From one of the developers behind the original Rainbow Six® and Ghost Recon® games, comes a thinking-man's first-person shooter featuring in-depth character and weapon customization. Take your time. Think ahead. Get the job done.
Modeled estimate, not a reported figure. How we estimate →
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About
In GROUND BRANCH, you will play as the elite paramilitary arm of the CIA's Special Activities Center/Special Operations Group (SAC/SOG) and lead other special operations forces through challenging deniable ops all over the globe. With deliberate, calculated and unforgiving gameplay, GROUND BRANCH aims to be the true rebirth of the tactical realism genre of the late '90s and early 2000s. Powered by Epic's Unreal Engine 4, GB puts the "tactical" back in "tactical shooter" — no compromises.
GROUND BRANCH's unique True First-Person System improves world immersion and awareness of your surroundings, providing zero disconnect between your view and your character's physical presence in the environment. See your foot sticking out of cover? Better tuck it in — enemies may be able to see it (and shoot it) too, but only if their line of sight and muzzle are verifiably unobstructed. Cameras are placed at the character's eyes and bullets originate from the weapon's muzzle. Managing your height over bore when shooting around obstacles or aiming for precision in CQB is critical. In GROUND BRANCH, what you see is what you get.
A minimal HUD with multiple optional elements ensures that vital information is available, but never a constant obstacle to either immersion or your field of view.
Say goodbye to pre-defined kits and fully customize your character. From gear, basic appearance, and outfit, to in-depth vest and weapon platform customization, down to individual pouch and attachment placement. What you bring to your mission is determined by your loadout choice, which carries realistic consequences: with the encumbrance and stamina system, too much equipment will impact your character’s speed and performance; place a scope too forward on the rail and your sight picture will be too small; bring a long rifle into CQB and weapon collision may prove a hindrance.
Forget unlocks, microtransactions and loot boxes. Ground Branch operators get all the right tools for the job straight away — courtesy of the Agency.
Whether in 8-player co-op or 8v8 adversarial game modes, GROUND BRANCH’s unforgiving gameplay makes careful and calculated teamwork essential. Gather your teammates and practice in full-featured training areas, including shooting ranges with dynamic targets and a killhouse with multiple floor plans. Integrated VOIP with both 3D positional voice and team radio ensures full communication capabilities with no need for third-party software. Text chat and pre-recorded voice messages (commo rose-style) are also available for the mic-less and the shy.
Prefer single-player? Missions with friendly A.I. and a full command system are planned for the future.
In the tactical shooter realm, movement and weapon handling are king. Take full control of your character with standing, crouching and prone stances, each with multiple movement speeds. Unique weapon postures (including low- and high-ready), leaning, free-look (head movement independent from aim), and optional and customizable free-aim (dead zone) put every part of your movement in your hands. Add dedicated mouse sensitivity sliders for point-shooting, unmagnified, and magnified aiming, and highly configurable key binding options.
You can also alternate between default actions of certain controls, such as whether a bolt action operates itself after firing or requires another click to operate.
☑️ = FULLY or PARTIALLY IMPLEMENTED
⏳ = PLANNED/UPCOMING
⏳ GROUND BRANCH's unique "campaign" format will deliver smaller, more localized sets of missions based around global hotspots, with a centralized intelligence interface to monitor them and receive new mission orders over time. The choices you make along the way may affect future engagements.
☑️ Based on unique environments all over the world, the non-linear mission and map designs offer multiple entry points and open-ended outcomes.
☑️ Enemies are spawned at mission start, with a degree of randomization to quantity and location. No "monster closets" or magic enemy spawns based on player location or mission progress.
☑️ Ready Room: A physical multiplayer lobby where you can plan your approach, see your teammates' loadouts, test weapon configurations on a firing range and jointly select insertion points.
☑️ Full and 100% free dedicated server support. Host a server wherever you want!
☑️ Unit patches that can be attached to your character's sleeves and gear.
⏳ Full support for MP ladders.
☑️ After-action review (AAR) following each mission/round.
☑️ Server-side options.
⏳ Full mod support.
☑️ No item unlocking, hit markers, kill confirmations or score pop-ups.
⏳ Weapon bracing/supporting.
☑️ Varied arsenal: Multiple handguns, submachine guns, carbines, assault and battle rifles, machine guns, DMRs, sniper rifles and explosives to choose from, with a full suite of optics and attachments to complement them.
☑️ Map variation: In addition to day and night versions as well as weather variation, maps have small details that can change between rounds, such as doors and windows that may be open, closed or blocked.
☑️ Unlimited loadout save slots.
☑️ Item sharing/dropping/pickups.
☑️ Accurate ballistics with penetration, bullet drop and stopping power simulation.
⏳ No regenerating health or health packs: Administer first aid to non-lethal injuries that would further reduce combat effectiveness if not treated.
⏳ Location damage model: Expect visible injuries and consequences, such as limping, reduced arm function, and/or hits to stamina and accuracy. Players immobilized from a non-lethal injury can stay in the fight.
⏳ Drag teammates to safety to administer first aid – or to safely recover their ammo, gear, or cargo.
☑️ Appropriate and realistic playable female characters.
☑️ Partial controller support (configurable).
GROUND BRANCH V1.0 launches with the campaign Prologue and the base multiplayer experience. Each following release expands the campaign with a new chapter and various upgrades, eventually wrapping up the current roadmap with a major multiplayer update bringing new gear, map updates, an improved health system and new game modes.
Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English**languages with full audio support
Updates
Build ids and update times come straight from Steam's PICS — the same source SteamDB reads. Patch history grows as we record new builds.
Engagement
Hours played at review time, across 650 reviews with recorded playtime.
Reviews
Themes across 649 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
Reviews
why must every cool mil-sim suffer the same fate of poor optimization, bad bots and/or lack of content when coming out of early access
Another early access failure, I had high hopes for this game nearly 10 years ago now. I own it on 2 steam accounts. It just isn't ready for 1.0, the development has slowed massively over the years and to now suddenly and without any good reason to ship the game is an obvious cash grab. Trust those of us who've been on this ride the longest, DO NOT BUY.
After 8 years, devs have announced a last minute plan to launch the game in a "1.0 state" this month. The game isn't ready, and it smells like a desperate attempt to milk more sales, since they themselves have admitted that features once promised won't even be completed in time for launch Don't buy it.
I played this game years ago, I played it again today, no difference. you can really just slap 1.0 on anything i guess
They just announced v1.0 with just a prologue and a promise that they'll release the campaign over the next year. Sounds like they'll just checking the box to say its 'released' to meet some behind the scenes requirements. Having seen this play out from indie developers again and again, I can only assume this will be the case here as well.
The game has been in development hell for over a decade and is nowhere near anything promised. Save your money and time and go play something that isn't hollow like GB. I would love to eat my words, but I highly doubt 1.0 will be anything more than unfinished ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
had this game for a while but until they decide to optimize the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ size i wont reinstall it to try 1.0. 100GB is insane lmao
1.0 and still doesn't have AI team mates. Seemingly has no sprint mechanic anymore. Gear and guns are the same as they were like 7 years ago. Graphics are marginally better than they were. But the game Operator is just objectively better than this. The only thing this game has on Operator is that the door opening mechanic isn't super lame and wonky like in Operator.
This review comes from a place of love for tactical shooters, as it's easily my most played genre over the last nearly 20 years. Ground Branch is simply not worth your time, money, or interest. Period. I can't even give it the old "it has good bones!", or "it's got potential!", because it's been in development for damn near 8 years and the potential was squandered about 2 years ago. -The movement is both janky and floaty. I'm able to clip my head into doors at mach 5 to peek into the other side with 0 repercussions, and you can speed clear levels solo with almost 0 effort. Just set run to toggle and fly past doorways while shoot and scootin like John Wick -The gunplay is so incredibly unsatisfying and flat in every area; sound is bland and lacks diversity, visuals are lackluster and combat feedback is nonexistent. Some of the most unrealistic weapon handling I've felt in a long time. Y'all ever fired a .300blk? Doesn't feel like whatever this is. -Gun sway in optics is absolutely ABSURD. Can't keep my STOCK mp5 level for more than 3 seconds? A new shooter, let alone a seasoned vet, should and [i]could[/i] easily handle most SMGs, carbines and rifles better than your character can. No matter how long you hold your weapon in high or low ready, and no matter what speed or position I'm in, the weapon sways like a flag in the wind. -The game looks seriously bad for being released in the year of our lord, current year. Don't even get me started on the faces. -I understand what they were doing with the NOD zoom, and the NODs do look good in general, but the way it's executed here just screams motion sickness. -The AI is still braindead and boring. Shoot them a few times, they run into cover. Wait about a minute, they forget you ever existed and walk back out as calm as ever. Rinse, repeat, until they're dead. No flanking, no comms, no info share, nothing. -The UI is still absolutely tragic in every aspect and the UI designer needs to seriously step their game up or look for a new line of work. It's anemic, just like the gameplay, so at least it matches I suppose. -There is ZERO atmosphere in this game. The lighting in levels is boring, the ambiance is whatever if you even notice it, and there's no panache or pizazz to the art direction or audio for levels. I've seen more dynamic environs in Arma 2. Really, the only things this game has going for it is the wonderful performance (at least on my 2 machines) and the co-op campaign, which still isn't great because of the overall package. If this is 1.0 after 8 YEARS of development, then it's far too late. v1033 was at the very least more fun, and that's rough considering how bad it was. It's a damn shame, but this just straight up isn't fun. Having played Operator for just 1 hour, it was incredible and immediate just how different and how much better the game felt, looked, sounded, and played overall. Mind you, Operator is still in early access, so they could absolutely blow it just like BlackFoot & MicroProse did here, but the bones for Operator are already infinitely better in every single way aside from performance. If you want fun CQB co-op that can be hardcore or casual > Ready or Not If you want fun hardcore operator style gameplay in co-op or pvp > Operator I'll continue to try it out here and there, but unless post 1.0 gets a massive and near total rework/rewrite (again), Ground Branch has never been, and will never [i]be[/i], good. And that sucks because it absolutely could be :\
Do better, Be better. in no way is this a finished product. Jumped in training after the 1.0 full release and.... nothing has changed, terrible controller support still as well. Hoped for a finished R6vegas terrorist hunt experience and got another massive let down like grey zone warzone. Months of silence from devs and this is what our hard earned money and time gets us.
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Trends
Modeled estimate over time, reconstructed from Steam's monthly review histogram.
Engagement
DAU/MAU are modeled from peak concurrent players (≈×8 and ×28) — Steam publishes no active-user counts, so treat these as rough estimates, not reported figures.
Audience
Audience
Games most often reviewed by the same players — an audience-affinity signal from our review sample, not full ownership data.
Estimated from the language of this game's reviews — a proxy for where players are, not official Steam demographics.
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