It’s Christmas time, a momentous time in World War 1 as during the darkness and untold misery of war, our common humanity prevailed and both sides laid down their arms to celebrate. We celebrate this extraordinary event with an in-game Christmas Truce, as has become a tradition among Verdun players as well as earning the commemorative Christmas truce medal!



Players will be able to engage each other in snowball fights, football matches and exchanging christmas cards. What you might not know historically about this event, was that some German soldiers also propped up christmas trees among the trenches. For this year’s Christmas Truce Event, you’ll be able to plant your own Christmas tree among the trenches.

This tree propping inspired us this year to raise awareness for our planet earth. Deforestation and the resulting environmental damage has hurt our planet and climate significantly these past decades. Because of this, we at M2H want to donate a new forest of 2.500 trees via Trees for All, which will be planted in the Netherlands and Uganda in the fall of 2019. Trees for All is a Dutch foundation that endeavors to combat the deforestation and to compensate for CO2 emissions by planting trees as well as spreading awareness across the world.
As a counter challenge we hope you, the community, plant at least 2.500 trees in-game as a show of solidarity to our planet and help raise awareness for this cause. During the Christmas Truce, you can plant one tree among the trenches. As a token of our gratitude you’ll be added to the ‘Tree log’ credit list as well as receiving this year’s Christmas Truce medal!

More info on the 'tree planting' can be read here: http://truce.ww1gameseries.com/



Just like previous years we will also give away some WW1 Game Series swag. Everyone who sends postcards from the trenches to their loved ones via email or social media, has a chance on winning a Steam key for Tannenberg, peppermint can or thermos. We’ll announce the five winners in the first week of January.
Lastly; for those interested in Tannenberg, the game is offered at a 40% discount during the Steam Winter sale!

On behalf of the entire team, we wish you all a merry Christmas and an inspiring, peaceful New Year!

https://youtu.be/vnAjYsLD9NE
The Verdun expansion has arrived! This is a huge free update, featuring a new 64 player game mode, a new squad, a new map, new weapons, map voting and many other improvements and features. Let’s start digging into the new content...


Tirailleurs Sénégalese pose with their distinctive Mle 1907 Berthier rifles.

France is reinforced by Tirailleurs Sénégalese and four new weapons - these capable colonial troops bring dedication and a strong offensive spirit to the Western Front. The weapons included are machetes for close quarters assaults, Mle 1907 rifles, plus OF1 and petard grenades.


A tirailleur prepares a Petard Grenade.


German soldiers in action.

Located within close vicinity of the German border in 1914, this wooded area was targeted in September of 1914 by German attacks in an attempt to cut off the city of Verdun from supplies and support to the south. During this assault, commencing from the Woevre plains to the north, the Germans would advance as far as the city of St. Mihiel on the Meuse river and to the Bois-Le-Pretre ('Priesterwald' in German) on the banks of the Moselle river further east, thus establishing a large intrusion into French lines for years to come. Several attempts were made by French forces to reclaim the formed salient, these were extremely costly. Most notably were the mine battles at Les Eparges in 1915. Eventually St. Mihiel Salient would witness the first major American offensive of the war in September of 1918. It was the first and only offensive of the war made solely by American infantry. Almost 1500 aircraft supported the attack, with 40% of them flown by US pilots. The Americans caught German forces as they were retreating, and a fierce initial artillery barrage followed by aggressive advances led to a significant Allied victory.


A battle on St. Mihiel map.

In Verdun, the St. Mihiel map is a battlefield covered with forest, trenches, sandbagged positions, and dirt mounds. Many trees have been destroyed by shellfire, but others still stand. In some areas, the stumps and trunks will be the best source of cover, while in other places there are well built trench lines.


A defensive position in the forest trenches.

