Season 3: Echoes Within is fast approaching, and it’s bringing two brand-new items into the sandbox. The M392 Bandit weapon and the Shroud Screen equipment are sure to add fun and skillful new ways to approach each engagement.



There will also be a few tuning updates and bug fixes for networking (“desync”) and existing sandbox items, all of which should help improve your gameplay experience.

If you want to get extra ready for Season 3, be sure to read up on our other blogs here

• Maps & Modes Preview
  
• Playlists & Ranked Matchmaking

Also, in case you missed, a small update in February brought a few Sandbox adjustments, such as improved accuracy when no-scoping with the S7 Sniper, reduced Frag Grenade damage radius, and more, which you can read about here.

With that out of the way, let’s take a closer look at what you can expect when Season 3 lands on March 7!


The newest addition to the UNSC arsenal in Halo Infinite is the M392 Bandit. This semi-automatic weapon, which has a silhouette that’s reminiscent of the DMR from Halo: Reach, is best suited for mid-range combat. You won’t need to worry about bloom when going for a 5-shot kill but we’d still advise that you keep your shots controlled, as the recoil will kick up when spamming multiple shots in a row. Mastering this single-shot weapon is bound to pay off on the battlefield.




The Shroud Screen is a launchable equipment that creates a spherical shroud upon landing, obstructing line-of-sight and sensors. Acting like a smoke screen, it can add to the fog of war in a tactically advantageous (and fun) manner if used correctly. Rewarding players with smart positioning and a strong understanding of the game flow, the Shroud Screen can buy you and your teammates time to reload, go after the objective, traverse the map without being spotted, and so much more. Use it wisely and you’ll be rewarded.

• Tuning: The VK78 Commando will require one more shot to kill – From 8 bullets to 9 bullets to kill (damage per bullet from 20 to 17.5)

Sandbox Dev Team Notes: We got pretty consistent feedback after the Winter Update that the Commando felt better to use, people were able to keep on target and land their shots! But this new handling made it a little too easy to have a high damage output. Since the Commando was feeling good to shoot, we wanted to pursue a small nerf to its efficacy to keep it in line with other weapons in the Sandbox.

• Tuning: The Plasma Pistol’s charged shot will have its charged time increased and its tracking properties adjusted

Sandbox Dev Team Notes: Sandbox Dev Team Notes: The Plasma Pistol was another weapon that got a buff in the Winter Update. That patch pushed it in the right direction, but we were still not totally satisfied with it. There were two situations we were seeing on social media and running into ourselves during playtests:

• First, players could sprint with the Plasma Pistol, start getting shot in the back, turn while charging and “noob combo” the player that should have had advantage. Reversals are important to Halo, but with how strong the Plasma Pistols charged shot has to be mechanically, the reversal was just too easy. This gameplay loop is also less interesting than a charge when it takes more commitment, and rewards a player’s good positioning and timing.

1. Charge time increased from 1s to 1.6
[/b]

• The tracking was unpredictable for victims. We want to give victims a chance to avoid the projectile if played well. To encourage this, we gave a mixture of changes to the projectile tracking which should make it more consistent overall. Player should find the projectile seeks closer to center mass but has less aggressive tracking.

1. Tracking Angle Max: 70 degrees → 50 degrees
   
2. Tracking Angle Min: 35 degrees → 25 degrees
   
3. Tracking Target Radius: 0.5 wu → 0.3 wu (World Units)
[/b]

As mentioned in our February tuning update blog, we did plan on reducing the amount of power on the map in Ranked due to weapon respawn rates and ammo counts. We updated the respawn timers in February and we’ve updated the ammo counts on select weapons in Season 3. In Ranked, you can expect to see fewer rounds of ammo in the CQS48 Bulldog, Heatwave, Shock Rifle, and Stalker Rifle to help address this community feedback.

To further improve the flow of gameplay in Ranked Arena, Season 3 will also bring a few changes that the HCS Team discussed in their latest competitive blog.

• Enemy footsteps are now harder to hear at a distance, but easier to hear when very close. We’ve also improved the accuracy of enemy location based on footstep audio when enemies are above, below, or behind you.
  
• Removed from Ranked Arena: Mangler, Energy Sword, Pulse Carbine
  
• Will receive future tuning: Disruptor, Spike Grenades

We’re excited to see how the gameplay meta continues to evolve with these changes. As always, please make sure to share your feedback online about how everything feels to you once you’ve had a chance to go hands-on with Season 3.

Beyond creating new weapons and updating existing ones, the team has also been hard at work improving the foundation of the online experience. Season 3 will bring about another round of improvements to address feedback around “desync” and networking during matches.

