Broken Arrow News

You've been waiting patiently, but the Multiplayer Open Beta is now here.

Get ready to engage in exciting 5v5 online matches, starting today and until February 16.

It is an Open Beta, meaning that everyone will be accepted automatically and immediately. It also means you are able to stream the game, make videos of it and upload them, talk about it with your friends. Simply put, there will be no NDA restrictions.

It is a multiplayer beta only and it contains no single-player content whatsoever. The game at launch will contain single-player scenarios and single-player campaigns, but the purpose of this playtest phase is to test online play.

The beta build currently contains 6 multiplayer maps playable in 5vs5 with only 4 out of the ten specializations the game will contain at launch, for the two playable factions, USA and Russia. If you want more information on what the open beta contains, please refer to this post.

[h3]How to download and install[/h3]

The Open Beta is only available through Steam. In order to download it, head to the steam page of Broken Arrow.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1604270/Broken_Arrow/

You will need to click on the green button which says REQUEST ACCESS. You will be given access automatically and "Broken Arrow Playtest" will appear in your Steam Library.

Then, all you need to do is to click Install and the download will start.

Please note that you might be required to close and relaunch Steam in order for the download to begin.

[h3]Multiplayer challenge[/h3]

We have decided to challenge the community with a contest: during those 16 days players will have the chance to climb two unique leaderboards: K/D ratio and Win/Loss ratio.

At the end of the open beta we’ll know who the winners and top players among the community are. We will also reward the most active player for the duration of the beta.

Victory will be rewarded with the possibility of taking part in a special live round table with the developers: those who manage to get in the first five positions of each leaderboard will get the chance to take part in this live event with Steel Balalaika and they will be able to talk with the developers, offering them feedback and opinions and asking whatever they want about the game. We’ll make sure to update you daily on Discord on who is leading each leaderboard.

[h3]Struggling with the basics?[/h3]

If you're struggling with learning how to play, don't worry. The game at launch will feature ways for new players to be gradually introduced to gameplay mechanics and they will be able to learn the ropes, but for now please refer to this short guide.

It serves as a useful guide to get started and learn the basics. Should you still have trouble please join our discord channel: Broken Arrow has a big and helpful community and plenty of experienced players willing to lend a hand and teach newcomers.

Have fun!

As you all know the Multiplayer Open Beta for Broken Arrow will begin tomorrow, on January 31.

It will contain four playable specializations (two per faction, USA and Russia) on six multiplayer maps. They will be playable on multiplayer only in 5v5 mode.

As a reminder, the game at launch will contain a plethora of single-player content including a lot more specializations (five per faction for a total of ten) and single-player campaigns, but the scope of this Open Beta is testing the multiplayer only.

We’ve prepared a post to showcase the contents of the Multiplayer Open Beta: both the four playable specializations as well as the six available maps. We hope you enjoy it.

SPECIALIZATIONS DESCRIPTION

Armored Brigade (USA)
The armored brigade gives you access to the heaviest and most powerful ground vehicles of the US army. This fire power comes at the cost of poor mobility and the total absence of air units.
The latest M1A2 SEP v3 is unmatched in tank vs Tank engagement and can be equipped with additional reactive armor and Trophy active protection system to intercept incoming missiles.
M109 Paladin and M270 MLRS open the way for your armored pushes followed by Bradley fighting vehicles carrying small mechanized infantry groups to hold the terrain.
Cavalry scouts equipped with Javelin top attack missiles secure the flanks and prepare a nasty surprise for any enemy vehicle rushed in response to your assault.



Marines Expeditionary Unit (USA)
The United States Marine Corps is a jack of all trades giving you access to a balanced amount of equipment.
The Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) provide a mobile platform for multiple weapon systems: LAV-25 with a bushmaster autocannon, LAV-M with a 82mm mortar, LAV-AD with stinger anti air missiles and a GAU-12 25mm gatling gun, LAV-L transporting small quantities of logistics.
The AAVP-7 have enough room to transport large 13 men strong Marine squads or multiple support squads. They also provide decent firepower with a M2 Browning and a Mk19 grenade launcher.
The M1A1 FEP with its High Explosive Multi-Purpose round is more effective than other Abrams tanks to deal with infantry.
HIMARS can fire up to 6 rockets with unitary or cluster warheads as well as ATACMS and PrSM ballistic missiles.
Cobras, Vipers, Stallions, Ospreys and Venom helicopters provide anything you need in the helicopter department but you have a limited amount of points in the deck for helicopters so you need to make choices.
Harriers, Hornets and F-35 provide good choices of loadouts for airstrikes and air superiority while KC-130J can airdrop troops from low altitude.



Guard Tank Brigade (Russia)
The elite guard tank brigade is equipped with the heaviest and most modern ground vehicles but no helicopters or planes.
Everything is heavy in this specialization from the T-90M Razvedchik in the recon tab to the T-15 Barbaris in the infantry tab: a troop transport based on the chassis of the T-14 Armata tank equipped with a 30mm or 57mm autocannon.
Many vehicles can be equipped with active protection systems (APS) that can intercept incoming rockets and missiles.
The support category provides some of the best anti-aircraft systems available like the M3 Buk and the Pantsir-S1, but also deadly artillery systems like the TOS-1 Buratino or its upgrade the TOS-1A Solntsepek that can unleash a deadly volley of 220mm thermobaric rockets.