With St. Mihiel we wanted to capture a completely wooden area that is devastated, unlike our other maps which tend to involve large meadows or open elements. As a starting point we took the location of the bois-le-pretre and actual trench maps from that area to base the map on, it has a gentle slope to it as the setting is in the hills above the Moselle river - if you peek through the trees you might see the valley below.
In terms of gameplay we wanted to offer many organic points of exit from trenches through craters and gentle slopes such as is the case on Vosges and Argonne, combined with forward saps to concentrate the fights on, which is also a popular feature on the existing maps. As you get more into the rear of the map you will see the density of vegetation increase to help you orient yourself. Another prominent feature is the landmark of the Croix-des-Carmes (The “Carmelite” wooden cross) in the center of the map, which switched hands during the battles that raged in 1914 and 1915.


US troops in the attack.


Epic 64 player battle.

There will be 64 players battling it out for control of the trenches in the new Frontlines game mode. These epic battles include bot support to guarantee large scale action. As the servers fill, bots will leave until all 64 slots are player filled. Like in Tannenberg, we will continue optimizing the bots.

The core gameplay is the same as the Frontlines mode, but tactics will change with more soldiers on the battlefield. There are some adjustments to call-in cooldowns as more NCOs will be present, less grenades are available, a few map changes as well as other tweaks to fit the larger number of players. The core remains the same though - you still win by capturing enemy trenches and defending your own.


To accommodate the 64 player game mode we extended some of the narrow sectors in both Argonne and Artois. Here a screenshot of U.S Doughboys firing from an extra shell-hole created in the 2nd entente line.


Some changes were made to the extreme lines in Artois.

The existing Frontlines mode will not change in it’s essence. No bots will be added to this mode. The only changes you can expect here are a new Spawn and Overview map (more on this later) and the name change: Frontlines (32 players). Bots in the Frontlines Private mode can be set to your preference with the command /setfillbots.

The new Tannenberg UI has been progressing nicely, and we have the first version of the new Verdun UI ready for testing! If you want to try the new UI, you can use the ‘opentesting’ beta. This is available via Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=572388553
You can switch back to the regular stable version of the game at any time by going to the beta menu and selecting ‘NONE’.


The new UI currently on the opentesting branch.

We added a Spawn and Overview map to each game mode. You can now choose to deploy in a friendly or sector spawn point via the Spawn map. Another new feature is the ‘Overview map’ where you can regain your bearings by pressing ‘M’ - this will enlarge the mini-map. Battles will become more insightful, these maps will give especially new players a better understanding of the situation.


Enhanced awareness of the flow of battle: you can now see where your squad is and your spawn.


The spawn map also animates whenever a sector is captured and changes the view angle based on your faction.

By community request we now have a Map Voting system in place. After a match end you can now influence where to fight next. The results will be shown after everyone voted to make sure no majority influence occurs.


Example of a map vote.

There is much more in the expansion: barbed wire will no longer kill you - although it will still make you a sitting duck if you get caught up in it -, jumpshooting has been removed and you now get immediate feedback as well as a score penalty for friendly fire.

Read the full changelog to see all the changes.

We’d also like to take a moment to give our thanks to your support over the years. We hope that this expansion shows that Verdun hasn’t been forgotten even with the full release of Tannenberg coming up.

By request, there is a Supporter Edition now available for Verdun - like the Tannenberg one, it features the soundtrack, a pack of Verdun artwork, characters, and weapon renders, a Supporter Star, and bonus career points for new players to unlock more weapons and loadouts at the start.

Finally… ho ho ho, Christmas is on the way! As in the past, we expect there may be a ceasefire in parts of the front…

There is a big update planned for Verdun later this year - regular readers of the Frontline News likely have a good idea what will be featured, but we have some new details to release today!

Our main goals with this update are to make the game more accessible to new players, and to make sure that people can enjoy the game at any time of the day, in all parts of the world on PC and console! We hope this will also lead to players returning more often, since the game will be playable at all times.

Our other goal is to enhance the World War One atmosphere within the game - this is central to the whole vision behind the WW1 Game Series. While compromises will always need to be made for playability, there is plenty of scope for changes to boost player immersion.

