Dagger Directive News

We’re excited to announce that Dagger Directive is officially in Early Access! After months of development—and thanks to a ton of valuable community feedback from the demo—we’re finally ready to drop you into the global sandbox of tactical combat.

But let’s be real with you up front: this is a true Early Access launch. That means there’s plenty of content already live (15 missions, 25+ weapons, and full co-op support), but also a few rough edges we’ll be smoothing out in the coming weeks and months.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



[h2]🛠️ What You Can Expect Right Now:[/h2]

• Three unique campaign zones: Frozen coasts, jungle compounds, and war-torn cities await. Each offers distinct tactical options and challenges.
  
• Tactical freedom: Choose your loadout, your time of day, and how you want to approach each op—stealth, chaos, or somewhere in between.
  
• Co-op Multiplayer: Go solo or drop in with your squad. We've made recent improvements to stability, though some multiplayer hiccups may still occur.
  
• Full arsenal access: 25+ weapons and dozens of attachments, along with deployable drones, mines, and gear for all playstyles.
  

[h2]👀 What We're Working On:[/h2]

• AI fixes: Enemy behavior will improve significantly in the coming days. We're aware of inconsistencies and actively tuning how enemies respond, engage, and patrol.
  
• Mission polish: Some missions may feel a bit undercooked or unclear. Objective markers and general mission clarity are top priorities moving forward.
  
• Co-op stability: While mostly solid, there are a few known issues with player drops and mismatches. We’re on it.
  
• Feedback loop: The first few creator videos have been incredibly helpful—and honest. That’s exactly what we need. Keep the feedback coming. We’re listening.
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



[h2]🧪 Why Early Access?[/h2]
We chose Early Access because we want to build this game with you. Already, suggestions from the demo helped shape core systems, and we're committed to making Dagger Directive the best tactical FPS sandbox it can be—with your input guiding the way.



[h2]🔮 What's Coming Next?[/h2]

• Mission Editor with Steam Workshop support
  
• Advanced tutorials for stealth, tools, and tactics
  
• Free Play Mode to spawn enemies, allies, and vehicles at will
  
• Modding support for weapons and gear
  

[h2]💬 Help Us Improve[/h2]
Encounter an issue? Got a killer idea? Share it with us! We’re active on Steam forums, Discord, and more. This is just the beginning of the mission. We’ll be refining, expanding, and evolving Dagger Directive with every update.

Thank you for suiting up with us on Day One. We’re stoked to have you along for the op.

— The Dagger Directive Team 🎯

We're thrilled to announce that Dagger Directive will launch into Early Access on June 3, 2025. This marks a significant milestone in our journey, and we couldn't have reached this point without the unwavering support and feedback from our community.

Watch the new trailer:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]🔹 What's Available in Early Access[/h2]

At launch, players can expect:

• 15 missions spanning three distinct campaigns set in the Bering Sea, South Pacific, and Eastern Europe.
  
• Cooperative multiplayer support, allowing you to team up with friends.
  
• Over 25 weapons with a variety of attachments to suit different playstyles.
  
• Diverse equipment, including drones, grenades, and mines, to enhance tactical gameplay.
  
• Realistic simulation mechanics, where every projectile and piece of shrapnel considers mass, distance, velocity, and gravity.
  
• Dynamic environments, where time of day and foliage can be used strategically.
  

[h2]🔄 Upcoming Features Post-Early Access[/h2]

We're committed to expanding and refining the game experience. Planned features include:

• Expanded tutorial to cover more complex weapons and items.
  
• Mission Editor with Steam Workshop support, enabling community-created content.
  
• Free Play Mode, allowing players to spawn any entity in the game at any time.
  
• Mod support for weapons and items, fostering a customizable gameplay experience.
  

[h2]🙏 Thank You[/h2]
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who's followed our development journey, played the demo, and provided invaluable feedback. Your support fuels our passion and drives us to deliver the best experience possible.

Stay connected and share your thoughts on our Steam Community Page or join the conversation on our Discord server.

Hi everyone! Last month I went over some of the new weapons and announced that co-op is getting added. This month brings more weapons and I’ll go into some more details on what’s changing with multiplayer.

[h2]Weapons[/h2]

FGM-148 Javelin with its two fire modes (Top Attack and Direct Attack) and ability to lock on to a variety of targets will make quick work of enemy vehicles.








XM29 OICW Provides a combination of a 20mm programmable grenade launcher with a 5.56mm assault rifle. This was an experimental weapon so we took some liberties with its implementation in the game.




[h2]Multiplayer Updates[/h2]

As the work to add co-op continued we’ve had to adapt some current systems and add some new ones to get the game working smoothly with multiplayer.



