May 14, 2019
BATTALION: Legacy - brammertron


New map ‘Goldrush’ is one of our new Russian maps specifically designed for Capture the Flag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0VYj9bTlHw&feature=youtu.be
Battalion 1944’s full release is just around the corner. This week we’re revealing a whole host of information! On May 23rd a whole host of new maps will be available to players. This is ‘Goldrush’. A new addition to the arcade map pool.


Visuals
We wanted to head into a forest again, but we didn’t want to allow players to hide in long grass and foliage. So we made sure that the playable areas are clean with the nearby unreachable areas lively and busy. We were inspired by the myths of the Nazi Gold trains in Poland. The train is such a great visual asset we’re really pleased with this map!




Design
The best Capture the Flag maps always let the flag carriers get creative with how they steal flags. We’ve made multiple crossing routes where players will be forced to make key decisions that can win or lose the game. We love the intensity of Capture the Flag, we wanted to make sure the map was capable of maximising the intensity of those cat and mouse moments. That’s why we decided to take advantage of varying heights, including underground.

We’re excited for you to dive into Goldrush and let us know what you think! Get your PPSh drum mags ready!



If you have any questions about Goldrush, tweet @Battalion1944 or jump into the official discord and we’ll be happy to discuss them with you
Tomorrow we’ll be discussing Vanguard, our new snow map designed for both Wartide and Capture the Flag!
BATTALION: Legacy - brammertron


New map ‘Docks’ focuses on rewarding skilled players and decision making

Battalion 1944’s full release is just around the corner. On May 23rd a whole host of new maps will be available to players. Today we wanted to talk in a little more depth about ‘Docks’, check out this quick video explaining the thought process behind the design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV2X0TGGQdM&feature=youtu.be
Visuals
When we started playing our blockout/greybox version of the level. We knew we wanted to make something bright and vibrant so we pushed forward with Italy. We wanted to hark back to the bright COD2 maps based in Tunisia. So we found a region that worked for us and fit with our setting.


Design
We wanted to bring back the verticality of Toujane. The feeling that if you perfect your movement, you can effectively ‘parkour’ along the rooftops is definitely something we had in mind when we were designing this map. In Wartide the creativity in your movement comes to life when a player is forced to ‘rotate’ (change bomb site).
Docks is a small map compared to other Battalion maps, this makes for lots of quick rotations and double fakes. Information and communication is key on Docks.


Wartide Tips
The rooftops are powerful positions, but they are high risk positions. Attackers will often post up at a position where they can take aim at the rooftops and pick off any defenders trying to take a high ground position. Often when playing Docks, it will feel like a game of cat and mouse, gathering crumbs of information from quick head peaks and minor sounds. But in the last 20 seconds of the round the attackers have no choice but to crank up the aggression.


As an attacker on Docks, you’ll find more success if you make it a priority to pick off overextending defenders. Playing from far back and spreading across the map, only picking a bomb site once you have the numbers advantage in the late round. Do not give the defenders control of the rooftops, at any point. If you do, you’ll have real trouble trying to plant the bomb!




If you have any questions about Docks, tweet @Battalion1944 or jump into the official discord and we’ll be happy to discuss them with you

Tomorrow we’ll be discussing Goldrush, our new Arcade map designed for CTF play.

May 10, 2019
BATTALION: Legacy - brammertron

Battalion 1944’s Toolkit is live and available to download now from the Epic Launcher

We are pleased to announce that today anyone can go and download the Battalion 1944 Toolkit from the Epic Launcher. The primary function of the tools is for mapping and level design.

Included in the Toolkit is our aim_map. This map contains many assets that you are totally free to reuse within Battalion 1944 to create maps.

For the sake of clarity, Battalion’s mod tools are free to use.