• Rubberbanding is less likely to occur when moving or sprinting immediately after a match starts
  
• Ammo, Equipment, and Grenades counts are more consistent after entering and exiting a vehicle
  
• On the map Behemoth, players are now less likely to experience rubberbanding while using the Grappleshot to pick up a weapon from a Power Weapon pad
  
• Vehicles are now less likely to desync when players use the Repulsor against them
  
• Melee attacks are now more likely to register while holding a Power Seed

• When playing with an unlocked framerate on PC, rubberbanding and teleporting is now less likely to occur in the mission Warship Gbraakon
  
• Players are now less likely to fall through the floor of the gondola in the mission Conservatory
  
• Stuttering and teleporting are now less likely to occur after taking the teleporter to the elevator room in the mission Spire
  
• Rubberbanding and teleporting is now less likely to occur in the Pelican at the end of the mission Outpost Tremonius

We appreciate the support and feedback around our sandbox and Halo Infinite all-up. We’re excited to continue improving the experience, and we’ll see you when we take that next step together when Season 3: Echoes Within releases on March 7!

-Changed around the foemap in the Cephi Palace so that doing the puzzle in its first half should be a lot more manageable.
-Gave Shred a sound effect.
-Fixed an issue with Drain ω where the second part of it wasn't working properly.
-Fixed some walkability issues in Apargi Cavern.
-Fixed the ending save prompt having a hard-to-see selection box.
-Added another NPC to the Silver Fens.
-Fixed an issue where you could use an exit item in certain areas of the Silver Fens and end up in a part of the overworld you shouldn't be in.
-Added an option to toggle the flashing of selected menu items.

Going to be away for the next week, so don't expect updates nearly as frequently as I've been making them over the past few months.

After a longer-than-usual public testing period to iron out major issues, GROUND BRANCH V1033 is finally hitting the main branch of the game!

Once up-to-date, players on any public branch of the game (whether stable or "beta") will be on the same exact build of GROUND BRANCH and can play together.

For a fully comprehensive list of changes and additions since V1032, please refer to our Community Test branch patch notes:

Patch #01 • Patch #01 (Hotfix) • Patch #02 • Patch #03 • Patch #04 • Patch #05 • Patch #06 • Patch #06 (Hotfix) • Patch #07 • Patch #08 • Patch #08 (Hotfix) • Patch #09 • Patch #09 (Hotfix) • Patch #10 • Patch #11 • Patch #12 • Patch #13 • Patch #14 • Patch #15 • Patch #16 • Patch #17 • Patch #18 • Patch #19 • Patch #20 • Patch #20 (Hotfix) • Patch #21 • Patch #22

⛔ IMPORTANT: CLEAR YOUR OLD FILES

If you are coming from V1032 or have not downloaded a Community Test build in a while, you need to delete all contents in the following locations (copy-paste these paths into your File Explorer address bar and hit Enter):

1. %LOCALAPPDATA%\GroundBranch\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
   
2. Documents\GroundBranch

⚠️ Not doing so will cause various asset and input issues in your game.

The complexity of GROUND BRANCH's systems presents challenges that demand a continuous focus on improvement and optimization.

As detailed in the series of Intel Reports done between June and November (particularly Intel Report #011), the entire audio system was reworked to drastically reduce CPU usage.

Throughout the course of public testing, areas like maps, lighting and assets have also received massive optimization passes, greatly improving performance in maps like Compound.

On top of that, V1033 is not only unleashing new graphics features to make the game look better, but also a lot of video settings to make things adjustable to your specs and preferences. Let's go over them:

GROUND BRANCH V1033 is also officially bringing NVIDIA's DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), DLAA (Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing) and Reflex technologies to the game, which offer GeForce GPU users an additional performance/fidelity bonus.

These options can be accessed in Settings › Video. Under the "Video" header, you will find:

• NVIDIA® DLSS Super Resolution (requires GeForce RTX 2000-series or newer GPU)
  
  
  • Off — Disables DLSS.
    
  • Auto — Enables optimal image quality for a particular resolution. For resolutions at or under 1440p, sets it to "Quality"; 4K and above sets it to "Performance".
    
  • Quality — Renders the game internally at the closest resolution possible to the target resolution, prioritizing visual quality and pixel count over framerates.
    
  • Performance — Prioritizes framerate over resolution, sometimes resulting in pixelated or blurred visuals but offering the best performance.
    
  • Balanced — A middle-ground between "Quality" and "Performance", this mode attempts to find a sweet spot between resolution and framerate.
    Note that enabling DLSS will disable Anti-Aliasing (AA), as DLSS is in itself an AA method.
• NVIDIA® Reflex (requires GeForce 900-series or newer GPU)
  
  
  • Off — Disables Reflex.
    
  • On — Reduces system latency (aka input lag) and may provide a small FPS increase.
    
  • On + Boost — Increases the GPU's clock speeds, useful for CPU-intensive games (which GB tends to be).

At the very bottom of the "Advanced" column, you will also find an additional DLSS setting called NVIDIA® DLSS Sharpness. This slider will increase or reduce the visual sharpness of DLSS, and is generally a personal preference with no performance impact.

❓ As mentioned in the past, AMD's FSR (FidelityFX™ Super Resolution) technology is also slated to be added to GROUND BRANCH in a future release.

A new anti-aliasing (AA) method has also been added to the "Anti-Aliasing (AA)" drop-down menu in the Graphics section in Settings › Video: DLAA.

As with DLSS, this AA mode is available only for users of the NVIDIA RTX series of GPUs (2000-series or newer).

