Changelog:
Significant changes were included that should increase Server Performance overall. We identified a couple of things that were causing issues, including excess animations, that have been adjusted!
Smoke grenades no longer continuously exploding when walked over
Hands no longer disappear when vaulting
Scout drones are no longer infinite in quantity
Vehicles no longer instantly reload when near Repair Stations
Buildings no longer have bullet-proof glass
Technicals are no longer aggressively loud
Weapons (general) several LOD issues have been fixed with infantry weapons
Some more changes:
Scalability:
Updated to latest version of DLSS, offering greatly improved clarity in most scenes using the new Preset
Tweaks to volumetric clouds settings, giving better performance for low presets
Worlds:
Fixed landscape materials being broken on Tallil and Mestia
Further attempts at optimization across our worst performing maps, still more to come
Work is being done to the southeast corner of Al Basrah to address feedback from the first playtest, still WIP
These are just some of the changes made, that were the most popular bugs and feedback from the last playtest. We have resolved many more smaller issues.
Known Issues:
We have yet to add the final pass on many of the Vehicles across the Factions. Paired with the new Vehicle physics, many of the vehicles may feel foreign or behave differently than you expect. Some Vehicles can get stuck on objects easier than in UE4 as well. Please leave us feedback on this in Discord. There has been an initial pass on the vehicles since the first playtest.
There are some issues with PiP scopes that we are still working on.
Some areas of the map may be too dark or too light when looking into or out of buildings.
There are some known client crashes. Using the Unreal Engine crash report tool that pops up once Squad crashes, is a good way for us to receive a client crash. If you crash WITHOUT seeing the crash reporter, please let us know through the Testing Discord Server.
There are some texture streaming related issues, which can cause microstutters especially when a VFX is starting to play.
There are some visual artifacts relating to lighting and upscalers. There may be reduced sharpness, smearing, shadows or water surface shimmering or flickering may occur. This is something we are working to adjust for the next public playtest.
For other issues, please report bugs in a bug report channel with as much information as possible.
OFFWORLD OUT
Save 70% off Squad
“We've intercepted new transmissions. Ready to receive!”
Listen up Squaddies. We're taking part in the Wargames Festfrom April 28 - May 5, and you can get your friends and soon-to-be fellow squaddies in for 70% off. You heard right. The game's on sale from now until the Wargames Fest ends in our largest discount yet.
Check out our upcoming UE5 update Devblog HERE, and join the Squad Discord to discuss all things Squad.
The time has come! Open playtesting for Unreal Engine 5 is arriving this Friday!
Here’s what to expect:
You will need to download a special Playtesting Branch of Squad, that will be released later this week, with access on Friday Apr 11, 2025, around 11am PDT.
There will be multiple servers being hosted by Community names that you will know and recognize! Feel free to play wherever you like, but servers will open and close to accommodate the population needs! The general public will not be given access to the Server hosting branch for testing.
There is a special Squad Testing Discord that has now been opened to the public. Please be aware that all the normal Squad Community server rules apply in this server as well. Please refer to the onboarding channels for help if you need it! https://discord.gg/testsquad
We want to also mention that this is a WORK IN PROGRESS build of Unreal Engine 5, and is still in active development. That means you are likely to come up against bugs, or features that don’t work/feel the same way as the current 8.2 version of Squad. We have included some known issues in this post, but anything that you come up against can be reported in the previously mentioned Discord Server for testing.
Testing will run over the weekend from April 11th to April 14th, and then the UE5 builds will be taken down. Our goal is to run these tests every 2 weeks, with iterations to try each weekend of Public playtesting!
We are also hoping you can take the time to fill out a survey for us, answering some questions about your experience during testing. This will be available IN GAME, in the News Box on the main menu. We will send out a reminder of this later on as well.
Known Issues:
We are aware of an issue that causes the player's FPS to drop to 1 for an amount of time. We are tracking this issue and would appreciate any and all reports of this.
We have yet to add the final pass on many of the Vehicles across the Factions. Paired with the new Vehicle physics, many of the vehicles may feel foreign or behave differently than you expect. Some Vehicles can get stuck on objects easier than in UE4 as well. Please leave us feedback on this in Discord.
There are some issues with PiP scopes that we are still working on.
Some areas of the map may be too dark or too light when looking into or out of buildings.
There are some known client crashes. Using the Unreal Engine crash report tool that pops up once Squad crashes, is a good way for us to receive a client crash.If you crash WITHOUT seeing the crash reporter, please let us know through the Testing Discord Server.
There are some texture streaming related issues, which can cause microstutters especially when a VFX is starting to play.
There are some visual artifacts relating to lighting and upscalers. There may be reduced sharpness, smearing, shadows or water surface shimmering or flickering may occur. This is something we are working to adjust for the next public playtest.
For other issues, please report bugs in a bug report channel with as much information as possible.
Stay tuned for more information in the coming days!