Support & Community

Video Tutorials
We have a series of video tutorials made by one of our programmers. The tutorials will walk you through the process of creating a mod, setting up a map, adding audio, polishing the level, then packaging and releasing the map to the Steam Workshop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4hYnfat62g&list=PLv_u6kEQpiVeNceRm9om2zCkWhQ7UxKOV&index=2&t=0s

Full Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv_u6kEQpiVeNceRm9om2zCkWhQ7UxKOV

Discord Community
Feel free to join our official discord modding community by following this invite link https://discord.gg/GhpTK2S


Go Crazy!
You are free to create whatever you are capable of within our tools. The goal of us releasing mod tools it to get some of the great maps that people have in their minds actually playable in the game. But remember, you’ll need to optimise your work to run on everyone’s PC’s!

Some of our devs have been having fun creating old maps from older Call of Duty games. Obviously we will never release these in the main game, but if you do fancy recreating your favourite maps you are more than welcome to add them to the Steam Workshop. Here is one of our devs Mark ‘Phan’ Pinney playing around with a remake of his!


Dev Support
We intend to work with the mod community. If we see a map we think is really special or could benefit from our intervention and support, we will reach out to the creator. The best way to show us that your map should be in the game? Is by getting it on the Steam Workshop and hosting it on your own server! Show us all, let the community give you feedback!

Download Battalion Toolkit Here!

Good luck! We can't wait to see the amazing creations you come up with!
Bulkhead
BATTALION: Legacy - KingHoward

We’re excited to announce that multiplayer shooter Battalion 1944 is about to leave Steam Early Access!

Battalion 1944 will launch in full this month - May 23, 2019, to be precise.

And precision is extremely important. This has been just over a year in Early Access development - sticking to our plan of taking on board your feedback and polishing the game to a state that we are confident that hardcore FPS players, new & returning, will enjoy. Instead of us hyping up the full release - we’ll let this list of features & improvements do the talking for us and you can enjoy just a little tease at what’s to come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paBYTKZZS5s

Over the next coming weeks before the launch date we will break down and detail these specific features in further steam posts. There’s so much to talk about we can’t do it all in one post!

Full Release Feature List

Russians Join The Fight
Say hello to the Russian faction.

Russian Weapons
  • PPSh-41 Drum Magazine
  • SVT-40
  • Baikal 21 Double Barrel Shotgun
  • PPS-43 Stick Magazine
  • Fedorov Avtomat
  • Mosin Nagant
  • Mosin Nagant Scoped
  • TT-33
  • RGD-33



New Maps

New Map: Vanguard
Play on the new russian snow map - Vanguard. This map has long open lanes & lots of buildings to duel across with your mosin nagant & kar98 rifles.

New Map: Docks
Take the fight to Italy in this homage to the rooftop rifle duels of toujane. A mix of tight & open angles and a smaller map layout make fast rotations & clutches nail biting.

New Map: Goldrush
This new map focuses on its free flowing arcadey layout within a french forest on the border of the german defensive line. Follow the train track into the heart of axis bunker system for close range combat - or snipe from the barn tower overlooking a key domination point. This map is open for many player choices.

We’ll be covering all of the new maps in more detail over the next few weeks.

Improved Gamemodes

Introducing Faceit 5v5 Competitive Matchmaking
Faceit’s competitive matchmaking toolset is integrated directly into the game for free. Stats, rankings, matchmaking, tournaments and hubs are all built into the game menus.
More info coming soon...

New gamemode 1v1 Showdown
Run through Faceit matchmaking - prove you’re the best in 1v1 small deathmatch arena. More info coming soon…

New Gamemode - Free For All
This mode is accessible via the community server browser.

Improved Capture The Flag
Extra time & overtime make this overhauled mode extremely fun!

Improved Domination

Improved... Just about everything else!

New Challenge System
Get cosmetic rewards for completing quick fire, daily, weekly and community challenges.
More info coming soon…

Improved Character Visibility
Our new character shaders allow you to actually see who’s sniping at you!

Stat Tracking
In depth stat tracking lets you see your progress from season to season.

Leaderboards
Track who’s the best on your friends list at Battalion 1944.

Ingame Medals & Rewards
Be proud of your achievements and show off your collection of accolades.
Get a sick 1 tap or 5 man clutch? There’s a medal for that.

Match History & Replay System.
Competitive Wartide, Arcade all supported with full playback.