DLAA provides a sharper, generally higher-quality anti-aliasing than TAA, although players who can use it will likely benefit more from the performance boost provided by DLSS.

Players using Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) can now easily access some of its settings directly in the Video menu: "TAA Current Frame Weight", "TAA Algorithm" (Gen 4 or the experimental Gen 5), "TAA Samples", "TAA Sharpness" and "Tonemapper Sharpening".

These advanced TAA settings are located in the Advanced video options column, in the Anti-Aliasing section.

GROUND BRANCH V1033 is introducing Screen-Space Global Illumination (SSGI), which aims to create natural-looking lighting by adding dynamic indirect lighting to objects within the screen view (click here to learn more).

While SSGI can drastically improve the quality of a scene, it can also have a considerable performance impact on some systems.

You can enable/disable it in "Screen-Space Global Illumination (SSGI)" — the last setting in the Graphics section — as well as tweak it further (when enabled) via the "SSGI Quality" and "SSGI Resolution" settings in the Advanced column, in the Post-Processing section.

⚠️ If you are playing on a lower-end PC, you may want to try disabling SSGI, using it at half-resolution and/or reducing its quality setting to maintain a usable framerate.

Located in the Textures section (Advanced), the PiP Scope Resolution Scale setting determines the scale of the picture-in-picture rendering when ADS with a scope (i.e. a magnified optic sight).

Setting it to 1.00 will make the scope picture preserve the same resolution as the original scene, and will have the biggest FPS hit. Lowering this value will reduce the performance impact of aiming down scopes, while also reducing the resolution of your sight picture.

It is likely that one of these settings may give you a performance boost, depending on whether your computer is CPU-bound or GPU-bound when playing GROUND BRANCH. The downside of is that you may experience a little more latency (mostly noticeable as input lag).

• Finish Current Frame — When set to "Off", this option essentially tells the GPU not to wait for the CPU to finish what it's doing before starting to render the next frame.
  
• One Frame Thread Lag — When set to "On", this option essentially tells the CPU not to wait for the GPU to finish what it's doing before starting to generate data for the next frame.

Try different combinations to see how your performance is affected.

Additional settings under the Advanced video options have also been exposed to players, who may benefit from disabling or toning them down to gain performance at the expense of visuals. These include Distance Field Shadows, Reflection Capture Resolution and Volumetric Fog.

A definite highlight of V1033 is night ops, which were made more satisfying and viable with a series of improvements.

First and foremost, night vision goggles have received a major overhaul consisting of more realistic visuals (which include authentic auto-gating, noise, contrasts, a new white-phosphor filter option and movement/wobble effects), an optional overlay scale feature (which can fill out your screen while retaining a realistic FOV), flip up/down animations and sound effects, and more.

💡 The NVG overlay scale can be tweaked in Settings › Gameplay › Look › Night Vision. Setting NVG Vertical Screen Extent to 1.00 makes the NVG overlay fill out your screen by the default amount. Lowering the number will make it take up a progressive smaller portion of the screen.

Due to the new sky system — which includes moon phases — nights can also have varied visibility conditions, from the complete darkness of a new moon to decent visibility with a full moon.

These make the IR Illuminator functionality of the AN/PEQ-15 more relevant, as (like in real life) NVG require some degree of lighting to work well. To demonstrate:

✨ The AN/PEQ-15 has also received an update in its lasers and illuminator effects, from the beams themselves to the newly added lens flare when looking at the emitters. It now also has a green LED to indicate when either a laser or illuminator is active.

Also very importantly, enemy AI has been upgraded to be affected by the lighting conditions, meaning they no longer have perfect vision in the dark. They will also zero in on you very fast if you flash a light at them!


Granted, AI can (and will) be improved in various ways still, but this was an important step in making night ops an enjoyable experience.

Lastly, we have added the GPNVG-18 "quad-NODs" to the inventory, which greatly amplify the player's field of view when compared to binocular NVG. The GPNVG-18 comes in black or FDE skin, and in both filter colors (green and the new white phosphor — also available for the AN/PVS-15).

🔅 As part of the lighting optimization pass, weapon-mounted lights had their illumination range reduced to mitigate the performance impact.

As mentioned above, GROUND BRANCH V1033 features a new sky system with moon phases and stars, as well as latitude and season settings. This means you can now not only set the time of day but also the date of deployment, which will determine the moon phase and sun position for each mission location at the set time/date based on real life data.

Because lighting conditions will vary depending on the date and location, TOD is now selected via labels such as "Early Hours", "Pre-Sunset" and so on. You can still manually select a TOD, however.

To access the advanced TOD/date settings, simply click the gear icon next to the "Insertion time" setting.

☁️ Unfortunately, clouds and weather had to be removed from the new sky system due to performance issues. We'll be revisiting these features down the road.

A generous amount of items and customization options has been added to the game, from weapons and a new character all the way to headgear and arm patches.

🔴 A much-requested feature — the ability to put micro red dot sights on pistols — has also been implemented for the MK25, G19 Urban and M17 which can now fit the RMR and the new Docter II sights.