We will release an open testing version of the new UI for the Winter Update. Those of you who also play Tannenberg will already have an impression of what to expect here! We will continue to refine and improve the UI in the Tannenberg Early Access, and once we’ve got all the rough edges smoothed off we will release it for all Verdun players. Here’s a mockup of the squad selection menu for Verdun in the new UI:



Part of the user interface we haven’t changed yet in Tannenberg is the games browser - but we have an update planned. It will no longer be necessary to set a password for a private game, it will be easier to find private matches, and there will be improvements to the browser for games of all types. This will be part of the new UI when it is released in Verdun.

Much has been said about the bots - some people are looking forward to their introduction - especially in quieter areas of the world - while others have concerns. We can announce that bots will be coming to Verdun in a new Frontlines game mode - so nobody will be forced to play with bots. If you like your Verdun experience as it is, you can keep on playing in the current Frontlines mode.


A screenshot of 64 players in action!

The new Frontlines mode variant will feature more than just bots - it will also increase the player count to 64! This will intensify the WW1 ambience and create more epic battles which we think will prove popular with the part of the community who have shown interest in larger scale fights. Naturally as more players join a game, bots will leave, so busy servers will see 32v32 player battles! There will also be gameplay tweaks to factors like call-in cooldowns and grenade loadouts to fit the larger number of squads fighting.The bots will also be available for private matches, where players will be able to adjust the skill of the bots and bot numbers to their satisfaction.

The new 64 player Frontlines mode will provide a slightly more gentle introduction to the game (it’s still trench warfare after all), giving new players some space as part of a larger team to learn the basics of movement, weapons handling, squad loadouts, objectives, and how to navigate the maps. We hope that having a game mode with bots will encourage people to return to the game more often, since they will always be able to play.

There will also be a new spawning UI in the new Frontlines game mode, with an overview map will provide a good indication of where you can spawn, where the enemy are coming from or currently defending, and generally help orient people as they spawn in. It will also be implemented in the current Frontlines. We are aiming to implement this in the current open testing UI for the Winter Update.


A WIP gif of the upcoming spawn UI.

One of our guiding principles for each game in the WW1 Game Series is to deliver a historical game capturing some of the WW1 atmosphere, including the difficult situations soldiers would encounter where they had to make tactical decisions. Although we know some players have gotten used to it, jumpshooting does not fit in this vision. We have struggled to take a clear position here as we wanted to find a solution which could keep all players happy, yet from a design perspective it just doesn’t fit the game we want to make, or the ethos of the series.

Therefore it is not something we will continue to support. The removal of jumpshooting is primarily related to the atmosphere in the game: it looks ridiculous. This is also why we didn’t implement it in Tannenberg.

The update will also see a change to how barbed wire works. We’ve seen many new players struggle (literally) with barbed wire. In short, it will no longer kill you. New wire will be an obstacle that can reduce your health and stamina while limiting your movement speed, making you a sitting duck if you get caught up for too long, but it won’t kill you.

There will be several other features as part of the update - for instance, players will be able to vote for the next map once a battle ends! A score penalty for shooting your own team will also be added, along with some adjustments to balance of call-ins.

As for new content, a second squad and a map are on the roadmap, but what squad, and where will the map be based? Here is the first teaser for the next new map...



And the squad? That’s something we’re going to keep under wraps for now - we’ve got to keep some air of mystery around the update! Expect more sneak peeks in these upcoming weeks!

We know we haven’t been as quick to comment on certain topics as we normally are. There were some tough calls to make, so we wanted to take some extra time to review your given feedback carefully and playtest certain changes ourselves.

That’s all for now. We understand that some might be shocked, others will be excited. We ask you all to stay civil to each other and to have some patience to wait and experience the changes.

Today is the 100 year anniversary of Armistice Day. In 1918, on the 11th of November at the 11th hour the fighting finally ended after 4 years, 3 months and 2 weeks as the armistice came into effect. Although the war would not be officially over until the Treaty of Versailles took effect on January 10th 1920, the armistice ended combat on land, sea and in the air between Germany and the Allies.