User Interface Overhaul
Much clearer and slicker ingame and main menu UI.

Audio Overhaul
Hear the snaps of bullets hitting beside you and hear your teammates warnings of incoming grenades - alongside new music triggers and voice lines, Battalion 1944 has never sounded better.

BattleRank Season 3
We’re launching a brand new season of Battlerank, our free ‘battlepass-like’ system, which lets players gain cosmetic rewards simply for playing the game. Every level rewards a free war chest This season brings brand new weapon skins for players to work to unlock through our reworked XP system that rewards how well you play - with a beautiful STG44 at the highest diamond rank.
More info coming soon…

New War Chest - The ‘Red Star’ Russian War Chest
Packed full of shiny new russian weapon skins & can be earned for free through our new ingame challenge system.

General Fluidity & Gameplay Improvements
This one is so big! We’ve made so many improvements to counter ‘bunny hopping’ and diversify away from the old ‘corner jumping’ meta alongside feedback from the community. We’ll be breaking this down more over the coming weeks - in the meantime ask our closed beta players their thoughts.

Much, much more!
These points only cover a small amount of the full changelist for full release.
Many minor quality of life changes have been worked on & we can’t wait for you to try the full version of the game.



Thankyou for your patience

Early Access hasn’t been an easy ride - we knew it never would be. However - full release will be a turning point for Battalion 1944. With the game being more stable and fun than ever - we cannot wait to see you on the servers again at full release.

Thanks,
Bulkhead Interactive
Apr 16, 2019
BATTALION: Legacy - brammertron


So it’s nearly time – we’re going through final testing and QA ahead of our release of out of Early Access. There are going to be a few changes as we do this, and I wanted to give you all a heads-up about it now, so you know what’s happening and why.

First of all, the price is going to go up. This was something we promised from the start – that Early Access players would get the game at a lower price than we planned to sell the release version for. And we’re keeping that promise. Over the past 14 months or so, the community for this game has helped to make Battalion what we always hoped it could be when it fully released; and we’ve always wanted to show our appreciation for that.

The retail price on Steam will increase to $19.99 and local currency equivalents, on Monday the 22nd of April. This brings it in line with where we feel the right value lies in terms of what we’ve added in the past year or so (see the list below!).

However, we know the importance of getting new players in at launch, so we will be offering a solid launch discount – although, even this won’t bring it below the price our Early Access players paid for the game.

Here are some highlights from Battalion’s time on Steam so far:

  • New Map – Derailed
  • New Map – Coastal
  • New Map – Invasion
  • New Map – Savoia
  • New Weapon – Grease Gun
  • New Weapon – MP28
  • New Characters– US Forces
  • New Charactersl – German Forces
  • All Maps Revamped– Multiple Improvements
  • Added Battlerank Progression & Rewards
  • Added High Quality VOIP Voice Communication
  • Audio Overhaul
  • Animation Overhaul
  • Wartide Overhaul
  • Spectator Mode Overhaul
  • Multiple Matchmaking Improvements
  • Added XP & Progression
  • Added Competitive Ranking
  • Added Weapon Skins
  • Massive Networking & Hitreg Improvements
  • Massive System Performance Improvements
  • New HD Renderer – Significant Visual Improvement
  • New 3D Audio Implementation
  • Added AI & Bots
  • Added Match Replay System
  • Added Strat Mode
  • Reworked Character/Level Scale and sizing
  • Released Dedicated Server Files
  • Continuous Movement Improvements
  • Continuous Weapon Balance & Penetration Improvements
  • Massive Number of Bugs Crushed
  • Massively reduced the viability of the ‘corner jumping’ meta

For those of you who have seen the rumblings and teases on the Official Discord and participated in the closed betas, you’ll have heard rumors of the huge quality of life improvements and mountains of content coming along with this coming release.

Battalion 1944’s move out of early access brings with it the game’s biggest update to date. It won’t be too long before we can start delving into the details so stay tuned. Thank you for your continued support to get us to this point.

It’s been a long journey but for us we’ve only just reached the beginning of Battalion’s life – and on that note, it just remains to say that the actual release date will be announced very soon!