Let's take a look at the new weapons first:

• MK17 CQC and MK17 DMR battle rifles + Suppressor (black and FDE)
  
• AK-105 carbine
  
• AK-105 Alpha carbine (replaced AK-74 MI)
  
• AKS-74U Alpha carbine/PDW (replaced AK-74 MI CQB) + Suppressor
  
• Wz.88 carbine
  
• M24 sniper rifle + Suppressor
  
• PKM* machine gun
  
• PMM pistol

* The PKM machine gun is a partial implementation, still missing complex recoil and a proper pose.


MK17 CQC battle rifle with the new Razor HD 1–6x LPVO scope (with a piggyback Docter II), as well as the updated AN/PEQ-15 and Bipod Grip attachments — all by the incredible Cody Cudmore


AK-105 Alpha with optional "bakelite" magazine and the Russian Stubby Grip C by AK Productions

In the gear and attachments department, we have these new items:

• AN/PVS-15 (WP) — the old dual-tube NVG, but with white phosphor filter
  
• GPNVG-18 night vision goggles (black and tan skins + green or white phosphor filters)
  
• Ghillie Hood headgear (bare version)
  
• Ballistic Vest
  
• Carry Handle Rear Sight
  
• ATACR 1–8x LPVO
  
• MK8 CQBSS 1.1–8x LPVO
  
• Razor HD 1–6x LPVO
  
• Docter II micro red dot sight (Flat, Low and High mount variants)
  
• MK46 Suppressor (AAC® MG-SD)
  
• G3A3 Suppressor (AAC® 762-SD)
  
• Handstop Grip
  
• Reverse Grip
  
• Stubby Grip B
  
• Stubby Grip C
  
• Tan/FDE variants for most foregrips
  
• "Bakelite" AK-74 magazine
  
• FDE PMAG magazine

ATACR scope at 1x (left) and 8x (right) with maximum and medium reticle illumination, respectively


MK8 CQBSS at 1.1x (left) and 8x (right) with maximum and zero reticle illumination, respectively


Razor HD at 6x; because it is a SPF (second focal plane) scope, the reticle stays the same size across all zoom levels

But not all new weapons and attachments are new items per se — a lot of them are new models, remade from scratch. Here's the list:

• AK-74M
  
• AKS-74U
  
• M16A4
  
• SVD
  
• M1911A1¹ + Suppressor

¹ The new M1911A1 is also fitted with an accessory rail for lights and can use either 8- or 10-round custom magazines.


Changing magazines with the new M1911A1 by Bakr Asaad / Raider3D, fitted here with its suppressor and a tac light

• PMII 5–25x
  
• AccuPower 1–8x
  
• Vudu 1–6x
  
• ACOG 4x
  
• ACOG 6x
  
• M68 CCO
  
• PRO
  
• Micro T-2
  
• RMR (all variants)
  
• PSO-1M2 4x²
  
• AN/PEQ-15
  
• Bipod Grip
  
• Angled Grip
  
• Scope mount

² The PSO-1M2 4x has also been upgraded with reticle illumination, as well as a realistic green-yellow glass tint which was also applied to the 1P78-1 Kashtan.

Character customization has also been expanded, with the addition of a new character appearance (Male 05) and 3 new customization slots under the Profile section:

• CALLSIGN — A three-letter/number callsign that will be automatically set when a name is entered, but can also be manually set by the player. If the "Use Standard" box is checked, it will assign a Team Element-based callsign (e.g. A-01 for Alpha etc.). Callsigns display as patches on the left and right arm.
  If you don't want a callsign patch to be displayed, simply set it to --- (three hyphens) in the text box.
  
• FACIAL HAIR — Temporarily disabled in V1032, facial hair is back in V1033. At this time, we have a single beard style (Full Beard) available, but more styles are planned.
  
• PATCHES — This slot will open a more complex menu once clicked, which allows players to set up to 6 patches: 3 on the headgear (left, right and center) and 3 on the body (left arm, right arm and chest). Patches can additionally be configured to display in full color, or a tint (grayscale, green or tan). Please note that patches will only display if the gear/outfit items have slots for them.

💡 We're providing a standard set of country flag, morale, unit/role/team and blood type patches. Though modding is not officially supported yet, patches were implemented with modding in mind: you can place your own files in …\steamapps\common\Ground Branch\GroundBranch\Content\GroundBranch\Patches and any folder created in the directory will show up as its own category in the game.

Male 05 character displaying the new GPNVG-18 and shoulder patches

In the gear and outfit department, we've also added tucked-in variants of most shirts, unzipped variants of the Combat Shirt, and a lot of new and updated skins for most items. You should have better looking and much more varied loadouts now.

For V1033, maps Depot and Storage Facility have both received major overhauls, with a focus on linking them thematically (as Soviet-era facilities) for future missions. The process was covered in more detail in Intel Reports #011 through #014, but it's worth noting that the overall layouts were maintained for both maps.

💡 A version of Depot restricted to the central compound area is of course still available, and it's still a great PvP map.

In addition to the overhauls of existing maps, a new map called Docks is also available for most game modes:



Will has also given Tanker an optimization and detailing pass, remaking most textures and materials on the deck to add a more weathered look to surfaces, as well as rounding off edges, remodeling props, adding a detailed vista/backdrop (including an updated Rig visible at the distance) and some minor interior improvements.