VDV Brigade (Russia)
The Russian airborne forces can parachute troops and vehicles to rapidly strike from any direction with light mechanized support.
The small 5 men strong VDV squads are highly specialized and rely on their BMD armored transport to hold their ground against sometimes more than twice larger enemy squads.
Use aircraft equipped with anti-radiation missiles to take control of the skies, drones to identify weaknesses, and Tu-160 heavy bombers to strike groupings.
When enemy tanks start showing up it’s time to call helicopters like the Mi-28N or the Ka-52 and hunt down any vehicle wandering too far away from the air defense.



MAPS DESCRIPTIONS
Baltiysk
The seaport town of Baltiysk is the gateway to Kaliningrad Bay, home to Russia's Baltic fleet. Blocking this passage would trap the Baltic fleet.
This narrow strip of land surrounded by water will be the stage for a merciless battle where flanking possibilities on the ground are limited. But commanders feeling too safe could forget to secure their rear and be surprised by a helicopter assault coming from the sea.



Chernyakhovsk
This city located in the middle of Kaliningrad’s oblast at the confluence of the Instruch and Angrapa rivers is home to an airbase and a missile brigade equipped with nuclear capable Iskander-M ballistic missiles.
The battle will take place at night in the city itself as well as the industrial outskirts and the military bases. This large battlefield with many objectives will force the commanders to make good use of their recon to identify where it is safe to leave the front line empty in order to concentrate their forces for an assault.



Frontiers
The E67 highway is the only ground axis between Poland and the Baltic states with bridges strong enough to support the passage of 70 tons’ tanks. Holding this axis would be absolutely vital to carry reinforcements to the Baltic states in case of invasion.
Each army starts at one end of the highway and the objectives are located along the trench of the highway, leading to a terrifying head-on confrontation. But the hardest-headed commanders are not necessarily the ones who prevail. If the large areas of farmland and forest on each side of the highway are left unchecked, you can bypass the enemy and cut their reinforcements.



Parnu
The coastal city of Parnu in Estonia with its airport, harbor and large beaches would become a very important entry point for supplies and equipment in case of conflict.
The battle will take place in the middle of the city itself, caught between the sea and a large swamp with a river zigzagging in the middle. Taking control of the central bridge will allow you to rapidly move troops from one bank to the other to put the enemy team off balance. Otherwise you must rely on the swampy fords to do so.



Ignalina Power Plant
The Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant located in Lithuania less than 2km from the border with Belarus supplies the entire country with electricity which makes this place a very valuable yet vulnerable asset.
The battle will rage in the swampy area surrounding the power plant, including the nearby city of Visaginas with its classic Soviet architecture, the power plant itself and the industrial area located in between.
(note: the powerplant was decommissioned in 2009 in real life but stayed active in Broken Arrow’s lore.)



Central village
The small town of Lazdijai in Lithuania is situated at the key crossroad between national road 135, the second biggest road linking Vilnius to Poland, and national road 134, the shortest axis linking Belarus and Kaliningrad.
The objectives for this battle are all located at key locations inside and around the town but many little farms, groves and fields separated by dense hedgerows surround it and can be used to outflank the enemy. Commanders committing too much into the town could end up surrounded there with their supply line severed.

Last month we ran a large closed beta for testing multiplayer in Broken Arrow. For a few weeks thousands and thousands of testers were able to face each other in exciting 5 vs 5 matches.

We collected amazing feedback and we were overjoyed to see so many players get their hands on the beta build and have tons of fun.

We’re now ready to top that: on January 31 we’ll re-open the beta on Steam.

[h3]What is it?[/h3]

It will be an Open Beta, meaning that everyone will be accepted automatically and immediately. It will also mean you will be able to stream the game, make videos of it and upload them, talk about it with your friends. Simply put, there will be no NDA restrictions. The Open Beta will be available until February 16.

It will be a multiplayer beta only and it will contain no single-player content whatsoever. The game at launch will contain single-player scenarios and single-player campaigns, but the purpose of this playtest phase is to test online play.

The beta build currently contains 6 multiplayer maps playable in 5vs5 with only 4 out of the ten specializations the game will contain at launch, for the two playable factions, USA and Russia.

If you pick the USA you will play as USMC and Armored and if you pick Russia you will play as VDV and Guard tanks. Each faction will propose 3 additional specializations at launch.

[h3]Multiplayer challenge[/h3]

We have decided to challenge the community with a contest: during those 16 days players will have the chance to climb two unique leaderboards: K/D ratio and Win/Loss ratio.

At the end of the open beta we’ll know who the winners and top players among the community are. We will also reward the most active player for the duration of the beta.