BATTALION: Legacy


Crowdfunded WW2 shooter Battalion 1944 hit its Kickstarter goal almost two years ago, but its console versions are still nowhere to be seen - and fans have become restless.

"We did it. Battalion 1944 is now confirmed to be fully in development for ‪Steam‬‬, ‪Xbox One‬‬ and‪ ‎PlayStation 4‬‬, bringing World War 2 into the next generation of video games!" developer Bulkhead Interactive wrote in February 2016.

But it is now November 2018, and little has been said of Battalion 1944's PS4 and Xbox One versions since. The last developer update on the game's Kickstarter is dated from this January, yet the campaign's comments page is still buzzing with activity - from dozens of console backers now asking for a refund.

Read more…

BATTALION: Legacy

Bulkhead Interactive, the Derby-based studio behind Battalion 1944 and The Turing Test, is now making a brand new game for Square Enix.

Square Enix is already working with the studio to publish Kickstarter success Battalion 1944 in early 2019, after the WW2 shooter rounds out its current Early Access period, which has lasted most of the year.

This new deal sees Square Enix also become a 20 per cent shareholder in the studio.

Read more…

BATTALION: Legacy - Big Tuna
Hello everyone!

As a team, we have been working hard on Battalion updates for the last 9 months. With every update, we’ve listened to the community’s wishes and opinions - and factored them into the adjustments we’ve made to the game. For us at Bulkhead Interactive, a key aspect of our development philosophy is to empower the community as evidenced in every changelog.

We’d like to take this opportunity to say ‘thank you’ for being a part of our Early Access phase. We agreed pre-launch that we would be treating Early Access exactly as it was intended - a time for testing the game, and getting meaningful feedback from the players, and we’re humbled with the response we’ve received over the past six months. We really didn’t anticipate having such a big launch, and it’s now well documented that the high player numbers caused us some problems. But thanks for sticking with us, because now we’re able to announce...

...That in early 2019 we are officially ending our Early Access phase and preparing for full release!

To that end, there will be no more public game updates until full release, but this is by no means just a case of tying up loose ends. The Battalion 1944 release in early 2019 will deliver the game’s biggest update to date, with an overhauled user experience, more content than has ever been added before, brand new goals to aim for and so much more. Thanks to all the testing and feedback, we’re confident that the game has really now found its identity. We can’t wait to share it with all of you, but for now, it’s a secret!

This overhaul requires work - but more importantly, a healthy playerbase to enjoy the new game. It's important for Battalion 1944 to make a big splash at full release, and recapture the hearts and minds of players who fell in love with the concept earlier this year - as well as finding new players who were reluctant to join the fight back then because of the tech issues around the Early Access launch.

For this reason we’re committing to putting all future updates that were scheduled to go live pre-launch into one big release, rather than drip feeding that content as it's being worked on, as each release requires a substantial amount of development resources to be redirected to testing and pushing a build live. We would rather direct that dev time toward new features & systems. We’ll be talking more at the start of 2019 as we ramp up our marketing, and prepare for our own D-Day!

This does not mean that we’ll be completely cut off from you guys, as perhaps we have been when we’ve previously ‘gone dark’ in the past. We will be running small tests closer to release with our dedicated Discord community to gauge reactions and feedback. We will also release more information on our official Discord closer to the time.

But the combination of polish and highly-requested features will be a game-changer for fans. The game that we release at full launch in 2019 was ONLY made possible by using Early Access to get that vital feedback from players. We’re giving Battalion 1944 what we all want from the game: the best chance it can have to succeed. We hope you’ll support us in this journey going forwards through to full release, as we’ll be preparing our Mosin-Nagants ready for action on the servers next year...



Investment from Square Enix

On another topic, you may have read on games industry news sites that the publisher we’ve worked with (on The Turing Test and Battalion 1944) - Square Enix - has recently purchased a share of the Bulkhead Interactive business. This investment is something that we have been looking forward to announcing and we’re really glad that we can reveal it now!

