Beyond The Wire News

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Our December update brings a new field of battle to Beyond The Wire. Cantigny will take players to be part of the spring offensive of 1918 and the first major assault that the AEF led, alongside the French Republic, since entering the war a year earlier.



Despite only being a small hamlet of farmyards, houses and shops, the village of Cantigny was important geographically to both sides with Paris, Amiens and the English Channel all within striking distance. After seeing many years of undisturbed peace despite the war raging around, The German Empire took control of Cantigny during spring offensive in March 1918, and after suffering through a month of artillery exchange, the AEF launched a counter-attack to retake the small village.



Across the whole battlefield, the damage from the early barrages is evident. Water filled craters make for treacherous crossing even without enemy fire. The engineers have constructed narrow wooden bridges and placed duckboards where the mud and water are particularly troublesome.



Both forces have to fight through the remnants of the hamlet as they progress. The low stone walls and reinforced firing platforms offer positions of hardcover for infantry to prepare for the next push. The outer edges of the farmland feature dense hedgerows which provide concealment when looking for flanking opportunities.



Thick rows of barbed wire have been erected around the hamlet as defences, blocking paths and funnelling infantry through dangerous chokepoints. Soldiers must be wary of pushing through thick hedgerows though as coil's of wire line many of the foliage around the area.



With long lines of sight, fire support crews have an abundance of options on engaging in the battle. With the barbed-wire chokepoints making traversal awkward for infantry, HMG and artillery detachments can take advantage of well-planned positions to protect exposed flanks.



At the centre of the map is the Cantigny Cathedral which has been heavily fortified in preparation for the assault. Hills of barbed wire have been installed around the building to deter the entente from entering.



The old Catacombs that lie beneath the cathedral have been established as a temporary storeroom. Attacking forces must enter the dark and gloomy corridors to flush out any enemies, removing any threat of ambush from below.



Safety in the rear lines is found through the entrenched positions at headquarters. Teams will need to move through a short stage of field encampments and trench networks before hitting the main fields of battle.



Join us tomorrow, Friday 11th December at 11 AM PST / 7 PM UTC for a developer livestream taking a look at this December update!

We revealed in our road map last week that our December update will include our first iteration of the Training Range. Providing space behind the lines, Command has approved the construction of a small firing range where recruits can hone their skills before heading to the front. The range allows players to use all classes and weapons systems in an offline area.



Swinging sand-filled buckets make up the majority of targets for increasing small arms familiarity. These target posts are spaced sporadically at 50m, 100m,150m and 200m. Other make-shift targets such as glass bottles can also be found on the range.



A sandbag-lined firing position allows machine gunners to deploy bipods, while field canons are stationed at various positions giving artillery crewman practice to perfect their aim.



The training range has been set up to replicate the environment’s that soldiers will be fighting over on the frontline. Muddy ground, barbed wire restrictions and small tench networks present the challenges that all soldiers on the Western Front will face.



Soldiers also have the opportunity to get comfortable sweeping underground spaces. A small bunker has been established underneath the remains of a building giving areas to practice breaching and close-quarter engagements.



The Training Range will go through changes and improvements as we continue development and will be one of the introduction features that help new players get to grips with the systems in Beyond The Wire. Expect additions such as in-game tutorial videos and further offline areas in the future!

Stand by for further detail on this new update coming in December!

After an extremely exciting month of release, working to get hotfixes our for major issues and some recovery time for the team, we are now spinning up to deliver the major instalments of Early Access content for Beyond The Wire. Below you can find the initial living road map that we will be updating over time as update plans and timelines are cemented.



The final months of this year will see players enter the battle of Cantigny, the first assault of the AEF which featured a combined effort with the French Republic and our upcoming developer blog will take a look at this new field of battle. Also included in this update will be the first version of our Training Range where players can hone their skills offline.



Operation Two: For King and Country arrives in Q1 of 2021 with the British Expeditionary Force joining the battlefield. Three new maps will also come with this new faction, Sechault and Saint-Thierry and Poelcapelle. Operation Two also includes the first sub-faction for BTW - The Harlem Hellfighters, who will be an option as a faction on certain maps. The 369th Infantry Regiment was one of the first American regiments to serve alongside the French Army and we're excited to feature this infamous force! Following on from the second operation will be further instalments where you can expect new weaponry, maps, sub-factions and more!