Victory will be rewarded with the possibility of taking part in a special live round table with the developers: those who manage to get in the first five positions of each leaderboard will get the chance to take part in this live event with Steel Balalaika and they will be able to talk with the developers, offering them feedback and opinions and asking whatever they want about the game. We’ll make sure to update you daily on Discord on who is leading each leaderboard.

[h3]December’s closed beta in numbers[/h3]

We have prepared some infographics to showcase some of the numbers from the closed beta testing phase in December. We’re really proud of them, but do let us know if there are specific stats you would like to know and we’ll see what we can do.

Before we get to the dev diary, we wanted to thank each and everyone of the many, many thousands of testers who took part in the closed beta.

It was a terrific experience for us and seeing so many people enjoy multiplayer games while sharing their opinions on the game in the private beta channels only reinforced us with the conviction that Broken Arrow is going to be a great game.

The closed beta ends today: as mentioned before, we’ll be back in January with the intention of opening a public demo. We’ll reveal the actual date in early January.

We have one last dev diary for you for 2023, so enjoy the read and enjoy the holidays.

[h2]Dev Diary #7 - A sense of detail[/h2]

Today’s dev diary will be focussing on the development team’s attention to details: the game is overflowing with nice visual details at every level and it is our intention to showcase that.

Textures and models
The first thing you notice when arriving in the hangar which serves as background for the main menu is how detailed the vehicles look.
Each vehicle from the good old classics to the most unknown prototypes or the newest machines barely in service have received the same attention. Blueprints and in-depth photographic research are used to be as close to reality as possible.

Customizable elements also received a lot of attention to make sure they are perfectly compatible with the rest of the vehicle.
If you move the camera around and zoom a bit more you will notice even more details like the cockpits of the planes, the weapons they carry and the pylons holding them.
Helicopters are not to be outdone, with a level of customization equivalent to the planes.
Here is a MH-60M IDAP of the special forces equipped with laser guided rockets DAGR and stinger anti-air missiles.
When switching to the infantry tab you will notice that soldiers’ equipment vary from one squad to another to show their role, and each soldier is slightly different from the next with different body sizes and variations in their equipment.
The weapons carried by infantry and mounted on vehicles also received particular attention.


Animations
Time to launch a battle where all these units will come to life.
Here are just a few of the little things you can notice when you zoom in on the battlefield.

The 2K22 Tunguska is a short range anti aircraft vehicle equipped with guns and missiles. As in reality they can move independently. The unit is also equipped with a radar that can be deployed to increase the detection and firing ranges, it also allows it to intercept cruise missiles.


The 2S1 Tulpan is a heavy 240mm mortar. The shells are so heavy that it’s impossible to load them from the muzzle like other mortars, so instead the tube is lowered and the shells are loaded from the breach by a crane after each shot.


ATGM stands for Anti-Tank Guided Missiles. They are generally stored in tubes that also contain the cable used to guide them. Once the missile has reached its target the tube must be replaced.
Here, a konkurs missile fired from a BTR-90 reloaded from the hatch of the turret.

A Bradley carries 2 ready to launch ATGMs on the side of the turret. Once both missiles are fired they must be replaced using the rear hatch.


In some tanks, empty shell casings are simply dropped at the bottom of the compartment and discarded later. But vehicles with autoloaders generally include an ejection mechanism.
In the game you will see the casing being ejected by the autoloader just like in reality. Autoloaded tank guns are generally slower to reload than their manually loaded counterparts but have the advantage to maintain a steady rate of fire even when the crew is shocked.


The Derivatsiya is a BMP-3 chassis equipped with modern sensors and a 57mm gun shooting airburst rounds very deadly against slow flying aircrafts. It also provides efficient fire support against infantry.
The recoil of the gun is animated, the ejection hatch opens after each shot as a shell casing is ejected and bounces on the ground.


Speaking of recoil, the movement induced by each shot has an effect on the suspension of the unit dynamically depending on the power of the gun and the orientation of the turret. Vehicles in water also swing dynamically with the waves and the recoil of their weapons.



You have the possibility to activate the afterburner on planes that can do it in reality. When you do, flames spout from the engine, a thick smoke forms behind the plane and when the sound barrier is reached you can see and hear the sonic boom effect. In addition, on planes with variable-sweep wings this is accompanied by the animation of the wings switching to supersonic mode.


Some units like the S-300V need to be deployed before becoming operational. This cooldown is accompanied by the animation of the deployment.

Iskander-M deploying its 2 ballistic missiles before shooting. This unit can also be customized to carry cruise missiles instead in which case it is named Iskander-K


Finally the internal parts of the vehicles are modeled and their doors are animated. You can see the infantry filling the compartment when entering in a vehicle or helicopter.


Maps
Broken Arrow's maps feature dense, detailed urban areas that rival city-building games.

But suddenly the battle rages on and the enemy leaves you no respite. Bombs fall from the sky and hit a high riser which collapses from the impact.



That's it for today, we hope you enjoyed the dev diary. Merry Christmas and happy new year, see you in 2024.