City is another map that has received a considerable visual upgrade, more specifically when played at night:



The Farm has also been updated with a new Target App look, as well as the ability to choose different shoothouse layouts, which adds a lot of variety to training drills.

💡 All maps have received optimization passes and various smaller tweaks for visual and gameplay reasons, with Compound being a highlight in terms of performance increase.

As detailed in the last few Intel Reports, VFX particles were migrated to the new Niagara system and entirely remade.

In addition to the new particles for nearly all visual effects in GROUND BRANCH, several new features were implemented, including bird flocks, muzzle blast shockwave on surfaces, bullet impact angles, secondary impact debris and more. Check out this playlist with all of our showcased VFX demos.

V1033 is bringing a much-needed QOL pass to several areas, including item build management and kit restrictions, as well as UI changes and additions to support these new features. Some highlights:

• The new loadout saving system automatically suggests build names based on attached items (the amount of detail can be changed), while reducing the amount of prompts needed for saving/overriding kits.
  
• The item selection menu now allows builds to be "stacked" (i.e. group all builds of a similar base item) to reduce clutter, and can also be set to only display custom (player-created) builds.
  
• Kit restrictions can now be more easily set by server admins (when in-server, press Esc › Admin › Show Admin Panel › Kit Restrictions) to restrict skins³ in either Co-Op or per PvP team. Please note that these restrictions aren't extremely reliable at this time, especially when combined with game modes that have auto-balance (DTAS and Hostage Rescue).
  
• Added a match system that can set win condition to best-of-X-rounds, first-to-X-rounds, a certain time limit etc. This includes a new board in the Ready Room where players can also vote for the next map at any time. Match information is also accessible via <code>Esc</code> menu.

³ Item restrictions such as "pistols only", "no frags" etc. can done via the Mutators system, but it is still a work-in-progress and currently prone to issues. We hope to address it in a point release (V1033.1 or later).

Another addition sure to help newcomers are the Ready Room hints, which display short explanations near key areas of the Ready Room (such as lockers and the Ops Board) to guide players in their first deployments.

💡 Various areas of UI have also received varying degrees of style/consistency updates, part of an ongoing process.

This release introduces the PvP Hostage Rescue mode to the game (more on it in a minute), and also brings a few updates to existing game modes.

• Enemy AI will now search for players once the intel (laptop) is retrieved.
  
• Enemies will also attempt to intercept players at the extraction point.

• Players can now enable "Enemy hot spots" — an area of the map (indicated in red on the Ops Board) where enemy concentration will be highest. These can be enabled/disabled via the Ops Board.
  
• Enemies will now rush players once down to their last few men.

The new Hostage Rescue adversarial mode is now setup for all maps, with the exception of the small arena-like maps. Here are the rules:

• A random player of the attacking team has been taken hostage in one of the map's buildings. The hostage player is hooded and cuffed, limiting their vision and movement — they are unable to interact with map objects such as doors or items, and are restricted to walking (no running/sprinting).
  
• The target building is selected at random by the game mode, and defenders are restricted to within that building unless the hostage escapes it.
  
• Defenders can lead the hostage around the building or simply hold them in place by holding the Interact key (default <code>F</code>). They can also intimidate the hostage into silence by pointing a gun at them, but 2 defenders are required to both lead/hold and intimidate the hostage at the same time — one for each action.
  
• Attackers can select any insertion point (including multiple if they decide to split the team) and will have to find the building where the hostage is being held — possibly with the assistance of the hostage making some noise with the Talk (VOIP) key (default <code>V</code>). Attackers must then successfully breach the building and rescue the hostage. If the hostage has their cuffs released by the attackers, they will regain a full range of movement and team communication (i.e. radio and text chat).
  
• If a hostage picks up a weapon once released, they become a valid target for defenders, who can then win the round by killing the armed hostage.

Win conditions are as follows:

• ATTACKERS — To win the round, at least one attacker must escort the hostage to any of the available extraction points. Alternatively, attackers will win if the defending team is eliminated.
  
• DEFENDERS — To win the round, the defending team must eliminate all attackers, survive the assault until the time runs out, or kill a hostage that has picked up a weapon.

💡 With the rare exception of a released and armed hostage (mentioned above), any team that kills the hostage will instantly lose the match. Careful with those frags!

If there are not enough players to start a Hostage Rescue round, then the stripped-down Building Assault mode will start, in which the defenders are still restricted to a building, but there is no hostage and the teams must simply eliminate each other. The gloves are off in this mode!

• Admins can force the Building Assault mode, similarly to how Fox Hunt can be forced in DTAS.
  
• An AI opponent will now be spawned as a defender if only one player is on the server and playing on the attacking team.

• We recommend 5–7 players minimum for a more satisfying Hostage Rescue experience.
  
• Hostage Rescue uses quite aggressive auto-balancing to maintain fair teams, so make sure both your Red and Blue team kits are up to date.
  
• Auto-balancing can be customized to be less aggressive if you don't mind uneven teams.