Changes to existing systems:

• You will have a separate character to use in multiplayer.
  
• Loadouts are now shared between all of your characters. This makes it easier to jump from single player characters to multiplayer. The preset loadouts can now be deleted to make room for more customized ones.
  
• All missions will be unlocked by default in multiplayer. If you want to play the missions in order you can, but we didn’t want to restrict players just because they haven’t unlocked a mission yet.
  
• Hardcore mode will only be available in singleplayer to keep the player data more organized.
  
• Saving and loading mid mission is restricted to single player. There are just too many variables that can affect smoothly loading and saving in the middle of a multiplayer mission.
  

Additions:

• Reviving dead players has been added as a way to keep the pace up and make the game fun for everyone, even if a player is taken out early.
  
• While having everyone join on the ship, prepare equipment, and deploy on a mission is the ideal flow, we know that won’t work every time. We’ve added the ability to join mid mission. To get joining players started quickly they’ll parachute in near the existing team. Weapon selection can still be made from the loadout screen on the way down to the ground.
  
• The ship now has a locker where you can customize your character's uniform, appearance, and patches.
  
• Friendly fire became a bit of an issue during playtesting over the last couple of weeks so we’ve added a Friendly Fire warning to the UI. It can be seen in the gif below.
  
• Communication is very important for a game like this. We’ve added voice and text chat along with a map pinging system to help get information back and forth within your team.
  

[h2]Night Changes[/h2]

Night missions complicate friendly identification. A few new features and items have gone in to make night missions easier with teammates.

• Chemlights, both visible and IR, have been added to help mark areas or targets.
  
• The patches on the players' uniforms now give off an infrared glow to make them easier to see at night.
  
• IR Strobes are attached to players helmets to make them much easier to see even at longer distances.
  

Next month we’ll cover the lower level multiplayer systems and the multiplayer UI in more detail in addition to the new weapons of course!

- Dan

Thanks to everyone that has played the demo! The feedback has been great and we appreciate all of the suggestions and ideas! If you have an idea or suggestion, feel free to post them in the Steam Discussions or on the Dagger Directive Discord https://discord.com/invite/NnY2JrNPPd.

There’s some good news and some bad news. The bad news is the demo will not be getting updated with bug fixes anytime soon. The good news is the reason for the delay, we’re adding co-operative play which was by far the top requested feature! Adding networking required some foundational changes so trying to rush out bug fixes for the demo while working on multiplayer would just cause more bugs and delays.

To help out with the newly planned content we’ve brought on a new team member, Cody!

“Hello! My name is Cody and I'm an engineer that has worked in gaming for about 7 years. I've had the privilege of working on some awesome projects over the years, including Onward and Blacktop Hoops. I'm super excited to be working on Dagger Directive, connecting with you all, and contributing some fun things to the game.” - Cody

[h2]Co-Op![/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I’ve been heads down for the last three weeks setting up the core components of the game to work in multiplayer. The basic game flow is working: you and up to three other players all join up on the ship, choose a mission, select weapons, and deploy. There’s still a lot of work to do but co-op is already a ton of fun!


[h2]New Weapons![/h2]

Even though we’re adding multiplayer, we’re still focused on the single player experience. The whole game will mainly be balanced around playing solo. We’re also taking the extra time to add some more weapons and equipment! Here’s the new weapons that have been added so far.

M240 Light Machine Gun



M24 Sniper Rifle



L85A1 Assault Rifle



Here’s a preview of one of the upcoming weapons, the G11!




[h2]Bugs[/h2]

Multiplayer has brought in a whole new set of bugs. Not sure what this guy was doing but he did his best…




Come back next month! We’ll have some mOre nICe things to shoW off!

- Dan

Hi Everyone!

Today's update is a short one. You can now play the Demo for Dagger Directive! The demo includes a limited selection of weapons, equipment, a few training missions, and one mission from the third campaign.



[h3]Training missions[/h3]

Fly in on a helicopter, run through the obstacle course, and then learn how to use the inventory and weapons on the basic weapon range.



[h3]Cache Clash[/h3]

Fight your way through the valley while searching for weapon caches to destroy!



[h3]Feedback[/h3]

Thanks to everyone who reported the issues with crashes! If you were experiencing crashes you can now select from either DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 graphics APIs. I’m sure there are still a ton of other issues, they will get fixed over time.

I appreciate any feedback you have! You can either post in the feedback channel in the games Discord Server (https://discord.gg/NnY2JrNPPd) or in the Steam Discussions.

Thanks and have fun!