Squad News

Attention Squaddies,

Update Squad 4.2 is well on its way and will be here on February 8th 2023! 

It will include and focus on the upgrade of the game engine to Unreal v4.27, improvements to the visuals of the US Army faction (new uniforms, character models), a new map layer (Mutaha Seed v1, USMC vs RUS), new emotes introduced to the game, and many more bug fixes, improvements, and optimizations to the game.

With this update we continue to improve the playing experience of Squad and hope to hear your feedback on the changes when they go live!

Next week we will publish the complete Release Notes for you to check and learn all the latest additions that made it to the game in 4.2.

At ease,

- OFFWORLD OUT!

Attention Squaddies,

We know you have questions, so let’s talk in depth about the emotes that will be coming along with the rest of the 4.2.

Emotes are animations which you can use to support VOIP communications, interact with each other, celebrate in-game situations, or brighten up down time. We hope they will enhance the social, gameplay, and cinematic aspects of your Squad experience. Our approach to introducing emotes is grounded in authenticity. Above all we wish to preserve the spirit of Squad and protect the immersion that each of you seek in its cooperative experience.

Firstly emotes will come in two flavors: Emotes and Gestures.

[h2]Emotes and Gestures[/h2]

Emotes are full body animations. When triggered they will display a 3rd person view of your character. Moving, aiming down sight, jumping, crouching or going prone, switching gear or similar action will interrupt the emote. Emotes can only be used in the main base or during the staging phase, as they show a 3rd person view, we wanted to make sure players couldn't use this feature to give themselves an advantage by peeking around corners.

Gestures are an upper body hand sign animation that you can trigger. Unlike Emotes it only involves movement of the hands and arms. Gestures happen in 1st person, without obstructing your movement. Gestures offer more leeway before being interrupted, you will be able to move while performing them, however aiming down sight, jumping, going prone, firing your weapon, switching gear or similar action will interrupt the gesture. Gestures are available at all times throughout the battlefield.

[h2]Using Emotes [/h2]

The emotes you have acquired can be equipped on the Customize screen which can be accessed from the Main Menu. It will display a preview of the emote as well to help you make a choice. A checkmark on the emote will also inform you of which one you currently have equipped.



Now that we have our emotes equipped, let’s use them!

Before anything, there is a new keybind that activates emotes (X by default) and can be changed in Settings. While in game you can press the assigned key to bring up a radial menu.

Hold the Emote key to open the emote wheel and click on an emote of your choice to activate it. This cannot be done while aiming down sights.



On the release of Squad 4.2 we will have a few available options for you to try. Free options will be directly available on release. Other options will be available for purchase a few hours later (Grunt and R&R Pack). Both the Grunt and R&R Pack will be available for 3.99 USD upon release. Prices may vary depending on regional currencies. Take a look at the exhaustive list below to know the content of each pack.


[h3]Free - Inventory[/h3]

Every player will be receiving for free one Emote and two Gestures in their inventory directly. The Wave Hello (Emote), Point Forward (Gesture) and Move Out (Gesture).

Wave Hello - Emote


Point Forward - Gesture


Move Out - Gesture


[h3]Free - Recruit Pack[/h3]

The free Recruit Pack will be available to all players on the launch of Squad 4.2. You can claim the pack for yourself from the Main Menu, open the Store and select the Free Recruit Pack. Clicking "Claim" will take you to the Steam store, where you can acquire it for free. It should quickly appear in your inventory of the Customization Menu afterward. The pack includes two Emotes (Salute and Shrug) and two Gestures (Come Here and Thumbs Up).


Salute - Emote

Shrug - Emote

Come Here - Gesture

Thumbs Up - Gesture

[h3]Grunt Pack[/h3]


For all of you grunts out there we have the Grunt Pack, it includes one Emote (Slow Clap, best used when your heli pilot misses the landing pad... again). and four Gestures (Horns, Finger Snap, Fist and Palm, and High Ready).


Slow Clap - Emote

Horns - Gesture

Finger Snap - Gesture

Fist and Palm - Gesture (PLA Faction Exclusive)

High Ready - Gesture (Only available with Rifles, Handguns and LMGs)

[h3]R&R Pack[/h3]

If you want to let loose a little, the R&R Pack is there for you. It includes one Emote (Facepalm, because really, we all have those moments) and four gestures (Hang Loose, Applause, Shh and Finger Wag).


Facepalm - Emote

Finger Wag - Gesture

Applause - Gesture

Shh - Gesture

Hang Loose - Gesture


Thank you for your continuing support as we continue improving Squad through creating new content, features, and other improvements for you to enjoy.

OFFWORLD OUT.