On top of the animation work required for V1033's new weapons and in addition to the NVG flip up/down showcased earlier in this post, a few preliminary animations have been created for sight interactions:


Engaging and disengaging the G33 Magnifier 3x


Actuating the magnification lever on the Specter DR 1x/4x

🚧 Due to GROUND BRANCH's true first person system and unique weapon positions, these animations will need some extra programming work to make them "fit" all weapons and situations. They currently look best on M16-/M4-pattern weapons.

Another cool addition is the new stun animation to indicate that AI enemies have been hit by a flashbang detonation.

A couple of features have suffered temporary downgrades in V1033 — emphasis on temporary!

One such feature is the blood splatter on surfaces (VFX), which have not yet been hooked up to the new particles system (Niagara) but will be coming back in a "point release" (e.g. V1033.1) or V1034 at the latest. Due to the cosmetic nature of this feature, it was deemed not worthy of holding back the release.

While we're talking blood, dead bodies are also temporarily missing collision to address doors being blocked by them. This results in body parts clipping and no response to post-death impacts.

Lastly, the vaulting animation is also absent from this release, as it seriously impaired functionality, though vaulting/climbing has been made far more responsive in the process. Rest assured that a more visually pleasing implementation of climbing and vaulting will make its way into the game in due time.

It's been a long road to V1033, but it's now here and we couldn't be more thankful for all of you in the GROUND BRANCH community — especially our Discord — that joined us in testing and reporting bugs and issues of all types in order to get us to release.

We hope you enjoy this release, and be sure to keep the feedback and reports coming.

Have a great weekend!

---

{LINK REMOVED}Discord / {LINK REMOVED}Steam Community Hub / {LINK REMOVED}Reddit / Twitter / Instagram / Facebook

The time has come once again to take a peek behind the curtain of one of our latest in-game cosmetic collections. After shedding light on the Snowbound Ship Lantern and unpicking the punk biker aesthetic of the Islehopper Outlaw set in previous instalments, we thought that this time we’d head in a slightly more… sinister direction. Enter the assassin-inspired Ravenwood collection, available through the Season Eight Plunder Pass!

As well as a corvid-themed ship design, the Ravenwood collection features our latest evolving costume with three stages to be unlocked through the Season, reflecting your progress. But how did the whole set come into being? Let’s find out…

Pirates and dagger-wielding assassins might have no real historical relationship to one another, but it’s fair to say they scratch a similar cultural itch for the ‘high adventure with swords’ genre of fiction. With that in mind, it was inevitable that we’d bring the two together sooner or later.

Unsurprisingly, both the Ravenwood ship set and costume are filled with raven motifs, favouring the blacks, blues and purples of a pirate who prefers to keep to the shadows. It was the costume that came first this time, as Senior Concept Artist Ine T'Sjoen elaborates:

“The Ravenwood set started out as part of a concept jam. This is when the Concept team have a few days to come up with as many ideas as we can for future cosmetics. The idea of a raven was tossed around until one of our talented artists created the costume, combining it with an assassin theme to evoke a raven in a way that was less like a literal bird. The costume then inspired the rest of the ship set and other items. As we worked on these, we thought of how we could make the ship feel like the lair of an assassin who uses ravens as a calling card.”



The assassin theme really comes into its own with the evolving Ravenwood Costume. With three stages to unlock, the outfit consists of a maskless version, one with a white mask and a final variant in which the mask turns black. Designing these evolving costumes isn’t as simple as it might first appear, however. According to Ine, creating three unique but equally appealing designs can be a tricky balance:

“Costumes are designed as part of a set that, from the Art team’s point of view, may at some point appear in the Pirate Emporium. So when we design the additional two versions for the Plunder Pass, we always try to find the balance between making a new version that feels like a step in an evolution, but has as much value as the other two costumes. It is at times tricky and some sets lean into the evolving part, whereas in the Ravenwood set, we put more emphasis on making sure players had three different roleplay options.

“We had the idea to add a bird mask to the costume early on. From a role-playing aspect, it made sense to give a mysterious character something to hide their face behind. But we also wanted to give players the chance to remove the mask and equip their own hairstyle, beard and hat. So even though not much else changes between the three costumes in this case, it gives more freedom to players to choose how they want to use their cosmetics.”


Once the corvid aesthetic had been nailed down, the team got to work bringing the collection to life in-game. First up, Principal Environment Artist Andy Betts describes how the team developed the ever-shifting colour palette of a raven’s feathers:

“Once again, the challenges involved in the 3D creation of the Ravenwood set were similar to those we face when making any set, in that we first need a new shader from Tech Art to convey a special element or feature found on the items. This can be anything such as a new type of glow or transparency, or in this case the oily reflections seen on the materials to replicate that sheen found on raven feathers. We already had the tech available to achieve a similar look on the ship’s sails.

“Senior Environment Artist Sophie Ingledew and I handled the creation of this set both internally and externally. When we had the cannon, wheel etc. viewable in our in-game lighting and almost finished, it gave us a good opportunity to work alongside the Character and Tech teams to tweak the shaders some more, adjusting the colours used to get the right look.”



