July is almost over! This time around, I have a SITREP and a Battlefield Briefing. We’ll cover a lot, and I’m excited to expand these letters over time. 

Following feedback from the "final" 9.0 Unreal Engine 5 playtest, I released an update last week outlining our plan to revise release timelines. In this Letter from the Squad Leader (LFTSL), I will cover where we are at with that and the general plan.

Including v9.0, we had 4+ releases planned for this year, yet we have only released one hotfix. July is almost over, and as always, the end of the year will be upon us sooner than we think. Now that we are rethinking the 9.0 timeline, what does this mean for the releases later this year? We have merged some of the smaller updates we had planned after 9.0, leaving us with two major releases before the end of the year, with v9.0 and v10.0. Each contains large pieces of content, features, and improvements. This new plan gives the team two solid releases to focus on and allows some room between v9.0 and v10.0 if we need to hotfix.

All this shifting around will give us a few more opportunities for Public Tests with Unreal Engine 5, allowing us time to iron out the creases with this engine update. We will keep everyone updated on timelines in the next LFTSL in August.

So… In the last Letter, I mentioned I’d touch a bit more on other things we have in development outside Unreal Engine 5 and v9.0. There have been several public-facing roadmaps in Squads' history, and we’d like to try something like this again, with a few changes.

External factors change roadmaps all the time (like what just happened with v9.0), so rather than a concrete roadmap with dates and months, we will be presenting more of a “development showcase” (shoutout to Discord member IBIS for the suggestion). The “Next Update” section, believe it or not, will cover things coming in the next update! These are things we are more certain of showing up in the next update. The middle section, “In Progress”, will cover things we are actively working on, but we will not cover what release they are planned for, as that might change over time. The final section, "Planning," outlines concepts, with most currently in the early planning & testing stage. The items in this section are generally long-term plans and are not slated for the near future.

We will provide periodic updates and discussions regarding the showcase as its contents become more definite or items are added or removed.

With an overview of the showcase complete, let's delve into some specific items. Ukraine's active player base is tied for the third and fourth largest. So, I’d like to announce that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will join Squads' lineup of factions later this year! Our Worlds team has also been working on updating and remastering our Eastern European Biome assets. This includes things like foliage, props, and buildings for that biome.

Another item on the showcase is Commendations. This feature is very close to being finished. The Commendations system is a socially-driven progression system in which players gain the ability to give a 'commendation' to another player, giving them agency to recognize them for being good at playing their role, or being a good leader, teacher, or teammate.

As players receive commendations, they will progress down a track relevant to the type of commendation they've received, allowing them to unlock better versions of the commendation icons.

This icon will appear next to their name on in-game scoreboards, in-game HUDs, and anywhere that a role icon would normally appear. We will harness these icons as part of the first-time user experience and encourage newer players to seek out experienced players who other players have recognized as good leaders or teachers to mitigate the possibility of having a negative first-time experience in the game.

So that wraps up this LFTSL. We’re all excited to start talking more about what we are working on and showing off things when possible. Expect to see more pretty much every month going forward.

See you in the next one!

\[O] Howitzer

Hello Squaddies,

As some of you may know, we just finished up what we initially believed would be our final 9.0 Unreal 5 public playtest. Based on earlier results and performance improvements, it felt like a strong candidate for  release. However, the transition from 5.3 to 5.5 uncovered new challenges that hadn’t appeared in previous tests. We’ve since taken time to review a lot of valuable feedback from the community, and it’s clear there are still areas to improve. As a result, we have decided to regroup and rethink our plans for the 9.0 release.

So, what happens now? We are actively assessing and planning our next steps for 9.0 and how its release impacts the rest of the year. We will be posting another Letter from the Squad Leader mid next week to give everyone a general update on where we landed and what to expect.

I wanted to thank everyone for giving their honest and open feedback. Your input continues to shape the path forward and is deeply valued by the entire team. Thank you for continuing to support us through this transition to Unreal 5.

Like I mentioned before, expect to see more information about our next steps next week. Closed playtesting will continue to take place (More info here http://discord.gg/testsquad) as well as more “final final” public playtests. ;)

Thanks, Squaddies!

\[O] Howitzer