As always, stay posted for future updates on development. See you in the trenches Soldiers!

Our latest hotfix arrives with some more fixes to issues reported. After a tremendous effort in getting the game to Early Access, our development team are now taking some well-deserved time off and will be back before the end of the month ready to work towards the first content update later in the year. With this in mind please expect a lull in updates while our batteries are recharged. For this week's hotfix please see the full changelog below:


[h2]Gameplay[/h2]
Increased bandages for medics from 8 to 12
Increased max ammo count on ammo bags from 100 to 1000

[h2]UI[/h2]
Fixed join button not working when infantry section has 9 members
Fixed chat item taking up too much vertical space and player name wrapping too early
Fixed ranging widget showing up briefly when first loading into team selection view
Fixed placement preview texture for field telephone
Adjusted default value for server description in the server details panel
Adjusted icon and font for section members
Replaced warning text on modal when pressing giving up button
Replaced any reference to "Squads" with "Section" in section creation panel
Replaced telephone HUD texture
Removed "Friends only" option from section creation pane
Removed Fire Team context options

[h2]General Fixes[/h2]
Fixed placement angle for field telephone being too low


We'll see you on the next update Soldier!

Our second hotfix is coming in hot after the first week after release as we look to address some performance issues and bug fixing, as well as implementing some changes based on the feedback of the community. Thanks  to everyone for contributing so far with bug reports and game suggestions, we're hoping these changes help the game run better in all aspects! See the full changelog below:




[h2]Gameplay[/h2]
- Changed the min/max damage radius on grenade launcher projectile from 1/15 to 5/12 meters
- Changed the min/max damage radius on F1, M1916 & Mk1 grenades from 5/15 meters to 4/12 meters
- Changed the min/max damage radius on M1916 GL from 5/15 to 6/15 meters
- Increased infantry section size from 6 players to 10 players
- Increased medics per section from 1 to 2
- Decreased size of artillery section from 4 to 3
- Increased grenade count of Assault role 01
- Reduced grenade count of Assault role 02
- Removed team limit on Assault 02 and LMG roles due to UI confusion
- Added binoculars to Artillery section members
- Changed Assault capture rate increase to max out at 10 players
- Reduced max capture rate on Assault game mode from .125 to .05
Adjusted infantry section kit requirements
- Assault 01 requires 5 members in the section
- Assault 02 French Republic & German Empire requires 6 members in section, AEF requires 8 members in the section
- Grenadier requires 8 members in the section
- SL 01 always available
- SL 02 requires 3 members in the section
- SL 03 requires 6 members in the section
- LMG requires 8 members in the section
- Medic requires 2 members in the section
- Rifleman always available

[h2]Levels[/h2]
- Changed last defender spawn volume on Ansoncourt Assault to stretch over the entire playable area
- Added early morning lighting to Ansoncourt Frontlines
- Improved vegetation on Ansoncourt
- Increased brightness of Ansoncourt Assault nighttime lighting

[h2]Optimization[/h2]
- Added new sounds for Feldkanone 96 n.A.
- Optimized player model update rate
- Optimized Gas Mask update rate
- Disabled landscape tesselation on Frise
- Fixed memory leak related to Gas Masks

[h2]UI[/h2]
- Increased visibility of map icons
- Disabled loading screen videos for unknown Windows versions ("N" versions)
- Replaced placeholder SL ability icon
- Removed automatic bolting and fire mode selector keybind from the settings window
- Fixed spawn point UI animation scaling incorrectly
- Decreased soldier map icon size
- Desaturated UI colours (friendly, enemy, section members etc)
- Fixed Assault objective boundaries sometimes not being displayed correctly

[h2]General fixes[/h2]
- Fixed missing texture for field cannon impact effects when hitting enemy infantry
- Fixed environment objects looking muddy on medium settings
- Fixed deployables being difficult to place on uneven terrain
- Fixed playable area on Ansoncourt not reaching level boundaries
- Fixed preparation stage blocking volume on Frise Frontlines not being wide enough
- Fixed Chinese localization in options menu
- Fixed Chauchat distant sounds playing all at once causing audio glitches
- Fixed artillery detachment being referenced as 'engineers'
- Fixed being able to see underground when prone exploit
- Fixed medic icon being too small on minimap
- Fixed a crash that would sometimes occur during loading
- Fixed S98/05 Bayonet texture being misaligned




Stay posted for further updates, Soldiers!