Fortunately, the team didn’t have to start from scratch when it came to perfecting the signature raven feather shimmer. Emmett Green from the Technical Art team explains how pre-existing work was able to offer a helping hand:

“We had an iridescent material used for Kraken ink already, so we decided to use that as a baseline and adjust the look from there, using an alpha mask for intensity. The iridescent look uses the normal map on the feathers and cloth.

“We often separate materials for props and characters, which makes it important to pay extra attention to how characters look next to the rest of a set. Our props and character materials were slightly different this time – one material had the ability to use custom roughness and metallic values while the other didn’t, so I needed to add those options to balance everything and give our artists more control. We ended up using a greyscale metallic map for visual interest, as full metallic gave us darker values with too much contrast, whereas no metallic felt too washed out.”



While one part of the team focused on making sure they could replicate the unique colours needed, others set to work creating the 3D model. With so many customisation options for pirates’ appearance available in the game, Principal Character Artist Lorenzo Melizza explains how they account for players’ different styles:

“Starting from a great-looking concept, the translation to 3D always poses a threat. We have to be faithful to the original idea but make sure the model will still work within our system and look good with all the different pirates’ shapes. Keeping a good silhouette and maintaining good colour was vital here to keep the original mean look of this concept.

“The feathers on this costume are key to its design, so we had to be very careful while working on them. Our Tech Art team always comes through and helps us achieve the best look possible with every material we use, and this is another good example of our teams’ collaboration.

“The mask was a task of its own, as is often the case with these more complex costumes. We went through several iterations, initially allowing the mask’s shapes to follow every possible pirate face shape, but that proved impossible in the end. This just shows how much variety we have in terms of pirates’ face shapes, as accommodating all of them with the mask gave us some real ‘monsters’!”

Over on the animation side of things, we couldn’t have a costume set this cool without giving it an equally exciting emote, could we? To that end, the team put together the suitably threatening In for the Kill Emote. You might not have anticipated its humble origins, however, as Lead Animator Andrew Burt lets us into a secret:

“The emote was actually based on me twiddling dinner knives in my misspent youth. Our outsource team then made it look better!”


With the collection taking shape, it was time for a little bit of wordsmithing from the writing team to bring everything together and flesh out the lore with item descriptions. Editorial Lead Leigh Loveday goes into a little more detail:

“When a new Plunder Pass launches, that means a whole new Season is launching too and there’ll be a lot of cosmetics to cover in the combined text tracker doc, from Emporium additions and Outpost shop stock to Seasonal progression rewards and Emissary Ledger exclusives. So it was a bonus in a busy month when the Ravenwood set fell into our laps pretty much fully formed.

“Usually the name is placeholder and we start by brainstorming new ones, but in this case Ravenwood felt perfectly fitting (others on the table were along similar lines like Raven Wing, Ravenbone and Raven’s Trail). And the ‘raven assassin with a ship as a lair’ theme offered plenty to work with – we used the descriptions to formalise the Ravenwood order as an actual mysterious institution, one that regarded the costume’s birdlike masks as a system of rank and prestige. As for the ship set, the figurehead descriptions were probably the most entertaining to write as you can’t really go wrong with something that manages to cram in birds, skulls, coffins and daggers.”


When all the pieces came together, the end result was the wonderfully gothic, intimidating Ravenwood set we see today. Andy Betts sums it up:

“I think everyone was really pleased with how this set turned out, and it’s another good example of how pushing that unique element or feature can make a set that little bit more special.”

With the models polished, copy locked in, assets prepared and everything ready to go, all that was left was to set it loose. As a Plunder Pass exclusive, the set was revealed with the announcement of Season Eight, and arrived in-game as we kicked off the Battle for the Sea of Thieves in November.

The response to the Season release as a whole was hugely positive, but happily the Ravenwood set didn’t get lost in the noise. Olivia Arnell from the Production team was pleased with the reaction:

“Players really seemed to enjoy this set, with the bonus of it being an interesting break from the colour schemes of sets we've released in previous Plunder Passes. Many of them loved the built-in mask and the option to wear the costume without it, we saw some great screenshots shared of crews wearing the costume and getting into some roleplay!”



Social Media Lead James Bowden agrees: “We saw lots of players, including Kit on our official Discord, noting the dark colours as a cause for their affection – while others, like Surprise (also of Discord), took the time to let us know that they’re outfitting their ship with its pleasingly angular cannons.

“The option to wear the costume without the mask so players could leave their pirate’s scowling mug in full view was a hit (one example being SaltRageJoe who expressed a simple declaration of love for the feathered outfit on Twitter, while others like Fiensonix were happy to keep the mask on and brood in the shadows), and it’s always fun for us to see so many players across social channels having fun with the built-in emote!”

While the collection included a full ship livery and evolving costume, any well-equipped pirate will know that leaves certain things conspicuously missing, begging the question: are we going to be seeing Ravenwood weapon or equipment sets any time soon? We pressed Olivia for info:

“For fans of the Ravenwood cosmetics, we definitely have something exciting coming to the Pirate Emporium in the future. We have indeed created weapons and an equipment item to go with this set, you’ll just have to wait a little longer to get your hands on them!”