Just to talk a little bit about what that means - for Battalion it’s a really a positive step. It means a better opportunity at launch, more marketing and more focus from the team at Square Enix too.

Alongside the investment news, it was also announced that we will be working on a new IP for Square Enix. To be clear, this has no impact on the work going into Battalion 1944, and the studio will continue to be focused on working towards the game’s release (and continued post-launch support too).

A separate, small 3 man team within Bulkhead is currently in the pre-production and planning phases for this other title that we will eventually work on; this is standard industry practice, but we wanted our community to know what’s happening at our studio, and ensure that no wires were crossed.

So that’s it - it’s been super busy in the past few months, and will be for the foreseeable future - so wish us luck, and thanks again for all your support and feedback.

We’ll see you in the New Year!

The Bulkhead Interactive Team

BATTALION: Legacy - brammertron
Patch 2.5.3 Release!

We’re releasing a smallpatch to the game which will help improve some of the high priority issues seen in the previous Update 2.5.2 patch.
Features

Amazon Game Servers

With Update 2.5.3 we’re migrating our official server hosting to Amazon for initial testing. These server migration tests will help Battalion 1944 in the long term and will ultimately help the stability of the game when we reach full release next year.

Overall matchmaking and server stability should improve with this patch. However, if issues do arise, please post in the official Discord channel if you have any issue with connecting to or being disconnected from servers, or use the ingame bug report function.
We’ll be monitoring these reports with a close eye.

Bug Fixes

Movement
  • Vaulting net correction has been smoothed to make for a smooth vault on online servers that closer mimics the smoothness of vaulting on LAN.
  • Net corrections when landing have been tweaked, reducing the feeling/frequency of being teleported by the game server when ping is varying.
Gamemodes - Capture The Flag
  • Fixed an issue where players would take the enemy flag but could not return it to their own home base.
Thanks for the feedback on the latest 2.5.3 patch. Please keep us up to date with bug reports and general feedback - the team is making every effort to. The studio is fully focused and working on making sure Battalion 1944 has the largest impact it can at full release. We’ll have more information to release soon in this regard.

Thanks for your patience!

The Bulkhead Interactive Dev Team
BATTALION: Legacy - KingHoward


Hey all, thanks for trying out the latest Update 2.5 hotfix.

Today’s patch is all about continuing our goal of solidifying the Battalion 1944 base game for the future. We collated all the bugs reported this past weekend and have fixed the majority of the issues as we head towards the very first major tournament for our early access players, The Blitzkrieg Masters - Amsterdam 2018. The 2.5 update and today’s 2.5.2 patch will lay the foundations for Major Update 3, the largest overhaul of Battalion 1944 to date, later this year.

This is early access development in real time - building the foundations for future features and spicy new content. Thanks for being a part of this journey as we look towards the future.

Patch 2.5.2 Changelog

Movement Tweaks/Bug Fixes
  • Removed vault volumes from bombsite boxes.
  • Using vault volumes no longer gives you a jump height punish.
  • Bomb pickup radius slightly increased.
  • Adjusted landing punish so that if a player jumps to a higher surface they will not receive the jump height punish, only the slowdown punish - meaning players can now easily jump up to consecutive higher surfaces (for example a stack of crates). However, keeping the slowdown punish after landing means that players can’t consecutively jump along flat surfaces in a row.

    The goal of this change was to increase movement freedom whilst still preventing ‘bunnyhopping’ around the map.