To mark this day, we are allowing players to participate in a two minute’s silence in Verdun and Tannenberg, have produced a Facebook frame, and we will be posting one hundred stories of people who died during the war or as a consequence of it. Over 40,000,000 soldiers and civilians were killed or injured, and countless more would have their lives changed by the war and the aftermath.

The community organised today two events as well to commemorate:

• Verdun Armistice Event at 10:49 AM CET by x64: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/verdx64#announcements/detail/1698314631049440738
  
• Kaiserschlacht 1918 at 6:30 PM CET by Sturmbataillon Nr.2: https://steamcommunity.com/app/242860/discussions/7/1735469327934698504/

Lest we forget.

It’s a big day for the WW1 Game Series today as our Eastern Front game Tannenberg has a release date set! It will be leaving Early Access for full release on February 13th next year! The launch will see the arrival of Bulgaria - get a glimpse in the release announcement trailer:

https://youtu.be/iyUjCk03a0Q
Today we also released a small update for Verdun (changelog here), but we can announce that we have a big update planned! After this week we’ll be sharing more information about bots, gameplay improvements, new content, and...

The new interface was implemented in Tannenberg just today! We’ve gone through the whole game from top to bottom and updated everything. The new user interface will be coming to Verdun once we’ve smoothed out any rough edges! Early Access players (and you?!) are asked to share their feedback via the Tannenberg hub. There is more we can do, particularly to make the game more accessible to new players. We already have ideas which we’re working out, though we would like to hear your thoughts on the current version as well. They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so here are a few thousand words in the form of a video…

https://youtu.be/xfnOYoBHcK4
Stay tuned for more news on the update, and our First World War remembrance this Sunday.

A new update has arrived bringing fixes, gameplay improvements, better sound effects, and a brand new prestige system! Read on to find out more...

The highlight in this update is the next step on our roadmap: the new prestige system! When our veteran players reach level 100, they can now choose to increase their prestige rank. This earns a new icon emphasizing their veteran status. Then, while keeping all accumulated XP, their player level is set back to one, along with resetting their unlocks and squad roles specialization. They can then level up to 100 again… and there is more than one prestige rank to unlock for the truly dedicated!


Of note are better selection of multiplayer game hosts, several sound improvements, and adjusted sights on the P17, Lewis and BAR to make them less obstructing. A few other key changes in this update are:

• Determining the match host will now also take ping variance into account.
  
• The game will switch to a better host quicker.
  
• Optimized rendering of first person view.
  
• Standing in a fire isn't healthy anymore, affected maps: Flanders, Champagne.
  
• Slightly higher slope limit to prevent getting stuck walking at certain spots.
  
• A range of sound changes.
  
• AFK check will no longer kick after 3+ minutes of spectating as that time (and other cases such as start/end of match) is no longer considered by the AFK counter.
  
• Peep sight edits for P17, Lewis and BAR. Their sights are now smaller and less obstructing.
  
• ...and more!

Check out the full changelog on our forums. As always, if you encounter bugs or other issues with the new version, please submit them to our support website!


The updated sights on the BAR, P17 and Lewis.



The Poilus textures were also made more crisp.



3rd person weapons now look more vibrant and metal more reflective.


Belated Easter?

We’re running another small survey, this time on your playing habits around Verdun and Tannenberg. Once again it’s a 5 minute questionnaire, and by taking part you’ll be entered into a giveaway with a chance to win a key for Verdun or Tannenberg. Take part in the survey!

Coming up soon we have more info on the mysterious new content - we’re looking forward to sharing some of our WIP stuff with you!

As we progress through our roadmap, continue working towards the full release of Tannenberg, and of course fixing bugs and doing other small polish tasks, we even squeezed in some time to get some player feedback at EGX Birmingham!.

We had a great time at EGX in Birmingham a few weeks ago. Even better, we got to showcase a WIP build of the bots in Frontlines for Verdun! Thanks to everyone who tried them out and gave feedback. The response was positive, and we’re on track to add them to the game before the end of the year. Details on the implementation will follow.