And that’s the story of the Ravenwood set! Thank you as always to all the different teams for walking us through the work that goes into developing these cosmetics. If you’re interested in acquiring the Ravenwood collection for yourself, be sure to drop into your local branch of the Pirate Emporium and pick up a Season Eight Plunder Pass before the Season ends a little later in March! After that, the masked assassins and their ships will sail back into the shadows – and while it’s likely they’ll re-emerge in the Emporium in future, there’s no telling when…

For more behind-the-scenes insights, you can find the previous entries in this series in our News section, as well as a range of other content covering everything going on with Sea of Thieves. To hear new announcements as they come, you’ll want to be following our social channels on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok or getting involved in our official Forums or Discord server. Feel free to let us know which recent cosmetic sets you’d like to see covered in this series too!

Hello everyone!

Today, we have a new minor update to address stability issues.

Here's what we've addressed since launch:

• Fix for no audio for some players. Game should properly use xaudio2_9redist.dll on systems on older Windows 10/11 releases.
  
• Fix for the game selecting an unexpected GPU by default for some players.
  
  • On Windows 10 1803 and later, the game should select the GPU in this order:
    
    1. external GPUs
       
    2. discrete GPUs
       
    3. internal GPUs
  • For older versions, the game should select the GPU by the one with the highest amount of dedicated RAM.
    
  • In any other case, it will fall back to the original method, based on default initialization.
• Fixes for crashes related to Alt+Tab and other scenarios in or related to Full Screen mode.

Please report any issues in our Troubleshooting forum.

Thank you for all of the feedback and have a nice weekend!

We're finally submitting our game build for approval, which means that we aren't allowed to mark any languages as "available" if they're not included in the current build. Since we're still in the process of preparing the translations before release, we'll have to uncheck them during this approval process... but worry not, we'll add them back later! ❤️

The team is working really hard to try and bring Mr. Saitou to as many people as possible! So I wanted to let folks know which translation projects we're estimating will be finished in time for launch vs. ones that we'll roll out later on once they're completed.

Languages that will most likely be available launch:
Chinese (Simplified)
French
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Portuguese (Brazil)
Russian
Spanish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese

Languages that are being worked on, but won't be available at launch:
Chinese (Traditional)
Dutch
Lithuanian
Turkish

*If you'd like to translate Mr. Saitou into your language (we're especially looking for native German speakers), please send an email to shigiteam@gmail.com with a link to your Steam profile and which language you'd like to help with! Please only email if you're a native speaker of the language you'd be working on (i.e. you wouldn't be using Google Translate).

Thanks so much for your support, we really hope that you enjoy Mr. Saitou!

💙For updates: Twitter & Mailing List!
🌳Follow our Publisher Page: Morizora Studios
🎹For live music performances from the developer: Check us out on Twitch!

Hey everyone! It's been a very exciting and also very busy time for me since the launch of The Mortuary Assistant. There's a movie in the works, a new project with DreadXP based on the Creepshow TV series, localization, console porting, in addition to the many fixes and new content I am making for MA.

The other awesome thing that I am really excited to share with you all is a chance to get a plushie based on the mimic! I've never had the opportunity for something like this and it is really amazing to be able to do. The campaign just went live today so you can head over to the Makeship page and pledge to get one!

THE MIMIC PLUSHIE - MAKESHIP


Makeship functions in a similar way to crowdfunding sites. There is a goal of pushie purchases that needs to be met. If the goal is reached, the plushie goes into production and everyone who ordered one will receive it when it's complete! There is no limit that can be sold, only a minimum goal that needs to be met. The campaign only goes for a certain amount of time!

I feel extremely fortunate for the response to The Mortuary Assistant and it has awarded things like this that I never thought could happen for my work. I really want to thank all of you who have played the game. Thank you for your feedback, sharing your favorite moments, and more. Keep an eye out for the new ending that I am working on as well as console release coming soon on all consoles!

Thank you again, and in the meantime:

GRAB YOUR PLUSHIE!!!

-Brian

- Fixed a problem that could cause problems when going back to main menu from a game.

Hello Beta Testers,

We appreciate your patience as we finish an upcoming patch. We're really excited to finally be adding a new social feature to the Cell To Singularity universe! In order to make it the best it can be though, your feedback is a crucial step in its development.

Features that need testing:
- The Neural Network for the Primary Simulation and Explore Events. This new feature can be unlocked using MetaBits in the Reality Engine.
- Speculative Earth cosmetic available for purchase in the Logit Store.
- Gorilla Trophy available for purchase in the Logit Store.
- Improved tutorials at the start of the game.
- Camera improvements made in the Beyond.
- Improved translations.
- Minor bug fixes and improvements.

Our team can't wait to hear to your feedback! Please leave any comments, questions or concerns you have in the comments, email us at lunch@computerlunch.com, or join the beta channel in our Discord server.

Thank you for testing, and stay cellular!

~Lunch

Some bugs were fixed here and there on the first day of release.

Bad news: leaderboards was saving wrong time, so I have to restart the leaderboard. Sadly, all five records. Really sorry guys! But I know that you could have achieved better scores!
And good luck with Brutal mode!

Yours, Toster12D3