Attention Squaddies,

With the upcoming release of Squad v4.2 we will be introducing something new for both Squad and Offworld as a studio! Alongside the usual improvements, bug fixes, and a game engine update v4.27 will be the first update where we add a new form of content to Squad with the introduction of Emotes! Emotes are animations which you can use to express yourself, interact with each other, celebrate in-game situations, or brighten up down time. We hope they will enhance the social and cinematic aspects of your Squad experience.

As a thank you for all your years of support for Squad, all players will be receiving a free Emotes pack on initial release. There will also be two packages of paid Emotes that will be sold through an in-game connection to the Steam Store. We will walk you through them and how they appear in Squad very soon in another blog and we will be showcasing more about Emotes as we get close to the launch of v4.2!

Emotes are a totally optional feature in Squad. If you do not feel like buying additional Emotes you do not have to, and your playing experience will be no different than it is now without Emotes. Those of you who enjoy the additional customization and way of showing off your personality in game that Emotes provides are able to purchase additional ones at what we feel is a reasonable price.

After years of releasing free updates for Squad this is our first foray into monetizing Squad beyond the initial purchase. We understand that paid content in gaming can be controversial and that previous leadership at Offworld had stated that paid DLC would never be added to Squad. Given this we wanted to inform you of this change prior to the release of v4.2 early.

So why this shift, this far into the life of Squad? As we look into the future we see a long and healthy life for Squad. It has a large and dedicated playerbase. We have plans for more updates and to support the game beyond 2023. While many of these planned updates will be free, we also realize that we need a way to continue to fund the development of Squad. Paid content like Emotes is one such way to help fund that development and continue our work on improving the game.

Rest assured that we are continuing to work on free updates for Squad.

We will be providing all Kickstarter Backers that qualify for physical rewards with all Emote packs available at launch for free. This will take us a bit of time as we work to reach out to everyone, so we thank our Kickstarter backers in advance for their patience as we continue to work towards creating the outstanding physical rewards. Thank you for your continued support of Squad.

At ease,
Offworld Industries





Will there be servers set up with no emotes allowed? Can they be toggled off by server owners?

This will not be an option. However, we have made sure that emotes will be as unobtrusive as possible. We want them to be part of Squad without affecting the gameplay and keep Squad a great experience whether or not you purchased additional content.

Does this mean we will see more monetization in the future? What about gun skins or uniforms?

The introduction of emotes and this new form of support for Squad is something we are excited to try. We will be closely monitoring the popularity of emotes and the interest of the community in them. As you well know some initial backers of the Kickstarter have currently access to a variation on weapon skins and we are not excluding the possibility to broaden the selection we offer. However we will communicate more on the topic if and when the time comes.

Will you start charging for maps or factions in the future?

Our approach to the future of Squad is to keep it as inclusive as we possibly can. Creating maps and factions takes a lot of time and effort and we wish for our entire community to be able to enjoy the fruits of our hard work.

What will be your refund policy?

Our refund policy hasn’t changed and will stay in its current state. You will be able to purchase emotes through the Steam Store and to make your claims as per usual through it.

Squad will be updating its game engine the team wants to playtest it on a full server to help identify any unforeseen issues that we may need to address before that happens. As such we are holding a playtest this Thursday January 12th at 21:00 UTC / 13:00 PST.

The main goal of this is to get 100 players active on a server.

We would like all players that are able to to jump into the game at that time on the Squad - Public Testing game that's below Squad in Steam.*




A successfully attended public playtest will go a long way to improving the update's success when it's launched in 2023, and help us discover issues that would be frustrating if we did not see them early. We ask all players who can to join us on Thursday January 12th at 21:00 UTC / 13:00 PST on the Squad - Public Testing game to road test this future engine upgrade.

Tell your friends - tell your neighbours, tell anyone you know who plays Squad and get them on!
Thank you all for the continued support of Squad!

* If you have previously been playing on a Beta please ensure that you're not on a Beta build for this but just the standard Squad - Public Testing app.

Attention Squaddies,

From everyone at Offworld we wish you a wonderful holiday season with your friends, family, and loved ones as we celebrate the end of another year!

This year has been a busy one at Offworld Industries, as we detailed in our recent post looking back at 2022 [URL LINK]. We are excited about what lies ahead for both Squad and our studio, and look forward to sharing more of that with you in the new year.

Please note that the Offworld Industries studio will be closed from December 16th until January 3rd. Please continue to share your thoughts with us via our channels such as our Twitter account [LINK URL], our Discord Server [LINK URL], and our Facebook page [LINK URL].

You will still be able to reach our Customer Support Team through our Support Portal [Link URL], but please keep in mind that responses will take longer than usual during the holiday closure. In the meantime please visit our Technical FAQ for commonly reported issues [LINK URL].

Thank you again for your support and happy holidays from the OWI Team!

Over and out,

Offworld