Two other features on the roadmap are map voting and the prestige system. Both are still on course to be released in Q4 of this year, and in fact we hope to release the prestige system very very soon! This would allow our veteran level 100 players to go even further and show off with special rank icons for each prestige level achieved.



Another Reenactment Event is being held on the 21st of October. The topic will be the Battle of Hamel. If you want a WW1 experience with a bit more discipline and organized WW1 tactics, don’t hesitate to contact the event manager Ranjid.


A photo from a recent event.

There are also two historical events planned this coming weekend! First is a mixed event with several cool scenarios centred on the French sectors and the arrival of American troops on that Saturday for Verdun, and Brusilov Offensive on that Sunday for Tannenberg! Both have space for up to 128 players!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEZ8K3Sc-lQ
Harrigarno has brought our attention to a 64 player Steam group for Australian players. If you’re interested in 64 player battles and live ‘down under’ (sorry) check it out here!

And finally, what’s this? You may have seen it already if you follow our social media, otherwise enjoy a sneak peek at this new weapon...



Until next time!

1918 Australians as could be found at Villers-Bretonneux

The first mystery squad hits the battlefield today! Many of you have requested them, and we're excited to announce that the ANZACs are the next new squad to be added for free for Verdun. While they might be best known for their role at Gallipoli, soldiers from Australia and New Zealand also made significant contributions in many battles on the Western Front.

https://youtu.be/0Uu_DiaKHj4



ANZACs get quite a distinct set of equipment and uniform


Special detail given to the equipment and leather webbing

The ANZACs will form an engineer squad with plentiful options for close combat, including the unusual Webley-Fosbery. For those who prefer to keep a bit more distance, there are plenty of loadouts with SMLEs, and the Lewis Gun for the Fire Support role.

And that’s not all...!


ANZAC engineers, tunnelers at hill 60


Verdun & Tannenberg get a big audio update. Our audio engineering team at Game Audio Squad has been working in parallel to redesign the audio from scratch. Since April this year the community was brought and has been polished since.

For the weapon audio they were working from recordings supplied by our friends over at C&Rsenal (Thank you Othais & Mae), who fired and reloaded most of the available weapons, which have found their way ingame. Check out a large selection of fired weapons here

There are many features in the new system, some are tied heavily to the gameplay such as:

• A dynamic weapon fire system now handles distant gunfire and gives a spacious and roomy feel to gun battles when you advance up a line
  
• A dynamic breathing system based on the fatigue / stamina of the soldier
  
• Gas mask now affects the breathing of a player when sprinting
  
• Vegetation now makes a noise when running through it
  
• A sonic ballistic system now determines the whizz and cracks of bullets as they pass by, sub or supersonic
  
• A suppression system will muffle audio out based on incoming fire
  
• The tinnitus effect will occur if the ears are subjected to enough pressure
  
• Impacts on different surfaces are now accurate for melee, bullets, grenades and bodies
  
• Footsteps were reworked and now allow you to hear better on which terrain surface players are walking, from the mud into the grass
  
• The off-map artillery now creates a sense that a battery of fire is opening up on the players
  
• Combat ambient is now dynamic, with higher and lower intensity gun battles in nearby sectors
  
• Nature ambient is based on the weather of the map (crickets at night for instance)
  
• Explosions were reworked, they now sound more powerful and bassy to give you a kick in the stomach
  
• Grenades now have accurate bouncing sounds
  
  
  Many thanks to everyone who has given feedback on our forums and the support website, it's been very helpful. Curious how it now sounds? Here is an overview video to give you an impression of the new sound effects:
  
  https://youtu.be/VyIZ2TCCwAQ
  
  To get a full picture of all the changes made, make sure to read the full changelog.
  
  Join the legendary ANZACs on the battlefield now!
  
  After some trench fighting the slouch hats become worn
  
  
  You call that a knife?
  