Map Fixes
  • Coastal - Heightened hedges by the garden area to block vision into A bombsite from garden.
  • Coastal - Fixed multiple clipping issues where players could lean through walls.
  • Coastal - Smoothed ramp collision entering the blown out connector building between back B stairs area and middle/tank area.
  • Coastal - Fixed ‘angle abuse’ on B bombsite’s market stall.
  • Coastal - Can no longer crouch whilst sprinting along A apartments (yellow) lip. Also smoothed out the collision along this lip when entering and exiting the windows.
  • Coastal - Fixed floor culling issue looking from seafront to allied spawn.
  • Coastal - Fixed overpowered angles created by the fountain area by allied spawn introduced in MU2 by raising surrounding walls and adding corrugated iron sheets to block abusers vision when jumping.
  • Coastal - Removed overpowered peak into blown out axis defensive building on seafront from allied spawn.
  • Coastal - Removed crates where players could get stuck on between the boxes/canopy looking into T connecter building.
  • Derailed - Fixed players not being able to throw grenades over B bombsite.
  • Derailed - Fixed door gap in allied spawn.
  • Derailed - Moved misplaced barrel asset at top mid.
  • Derailed - Back B arch gap removed.
  • Derailed - Can no longer get stuck crouch walking into A bombsite via stairs.
  • Derailed - Blocked lean clipping abuse into second mid.
  • Derailed - Removed pixel walk in the allied spawn that looks into B cinema.
  • Derailed - Blocked lean clipping abuse from ticket booth into back corridor.
  • Derailed - Shooting through A bombsite double doors no longer causes hitmarkers to appear.
  • Invasion - Can no longer jump from the top of drop by allied spawn onto the high rocks and peek into mid.
  • Invasion - Smoothed collision by A bombsite bunker.
  • Invasion - Fixed wrongly rotated bricks on Invasion.
  • Invasion - Fixed multiple spots on Invasion where invisible mesh decals were colliding with bullets on the corner of bunkers.
  • Invasion - Removed wooden planks that would let players jump up and lean through barn trim on B site.
  • Liberation - Blocked tombstone jump by allied spawn.
  • Liberation - Removed bad vault volume on A long kubelwagen.
  • Liberation - Pushed back the leaves on the hedge by the common grenade line up spot next to B site to allow for better visibility.
  • Liberation - Bomb box no longer spawns in arcade modes
  • Liberation - Removed pixel gap in the first floor floorboards of the white blown out building that let players see into alleyway.
  • Liberation - Removed gap in market stall that allowed players to see into B bombite from the stairs when prone.
  • Manorhouse v2 - Fixed lightmap issue on A long house shutters.
  • Manorhouse v2 - Fixed lean clipping abuse on big barn where players could lean through the roof to see axis spawn and middle trench.
  • Manorhouse v2 - Removed unintentional angle from inside A long house towards top A long barn.
  • Manorhouse v2 - Removed/Blocked a horribly overpowered headshot angle that looked from inside A long barn into A main from behind a stack of crates.
  • Manorhouse v2 - Strange grenade collision fixed on B long shed.
  • Manorhouse v2 - Blocked angle that allowed players to see all the way from the top of the car in Axis spawn all the way to the double doors cross at bottom mid.
  • Savoia - Wooden banister leading allied overlook is now penetrable.
  • Savoia - Strange lod/lightmap issues fixed.
  • Savoia - Fixed collision on door that was awkward to walk over.
  • Savoia - Blocked overpowered axis spawn peek angles within the axis spawn building.

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an issue that would cause the server to crash when getting a kill in the Wartide game mode.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause the server to crash when checking if a player was close enough to plant the bomb in the Wartide game mode.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause a server crash when spawning a flag in the CTF game mode.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause the client to hard crash when the joined a community server through the server browser.
  • Fixed an issue with the Server.Freeze admin command that would allow movement when unfrozen whether it should or not.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented planting on one side of certain bomb sites in the Wartide game mode.

Next Weekend - Blitzkrieg Masters Amsterdam 2018



Join us in Amsterdam this September for the world’s first Battalion 1944 major hosted by The Plays: Blitzkrieg Masters Amsterdam! 16 of the world’s best teams will fight for their share of a $50,000 prize pool. Players who tune in to watch the matches will have the opportunity to earn exclusive skin drops. More info coming next week...

Keep an eye on our official social media channels and @Battalion1944 to follow the latest updates on the first Battalion 1944 major tournament, The Blitzkrieg Masters - Amsterdam 2018!

Thanks for your testing and bug reports on the recent Update 2.5.1 hotfix - we can’t wait to see you on the servers after this 2.5.2 update as we lead up to the largest Battalion tournament to date - next weekend!

- The Bulkhead Interactive Team
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