  With this update we are on track with our Q3 roadmap as outlined here: https://ww1gameseries.com/roadmap
  
  Welcome to the front mates!
  

As we approach Q4 of 2018, we have a roadmap update. Our networking improvements went live last week, so the only item remaining on the roadmap for Q3 is the new mystery squad…

It's always nice to add interesting new tools of war to the game. We've got two to show off today, one quite advanced for the time, and one a literal 'tool' of war.

Webley-Fosbery
The Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver was of unusual design with the zig-zag grooves on the cyclinder which were cocked by sliding the upper part of the frame back in recoil. Because this design did not require the rotation of the cylinder when pulling the trigger it was much easier to fire accurately and thus popular with target shooters. It saw limited action during WW1 as a private purchase weapon, never being adopted because of easy fouling of the mechanism.


The Webley-Fosbery was a recoil-operated automatic revolver.

Entrenching Tool
The desperate nature of the fighting in the trenches saw the use of entrenching tools as effective melee weapons. The 1908 E-Tool was carried by most commonwealth troops and was easily accessible as a melee weapon.


Not only useful for digging trenches!

If you fancy the idea of taking part in a 128 player Verdun battle, and don't mind a bit of discipline, take a look at this thread if you think you might be interested.

Here an example of a previous Reenactment Event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51mUI0hNKZI&feature=youtu.be

The tournament is happening this weekend! Our community has also organized a battle of national teams in Europe - last year saw 169 players take part! For more info check out this thread. Battle begins on Saturday 15th - best of luck to everyone involved!

Our latest update features changes and improvements to the networking code, as described in the roadmap. The exact effects will vary depending on how good your network connection is and what servers you typically play on, but the action should be smoother with less stuttering characters.


A laggy player seen through the old networking code.


The same level of lag under the new networking code.

This update also features many more tweaks and bug fixes (see changelog), such as:

• Syncing of players made instantaneous - this prevents heavy lag at the start of matches and lag spikes when new players join.
  
• Optimized character models, which should both reduce the GPU load and improve the visual appearance of characters.
  
• Fixed a bug which could cause third person models to be at a different height to the first person view, particularly when prone (this stops other players appearing to be ‘buried’ in the ground).
  
• Trade kill checks now take into account how far a bullet has travelled, which should improve trade kill accuracy for long range shots.
  
• Improvements made to melee stabbing, with better locking on, better handling for stabs from above, and a slight speed boost during stabs.
  
• Improvements to deployable MG rotation and deployment to reduces instances where their third person appearance doesn’t match what the MG player was doing.
  
• Adjustments made to Vosges, Picardie, Flanders, Artois, Douaumont, and Champagne to reduce spawn killing.

A new optimization pass has allowed us to not only make the characters cheaper in performance terms, but also to increase the detail and variety.

No more silly moustaches, the new tommies are ready to go over the top!

Our character artist James was also able to give some extra attention to smaller details:

The tommy gunner carrying the M1914 Lewis Gun now has the appropriate drum mag pouch.

Part of the optimization was an overhaul to the way we render sleeves, and so we are now better able to match the sleeves and hands to the character. Such as on our gunner with gloves:

Keeping those gunner hands warm, since 1915.

We started feedback rounds for the Verdun audio overhaul in early April as we prepared to switch to the new FMOD system. Our partners at Game Audio Squad have been working on this project for a while, and are now in the final stages of its deployment. We addressed feedback in no less than 6 feedback rounds in 5 months and the last changes have been deployed to the opentesting branch for about 2 weeks now, gathering further feedback. In order to use the new sounds; either switch to the opentesting branch or add “FMOD FMOD_WIP” to your launch options.

Many features await: an advanced weapon reverb system, C&Rsenal recordings, supersonic cracks and more!

Read the changelog for the complete list.

Don’t forget that you can check out our roadmap to see our upcoming plans for Verdun. If you spot issues in the game or have suggestions, you can post on our support website - vote up the topic if someone else has already made a post, or create one yourself.

Let us know if you see an improvement in networking!